Location: Pößnitz 163, 8463 Leutschach an der Weinstraße
The chapel commemorates the monarchical resistance fighter Dr. Wolfgang Mayer-Gutenau and the two priests, Dr. Riegler and Anton Zupanic. Mayer-Gutenau was executed in Berlin on October 25, 1941; the two priests who had helped him illegally cross the border were shot.
Immediately after the “Anschluss” of Austria to the German Reich in March 1938, a group led by the Graz-based writer and painter Anselm Grand, which consisted of former members of the disbanded “Front Militia” and called itself the “Styrian Legion of Freedom”, began to create weapons depots and to seek contact with like-minded people in other federal states and in Yugoslavia. The Graz journalist Dr. Wolfgang Mayer-Gutenau was a member of the information and liaison group. Despite the arrest of leading members of this group at the end of September 1938, parts of the loosely connected, legitimist-minded resistance group remained undiscovered. A cell formed around Fritz Hohl fled to Zagreb, where it came into contact with counterintelligence officers in the French consulate and attempted to form the first regular Austrian force, known as the “Austrian Legion”, but was unsuccessful. After Hohl was arrested in Zagreb at the beginning of 1939, Mayer-Gutenau took over his position.
When the journalist was lured to the German border in March 1940 with the help of a female confidant and tried to cross the border illegally near Pößnitz (municipality of Glanz), he was shot and arrested by Gestapo officers. Two of his companions, the Slovenian priest Anton Zupanic and Father Riegler from Munich, were shot dead. Together with fellow sympathizer Gerhard Resseguir (Count de Miremont), Mayer-Gutenau was sentenced to death and executed in Berlin in August 1941. With the conviction of other members of the loosely connected resistance network, it was finally destroyed.
In 1967, a memorial plaque was unveiled in Oberpößnitz with the following inscription: “Wanderer, reflect and pray an Our Father. Reverend Anton Zupanic, former parish priest of St. Georgen. Reverend Dr. Riegler, benefice in Munich. They died by concentrated fire from customs and Gestapo officers because they wanted to help an Austrian patriot. The patriot Dr. Wolfgang Mayer-Gutenau, born 09.02.1907 in Graz, was seriously wounded by this fire and died after his recovery on October 25, 1941 in Berlin-Brandenburg by the executioner’s axe. They all died for Austria’s freedom.”
Literature: Heimo Halbrainer, Widerstand und Opposition in der Steiermark 1938 bis 1945, in: Alfred Ableitinger (Hg.), Bundesland und Reichsgau. Demokratie, „Ständestaat“ und NS-Herrschaft in der Steiermark 1918 bis 1945. (= Geschichte der Steiermark; Bd. 9/1). Wien/Köln/Weimar 2015, 493–513, hier 496. Heimo Halbrainer/Gerald Lamprecht/Ursula Mindler, unsichtbar. NS-Herrschaft: Widerstand und Verfolgung in der Steiermark. Graz 2008, 196–197. Stefan Riesenfellner/Heidemarie Uhl, Todeszeichen. Zeitgeschichtliche Denkmalkultur in Graz und in der Steiermark vom Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts bis zur Gegenwart (= Kulturstudien Sonderband; 19). Wien u. a. 1994, 144 und 186.
Text: Markus Rieger-Roschitz / Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Research on War Consequences
