Johann Coudek

Johann Franz COUDEK (born on October 4^th, 1907 in Vienna/Austro-Hungarian Empire [Austria]), as the son of Johann Coudek (1877-1948, private civil servant) and Anna Coudek, née Wasner (1881-1954) and lived with his parents in Vienna's 15^th district, Johnstraße 56 I/10. He completed grammar school and passed his high school-leaving examination (Matura) at the Bundesgymnasium in Vienna's 7^th district, Kandlgasse 39 in 1927 and then studied law at the University of Vienna from the fall term of 1927/28 to the spring term of 1931. He graduated at the Law School of the University of Vienna on July 18^th, 1932, and gained the academic degree "Dr. iur.".

On August 1^st, 1934, he began working as a trainee lawyer in the law firm of lawyer Dr. Siegfried Grünwald (1877-1942) in Gloggnitz, Lower Austria (Hauptstraße 19), who had been practicing as a lawyer since 1910. He probably also met his future wife at the law firm. Gertrude Grünwald (1911-1992), the daughter of the owner of the law firm, also studied law at the University of Vienna from 1930-1934 and received her doctorate ("Dr.iur.") on March 11^th, 1935.

Like his parents, Johann Coudek was Roman Catholic, his wife Protestant AB, as her parents had converted from the Jewish to the Protestant faith before she was born, and so they married on December 22^nd, 1935, in the Protestant parish of Vienna Gumpendorf. His wife also worked as a trainee lawyer in her father's law firm from August 1936 until February 1938, together with her husband, who had also been working as a substitute since August 22^nd, 1936. Her time as a trainee ended at the end of February 1938, his own at the beginning of August 1938.

With the Anschluss, life changed abruptly. His wife and his parents-in-law were considered Jewish under the Nazi racial laws and his father-in-law had to renounce the bar and the practice of his profession on September 19^th, 1938, in accordance with the Fifth Ordinance to the Reich Citizenship Act of September 27^th, 1938, before he was forcibly removed from the list of lawyers. On November 10^th, 1938, Dr. Grünwald's home in Gloggnitz, Rennergasse 11, was confiscated and he emigrated to Czechoslovakia with his wife Antonie. On July 9^th, 1942, Dr. Siegfried and Antonie Grünwald were deported from Prague on transport AAp-227 to the Theresienstadt ghetto and two weeks later, on July 28^th, 1942, on transport AAy-625 to Baranovici in Belarus, where they were murdered after arriving on the same day.

His wife's twin-sisters, Marianne Grünwald, married Hahn (1912-?) and Anna Grünwald, married Sponer (1912-2010) were able to emigrate to England with a domestic permit and survived. Marianne Grünwald married Otto Franz Hahn (1920-1985) and Anna Grünwald married Rudolf Sponer (1913-1994) and they lived in the West Midlands, England.

Johann Coudek and his wife Gertrude also had to flee Austria - partly because his wife was persecuted as a Jew in the Third Reich, and partly because he was suspected of having voted against the Anschluss and the occupational ban, which led to raids on his parents’ in law home and ultimately to the confiscation of their house. With the help of the Swedish Israel Mission in Vienna's 9^th district, Seegasse 16, they were able to emigrate in time to Sweden on December 5^th, 1938,

After arriving in Sweden, both were no longer able to work as lawyers. The Coudek couple first lived in Stockholm, where Johann worked as a librarian and Gertrude as a social worker, and later moved to Bromma (a district of Stockholm). In 1944, Johann Coudek was a member of the Austrian Association in Sweden (ÖVS), which had been founded in June 1944 by socialists, communists and bourgeois forces under the chairmanship of Bruno Kreisky and Gustl Moser. Johann Coudek was granted Swedish citizenship in 1947.

In times of Nazism he was deprived of his academic degree on October 28^th, 1944 with the racist argument, that he was not considered dignified an academic degree of a German university ("eines akademischen Grades einer deutschen Hochschule unwürdig").
It was not until 11 years after the revocation and long after the end of National Socialism that his doctorate was restored on July 4^th, 1955, or rather the revocation was declared “void from the outset”.

His wife, Dr. Gertrude Coudek, died in Stockholm on November 2^nd, 1992. Dr. Johann Frans Coudek died also in Stockholm six months later, on June 21^st, 1993.

Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/enrollment forms ("Nationale") IUR 1927–1931, graduation register ("Promotionsprotokoll") IUR 1924–1939 No 2430, rectorate GZ 151 ex 1942/43, GZ 561 ex 1944/45 No 19; Deutscher Reichsanzeiger, No 132, June 13^th, 1944; Austrian State Archives OeStA/AdR/BMF/AbgF 9822, 9823, 98246, OeStA/AdR/BMF/NHF 22486, 22487, Provincial Archives of Lower Austria NOeLA RStH ND IVD-8, VA G195, G196; Protestant Church of Austria/Kirchenamt A.B./Abt. Matrikenwesen Trauungsbuch ev. Pf. Gumpendorf; ROEDER 1980; POSCH 2009, 402; Simon USATY, Schwedens Flüchtlingspolitik und die Flüchtlinge aus dem Deutschen Reich 1938-1945, in: Irene Nawrocka, Simon Usaty, eds, Im Exil in Schweden - Österreichische Erfahrungen und Perspektiven in den 1930er und 1940er Jahren, Vienna 2013, 110-136, 111 and 288; Barbara SAUER, Ilse REITER-ZATLOUKAL, Advokaten 1938. The fate of the lawyers and trainees registered with the Austrian Regional Bar Associations who were barred from practicing in the legal profession from 1938 to 1945, Vienna 2022², 629, 300; www.matricula-online.eu; www.geni.com, www.ancestry.de; biography compiled as part of the course “Methodenworkshop Biografische Methoden” in the fall term of 2024/25.

Elisabeth Schitzhofer, Herbert Posch