Elfriede Hartmann

Elfriede Beate Hartmann (21 May 1921 – 2 November 1943) was a Viennese chemistry student. Towards the end of 1938, some months after the rapid integration of "Austro-fascist" Austria into a newly enlarged German state under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, she became involved with the Young Communists. After war broke out in 1939 she engaged actively in anti-war resistance. On 22 February 1942 she was caught distributing "leaflets" in a park in Vienna-Döbling and arrested. She faced trial at the special "People's Court" at Krems on 22 September 1943 and was found guilty of "preparing to commit High Treason and Helping the Enemy" ("Vorbereitung zum Hochverrat und Feindbegünstigung"). She died on the guillotine.

Life and death Hartmann grew up with her parents and elder sister, Gerda, in Döbling, a prosperous quarter of Vienna on the northern side of the city centre. Alexander Herbert Hartmann, her father, was an insurance company officer of Hungarian provenance. She attended the girls' secondary school in the Billrothstraße, near her home, passing her "Matura" (school final exams) in 1939. (Elfriede's mother was identified by the authorities as "Aryan", which according to at least one source is what later saved her father from deportation.

Early in 1941, Hartmann resigned her functions with the Young Communists in order to concentrate, with a handful of comrades, on setting up a so-called "Lit-Apparat" or "Lit-Stelle" (which was Communist Party jargon of the time and place for an operation to print and distribute political literature). Hartmann's cover name within the "underground" communist movement was "Paula". It was Hartmann who composed the letter - described in some sources as a leaflet - that she addressed to members of the army She organised the large scale production of copies and co-ordinated their distribution. An early attempt to distribute the missives using the military mail service failed when they were blocked. It turned out that the key to unblocking the mail service was to be able to identify each individual soldier by his unique "military mail reference number" ("Feldpostnummer"). By this time her partner, Rudolf Masl, was in Norway, having been conscripted for military service on the frontline. He was able to obtain and pass on the necessary individual reference numbers for more than a thousand serving soldiers. These he handed over when he was briefly home on leave in Vienna in the Autumn/Fall of 1941.

Between October 1941 and February 1942, many more envelopes were addressed to soldiers and civilian personnel in order to send out more leaflets urging desertions. She urged the recipients to intercede with the authorities, stating that any wrongdoing on Masl's part had occurred only because he was infatuated with her and completely under her influence. On 17 March 1943, Elfriede Hartmann was called upon to testify at his trial.

Hartmann's own trial took place at the People's Court on 22 September 1943. She was one of two people tried at the same time. The co-defendant was Friedrich Mastny, a comrade from the same resistance group as she. Both defendants were convicted and condemned to death. The court dismissed as inadmissible an application for a re-trial.

On 2 November 1943, Elfrieda Hartmann was executed by guillotine at the Vienna district court complex.

Commemoration On the Masl family grave in the Hirschstetten Cemetery there is a memorial stone for Elfriede Hartmann and her partner Rudolf Masl. Her name also appears on one of the memorial tablets in the former execution room at the Vienna district court.