Otto Hartmann (actor)

Otto Hartmann (1904–1994) was an Austrian stage and film actor.[1] Following Austria's incorporation into Nazi Germany, Hartmann acted as an informer for the authorities (Gestapo). In punishment for this he was imprisoned after the Second World War had ended.

Otto Hartmann
Born22 January 1904
Vienna, Austro-Hungarian Empire
Died14 March 1994 (aged 90)
Vienna, Austria
OccupationActor
Years active1927–1943 (film)

Selected filmography

During the war

Hartmann was a member of the Österreichische Freiheitsbewegung (Austrian freedom movement, a nonviolent conservative catholic resistance group), whose goal was the liberation from National Socialism and the detachment of Austria from the German Reich.[2] He collected Information about this group and other resistance groups and assembled lists of their members. He gave this information to the Gestapo, leading to the arrest of 450 members of the resistance movement, some of which were subsequently sentenced to death, others to long terms in prison.[3]

After the war

As Vienna was conquered by the Russian Red Army, in spring 1945 with about 200 other Gestapo informants, Hartmann traveled from Vienna to Innsbruck to hide from the authorities. Through contacts with the Austrian resistance, he got a job at the police, but was soon arrested by the French occupation forces, who handed him over to the Austrian authorities in Vienna.

On 22 November 1947 he was sentenced to life by the People's Court in Vienna.[2]

Pardon and future life

He repeatedly tried to obtain a retrial or a pardon, which was rejected in the subsequent period. Eventually, as part of an amnesty, he was pardoned in 1957 for a trial period of five years. Hartmann then worked as a seller and a clerk at various Viennese companies.[2]

References
  1. Weyr p.168
  2. Nachrichten, Jüdische. "Die Arbeitsweise der Denunzianten des Nachritenreferates der Wiener Gestapoleitstelle am Beispiel dreier Biographien". www.david.juden.at (in German). Retrieved 2016-03-30.
  3. Hans Schafranek: Widerstand und Verrat: Gestapospitzel im anitfaschistischen Untergrund 1938–1945. Czernin, Vienna 2017, p. 214–218 (german).

Bibliography
  • Thomas Weyr. The Setting of the Pearl: Vienna under Hitler. Oxford University Press, 2005.


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