Hans Maršálek

Hans Maršálek (19 July 1914 – 9 December 2011) was an Austrian typesetter, political activist, detective, historian, and spy for the Czechoslovak secret police. A devout socialist and active in the resistance, he was arrested by the Nazis and imprisoned in the Mauthausen concentration camp. After the war, he joined the Austrian political police and was instrumental in tracking down and convicting numerous Nazi criminals. He also became the main chronicler of the camp's history, helped establish the Mauthausen Memorial Museum, and published several books. Jan Marsalek, a fugitive former businessman and confirmed spy operative for Russia, is his grandson.

Early life Maršálek was born on 19 July 1914 in Vienna to an ethnically Czech family. His father was a builder, his mother worked as a maid. The family lived in Hernals, a working-class district, in humble circumstances. Both parents were members of the Social Democratic Party; Maršálek's father eventually was elected to the Hernals district council on a Social Democratic ticket.

Maršálek was educated in Vienna's Czech School. In his teens, he apprenticed as a typesetter for one of the city's Czech-language newspapers. Following in the footsteps of his parents, Maršálek was politically active from an early age. He was active in the Socialist Workers' Youth and, from 1936 to 1938, in the resistance against the Austrofascist Ständestaat regime. He was arrested and subjected to brutal interrogations for being a member of the Austrian wing of the International Red Aid, an organisation supporting persecuted left-wing dissidents. He also had ties to revolutionary socialists, in particular Johann Otto Haas, and to the Czech communist movement.

In September 1941, the Gestapo launched a mass arrest of members of what they called "the Czech section" of the Austrian Communist Party. Even though he didn't technically fit the bill, Maršálek was caught in the dragnet and arrested on 28 October 1941.

After the liberation When Mauthausen was liberated in May 1945, Maršálek used his resistance connections to help care for and repatriate prisoners. He interrogated Franz Ziereis, the ex-commandant of Mauthausen, who had been captured by the Americans and shot three times in the process. The commandant died immediately after the interrogation. On 28 May he returned to Vienna and joined the State Police (Staatspolizei), Austria's domestic political security agency.

Drawing on his intimate knowledge about camp and SS internals, he played an important role in prosecuting Nazi criminals of war, especially in the early days.

An affidavit written by Maršálek also played a role in the Nuremberg trials.

Maršálek was active in the Austrian organization of Mauthausen survivors, the Lagergemeinschaft Mauthausen.

Death

Maršálek died on 9 December 2011 in Vienna.

Publications Hacker, Kurt and Maršálek, Hans (1995): Kurzgeschichte des Konzentrationslager Mauthausen und seiner drei größten Nebenlager Gusen, Ebensee, Melk. Österreichische Lagergemeinschaft Mauthausen. Vienna, Austria. Kohl, Josef and Maršálek, Hans (1950): Das war Mauthausen. Globus. Vienna, Austria. No ISBN Maršálek, Hans (1947): Mauthausen mahnt! Kampf hinter Stacheldraht. Tatsachen, Dokumente und Berichte über das grösste Hitler'sche Vernichtungslager in Österreich. Globus. Vienna, Austria. No ISBN Maršálek, Hans (1988): Die Vergasungsaktionen im Konzentrationslager Mauthausen: Gaskammer, Gaswagen, Vergasungsanstalt Hartheim, Tarnnamen. Österreichische Lagergemeinschaft Mauthausen. Vienna, Austria. Maršálek, Hans (2006): Die Geschichte des Konzentrationslagers Mauthausen. Dokumentation. 4. Auflage. Edition Mauthausen.