Alois Hradil

Born:	02-02-1915
Faculty:	Philosophical School
Category:	Expelled student

Alois Josef Richard HRADIL, born on February 2^nd, 1915 in St. Poelten, Lower Austria/Austria-Hungary (entitled residency ("heimatberechtigt")for Klosterneuburg, Lower Austria, citizenship 1938: Austria), son of Regierungsrat Ing. Richard Hradil (1869-?, senior post official) and Hedwig Theresia Hradil, née Thill (1869-1936), Roman Catholic, lived in Klosterneuburg near Vienna, Babenbergergasse 35. After his school-leaving examination (Reifepruefung/Matura) at the Klosterneuburg Stiftsgymnasium in 1933, he began to study at the University of Vienna in the fall term of 1933/34, was enrolled at the Philosophical School in the 5^th and final term in the spring term of 1938, and attended lectures in ancient history, art history and philosophy. Alois Hradil was able to continue his studies without any problems after the Anschluss. However, he had already been a member of the Catholic high school student fraternity Arminia Klosterneuburg (MKV) since 1932 and a member of the student fraternity K.H.V. Welfia Klosterneuburg (couleur name: Attila) since 1933, which were banned under National Socialism, and in Klosterneuburg had joined the Faehnlein St. Leonhard [St. Leopold] in the corporative student Free Corps ("Studenten Freikorps") (leader: Helmuth Joerg, also a history student from Klosterneuburg), which was strongly austrofascist, anti-communist and anti-national socialist.

Soon after the Anschluss, his Faehnlein St. Leonhard [St. Leopold] joined the illegal resistance group German Freedom Movement ("Deutsche Freiheitsbewegung") (soon renamed: Austrian Freedom Movement) around the Catholic priest and Klosterneuburg Canon Regular of St. Augustine Roman Scholz (1912-1944), but this was soon exposed by the betrayal of one member, namely the Burgschauspieler Otto Hartmann (1904-1994), which led to the arrest of all members. Alois Hradil, at that time drafted into the Deutsche Wehrmacht, was arrested on October 20^th, 1940 in Germany from the training company. It was not until three years later that he was convicted of "preparation for high treason" in the main trial of the 2^nd Senate of the People's Court in Vienna on December 1^st-2^nd, 1943, for having supported the overthrow of the Nazi regime and the reversal of the "Anschluss" of Austria to Germany as a member of the Austrian Freedom Movement from 1938/39 to 1940. For this, in the proceedings against him and six co-defendants, a death sentence and five multi-year prison sentences of between two and ten years were pronounced and executed - Hradil was sentenced to four years in penitentiary and loss of honor, about which the rector and the responsible dean of the University of Vienna were informed in early 1944. He was transferred to the [Willich]-Anrath penitentiary on the Lower Rhine, where he was liberated by the U.S. Army on April 16^th, 1945, after barely a year and a half. After the end of the Nazi regime, however, he did not resume his studies. He married Julianna Margit Sturzeis on September 6^th, 1950 in Klosterneuburg and worked from 1970 to 1980 as a senior pragmatized civil servant (Amtsdirektor, Hofrat) in the Federal Chancellery, Section II, and was responsible for personnel matters, including those of university teachers. He was awarded the "Medal of Honor for Services to the Liberation of Austria", created in 1976.

Alois Hradil died on May 9^th, 1981 in Klosterneuburg, Lower Austria.

Lit.: Archives of the University of Vienna / National PHIL 1933-1943, graduation registry PHIL VII (1941-1956), Rectorate GZ 315 ex 1943/44; DOeW 6.813, 19.793/147; www.matricula.at (birth records Parish St. Poelten Franziskaner 1914-1916, fol. 152, death registry Parish Klosterneuburg Stiftspfarre 1930-1937); Amtskalender der Republik Österreich, Bundeskanzleramt (Jg. 1970–1978); Walter GÖHRING, Junge Österreicher im Widerstand, in: Der Neue Mahnruf Jg. 24, Nr. 11, November 1971, 5; Ehrenzeichen an Widerstandskaempfer, in: Der Neue Mahnruf vol. 31, No. 3, March 1978, 8; Alois HRADIL, 70 Jahre katholische Hochschulverbindung "Welfia" Klosterneuburg, in: Klosterneuburger Nachrichten 24/1980, 1, 3; Hubert JURASEK, Oesterreichs Studenten im Kampf gegen den Nationalsozialismus, in: Der Freiheitskaempfer, vol. 43, No. 2, June 1991, 4–6, Manfred Kuhl u.a., ed., Farben Tragen, Farbe bekennen 1938–1945: Katholische Korporierte in Widerstand und Verfolgung 2020, 136.

Herbert Posch