Location: St. Veit in der Südsteiermark
On August 24, 1945, 24 bodies were found in two graves in the Karwald forest during forest work. Among those identified were the former district leader of the Leibnitz NSDAP, Josef Tomaschitz, the electrician Richard Albustin, the gendarmerie lieutenant Franz Freidl and the gendarmerie officer Emmerich Keller.
On August 18, 1945, residents of Labuttendorf in the Karwald forest (Leibnitz district) came across a mass grave containing 20 bodies while working in the forest. During the subsequent investigations, a second grave was also discovered in the Karwald forest. The two graves contained a total of 24 bodies, either naked or wearing only underwear, with gunshot wounds, some of which were alone and some of which were bound with wire. Five of the bodies found could be identified: Josef Tomaschitz, former district leader of the NSDAP Leibnitz, the electrician Richard Albustin, former SA-Sturmbannführer and, among others. district manager of the Leibnitz NSDAP, gendarmerie lieutenant Franz Freidl, former leader of an SS storm trooper and member of the SS Security Service (SD), gendarmerie officer Emmerich Keller, who was considered an “illegal”, and soldier Franz Koren from Cilli/Celje, who could be identified on the basis of his pay book. The identity of the other buried persons could not be clarified.
By order of the Security Director for Styria on July 5, 1949, comprehensive investigations were initiated into the deportations and shootings in Leibnitz, in the course of which 40 people were questioned or interrogated. It was reconstructed that former functionaries of the NSDAP had been arrested just a few days after the collapse of Nazi rule, either by the local gendarmerie or by Yugoslavian authorities, who were the occupying power in southern Styria from mid-May 1945, and interned in the district court. The “Leibnitz District Office of the Democratic Freedom Movement” – Security Department – founded on May 9, 1945 had handed over a list of seventeen people to the Yugoslav city commandant’s office on June 13, 1945, which, according to the authoritative research literature on the subject, “must be regarded as the basis” for the deportations later carried out on behalf of the OZNA (i.e. the secret service and secret police of Yugoslavia). The first deportation of prisoners from the Leibnitz district court was dated June 18, 1945 and involved 25 people, including Josef Tomaschitz, Richard Albustin, Franz Freidl and Emmerich Kellner. A “tito officer” had come into the district court prison in the midnight hours accompanied by several soldiers and had demanded that the cells be opened immediately. The officer then read out the names of those who were to be deported. The people concerned were loaded onto a truck and, according to the scant information provided, were to be taken “to Yugoslavia for labor deployment”.
The investigations in 1949 also revolved around the question of whether, how and by whom lists of names had been compiled in 1945, which could be considered the starting point for the deportations. As the public prosecutor’s office in Graz did not consider the suspicions regarding this question to be sufficiently confirmed in the case of the accused Austrians, it closed the case “Deportations and shootings in the Karwald” and discontinued the proceedings “against unknown perpetrators” in accordance with Section 412 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
Literature: Alfred Elste/Michael Koschat/Paul Strohmaier, Opfer, Täter, Denunzianten. „Partisanenjustiz“ am Beispiel der Verschleppungen in Kärnten und der Steiermark, im Mai/Juni 1945: Recht oder Rache? Klagenfurt 2007.
Text: Markus Rieger-Roschitz / Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Research on War Consequences
