Location: Laubegg 1, 8413 Laubegg
At the beginning of May 1944, Gauleiter Dr. Siegfried Uiberreither opened the new Gauschulungsburg Laubegg in the Leibnitz district. The political leaders of the NSDAP were trained in this training castle.
In 1932, the School Brothers bought Laubegg Castle, located in the parish of St. Georgen an der Stiefing, with the intention of founding a school and boarding school there. This could not be realized economically, but on August 20, 1934, the novitiate of the School Brothers with 42 members was moved from Strebersdorf to “Maria Laubegg”. The School Brothers made a hall in the castle available to the local VF organization for “patriotic” events.
In 1940, two years after the “Anschluss” of Austria to the German Reich, the School Brothers had to vacate the main building of Laubegg Castle, and in 1942 it was finally expropriated in favor of the German Reich. During the World War, the castle was also used as a warehouse “for all sorts of things”. In 1940, training courses for harvest nursery nurses were held at the castle. After several years of planning and work, the Styrian Gauleiter Dr. Siegfried Uiberreither ceremoniously opened the newly built Gauschulungsburg Laubegg at the beginning of May 1944, which was to replace the “Martinshof” in Straßgang for official party and ideological training courses. In his speech, the “Gauleiter […] expressed his deep wish that in the Schulungsburg a place would be created for the Gau that would increase the number of those who, out of their ideological attitude, are up to the hard demands of life and stand sovereignly above all that fate imposes on them”, according to the Völkischer Beobachter. On September 23, 1945, after a four-year interruption, a church service was held again in the Laubegg castle.
In 2002, the castle and property were sold to the Styrian branch of the Red Cross, where the operations center is still located today.
Literature: Karl Amon/Maximilian Liebmann (eds.), Kirchengeschichte der Steiermark. Graz/Wien/Köln 1993. Oskar Veselsky, Bischof und Klerus der Diözese Seckau unter nationalsozialistischer Herrschaft (= Dissertationen der Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz; 54). Graz 1981, 201.
Sources: Barch NS 1/2060 (Bd. 1: Übernahme und Einrichtung von Schloss Laubegg als Gauschulungsburg 1941–1944). Grazer Volksblatt, 26.4.1934, 13. Grazer Volksblatt, 9.9.1934, 14. Die Schulbrüder, in: Grazer Volksblatt, 23.9.1934, 12. Grazer Volksblatt, 9.2.1936, 19. Kleine Volks-Zeitung, 16.4.1940, 6. Völkischer Beobachter (Vienna Edition), 5.5.1944, 5. Neue Steirische Zeitung, 22.9.1945, 3.
Text: Markus Rieger-Roschitz / Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Research on War Consequences
