Resi Pesendorfer

Resi Pesendorfer (born Theresia Laimer: 21 June 1902 - 31 October 1989) was an Austrian political activist, close during the 1920s to the Social Democrats. With the abolition of democracy during 1933/34 she became a resistance activist opposing Austrofascism and after 1938, opposing Pan-German National Socialism. She organised a highly effective network of women in the Salzkammergut region, taking a lead in the concealment of increasing numbers of army deserters and others with political records which made them targets for the security services.

Life Provenance and early years Theresia "Resi" Laimer was born in Bad Ischl, a small town in the mountains east of Salzburg which for centuries had prospered as a centre of salt production. She was one of six siblings. Michael Laimer, her father worked in the salt mines. Her mother, born Barbara Wimmer, died when she was ten. As soon as she left school Theresia took farm work in the area in order to be able to contribute to feeding the family. She later found work with a jeweller's business. Subsequently she was employed for a princess in Schwarzenbach, for whom she worked as a chambermaid. After that a larger number of men from the resistance movement in Ischl were arrested and imprisoned in Wels and Linz. One of the arrested men was Ferdinand Pesendorfer, Resi Pesendorfer's husband. Others included Alois Straubinger, Josef Filla and Raimund Zimpernik. Resistance activists who had not been located at the time of the arrests were forcibly conscripted for military service during the months that followed, and sent to serve on the Russian front where the tide was beginning to turn against the hitherto unstoppable German war machine. The women's network became more crucial than ever to the very survival of the resistance movement in the Ischl region. Resi Pesendorfer herself was briefly arrested by the Gestapo in May 1942. It was impossible to know what the authorities already knew of her illegal activities, either from an unsuspected government spy infiltrated into one of the Communist cells with which she associated or from indiscretions disclosed by an arrested comrade under torture. Nevertheless, arrest was a contingency for which there had been time to plan: she succeeded in telling her interrogators nothing substantive, while consistently denying all allegations put to her. She was released after a relatively brief period of detention, the authorities having determined that they had insufficient evidence to detain her further.

The Willy-Fred group Sepp Plieseis very quickly emerged as the most important resistance organiser in the Bad Ischl region. His cover name. "Willy" became the synonym by which the regional resistance group was identified. Later he took the precautionary step of changing his cover name to "Fred". Regardless of whether or not this temporarily confused the authorities at the time, it led subsequent generations of historians and commentators to apply the soubriquet "Willy-Fred" to the Salzkammergut activist network. During the first part of 1944 Sepp Plieseis constructed a large but secret hideaway-headquarters in the mountains, adapting for the purpose an otherwise unused salt mine. Salt has been mined in the area for at least five hundred years so there must have been a vast network of tunnels that could provide shelter from the elements and, ample scope for concealment in the event of an unscheduled visit on behalf of the government. Some indication of the size of "Der Igel" ("The Hedgehog"), as the underground hideaway came to be known (as a tribute to a resident family of hedgehogs), comes from reports that Plieseis had satisfied himself that smoke from fires could not be seen from outside the mine before choosing the location for his headquarters. (Today the remains of "Der Igel" have become a popular destination for hikers. )

A particular dangerous activity for members of resistance groups in war-time Austria involved trying to persuade soldiers to desert from the army. It had been found that women were generally more successful at this work than men. Tasks might simply involve leaving a pile of leaflets urging desertion on park benches, in trains, or in other public places. At the other extreme, the work involved identifying depressed looking soldiers home on leave in bars and engaging them in conversation. There were even comrades who wrote letters to soldiers who had returned from leave back to the front line, urging that they desert the German army and find a way to cross over to the opposing Soviet army. After 1943 German victory no longer seemed inevitable and army morale began to crumble. It is impossible to known what effect resistance members had on increasing the desertion rate, but experience in the Salzkammergut suggests that desertions were increasing. Towards the end of 1944 it was estimated that "Der Igel" had become home to approximately 500 men, most of whom had arrived not, in the first instance, to become activist partisan fighters but in order to avoid being found and sent back to their regiments.

After the war Several of Resi Pesendorfer's resistance comrades - all men - wrote about their war-time exploits or gave interviews on the subject after the fighting was over. Resi Pesendorfer did not. She led a relatively inconspicuous life in Bad Ischl, and later in nearby Ebensee. She was nevertheless actively involved in the short-lived "Austrian Concentration Camps Association" ("KZ-Verband") and the "Democratic Women's League". She also continued to participate actively in the political work of the local Communist Party. At the end of the 1970s The President awarded Pesendorfer the Decoration of Honour in recognition of her meritorious contribution to the liberation of Austria.

Her war-time exploits became better known after 1985 when the Viennese filmmaker-writer Ruth Beckermann teamed up with students from the History Workshop Salzburg to produce a 37 minute documentary film about the Resistance in the Salzkammergut. The film, titled "Der Igel" includes interviews with Resi Pesendorfer, Maria Plieseis (the widow of Sepp Plieseis) and Leno Egger. Pesendorfer was 83 at the time of the interview, the film of which is believed to be the only surviving source in which she speaks for herself on the subject.

Resi Pesendorfer died on 31 October 1989 aged 87.