Roman Felleis

Roman Felleis (18 March 1903 – 24 August 1944) was an Austrian political activist. He was a close friend of Bruno Kreisky, with whom he founded the "Revolutionäre Sozialistischen" ("Revolutionary Socialists") organisation in February 1934. After Austria's annexation by Nazi Germany in March 1938, both men knew it was only a matter of time before the Gestapo would come for them. Kreisky took an opportunity to flee to Sweden later that same year. Felleis refused to leave. He found work as a road builder which enabled him to change his home frequently and live illegally "underground" (unknown to the public authorities) so that he might, when he considered the time was right, create and develop cells of party activists.

Life Roman Felleis was born early in the twentieth century to an unmarried sales assistant in Linz. After 1929 he became unemployed, Other high-profile defendants included Bruno Kreisky, Anton Proksch, Franz Jonas and Otto Probst. He received a sixteen-month jail sentence. He was released in June 1936, though it is not entirely clear whether this reflected some form of administrative clemency or simply resulted from the usual procedure which involved offsetting time detained awaiting trial against the appropriate part of the sentence subsequently conferred. On his release he returned to activism with the "Revolutionäre Sozialistischen". It seems to have been almost immediately that he was transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar. His ashes are buried at Feuerhalle Simmering in Vienna.