Leopold Figl

Figl Leopold Figl was born on 2nd October 1902 at Rust, near Tulln, in Lower Austria. He was the son of Josef Figl, a farmer, and of his wife, Josefa Erdhofer. He was the third child, in a family of nine children. His father, a farmer, died when young Leopold was 11 years old. The young lad was a gifted student and was educated first at the village school in Rust and then at the grammar school at St. Pölten. Leopold Figl met Julius Raab in 1918 at the end of the first World War. Together, the two friends founded the Catholic Students Association 'Nibelungia' in 1919. Raab and Figl remained lifelong close friends. Finally he went to the College of Agriculture in Vienna and, whilst still a student in 1927 he became the secretary of the Lower Austrian branch of the Austrian Farmers' League (wierdly, his predecessor in that office seems to have been Dolfuss!). Leopold Figl graduated in 1930 as an agricultural scientist and, in that year also, he married Hilde Hemala by whom he had a son and a daughter. He now rose in the Lower Austrian Farmers' League; becoming the deputy director in 1931 and the director in 1933, heading the 110,000 members of that organisation. In the following year he was appointed as a member of the Federal Economic Council, whilst in 1935 he became the President of the Farmers' League.

As Director of the Lower Austrian Farmers' League, he spoke courageously against the Nazis. Together with Julius Raab he was a witness to Chancellor Schuschnigg's resignation radio speech on 11 March 1938. Figl was one of the first arrested when Hitler's armies rolled into Austria on 12 March 1938. He was sent to the Dachau concentration camp where he was flogged in front of fellow prisoners. In all, Dr. Figl spent a total of 62 months of detention, not only in Dachau, but at Flossenbuerg, and at Mauthausen. During a period of release under strict supervision, in 1943, he worked in Julius Raab's road-building firm until he was re-arrested in May 1944 for plotting with others to resurrect the Farmers' Union after Austria's liberation. He was sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp and charged with high treason. He was taken to Vienna in March of 1945 for trial and execution, but the fall of Vienna to the Russian Army put an end to his imprisonment.

Leopold Figl at once began the reconstruction of the Farmers' League and acted as a co-founder of the Austrian People's Party of which he later became Chairman. After a short period as provincial Governor of Lower Austria, he became Federal Chancellor in December 1945 and held that position until April 1953 when he was replaced by Julius Raab. He next again acted as Director of the Farmers' League until 23rd November 1953 when he was appointed as Foreign Minister. In this position he negotiated the State Treaty of 15th May 1955 by which Austria regained her independence. He resigned his ministry in 1959; becoming the President of the Austrian Parliament until 1962 and then Provincial Governor of Lower Austria again. Dr. Figl died of cancer in Vienna on 9 May 1965.

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