Historical background

On 5 April 1945, university assistants Dr Kurt Horeischy and Dr Hans Vollmar were shot dead at the First Chemical Institute. Together with chemistry assistant Ingeborg Dreher and Maximilian Slama, a police officer who had deserted, they had attempted to save a valuable electron microscope from destruction by Professor Jörn Lange. At the time, there were only two such microscopes in Vienna: one at the Vienna University of Technology and one at the First Chemical Institute of the University of Vienna. Horeischy, Dreher and Slama were members of the secret “Tomsk” resistance group, which had formed in the institute’s basement.

Under Kurt Horeischy’s leadership, the group built illegal radios, produced leaflets and hid people who were being persecuted or opposed the regime in the basement. Among those sheltered there was the author Johannes Mario Simmel, who later drew on the events at the institute in his novel Wir heißen euch hoffen. The number of institute members involved in the resistance group is thought to have been around 15. The extent to which the “Tomsk” group operated in secrecy can no longer be established with certainty. However, there is relatively firm evidence that it had contact with the “O5” resistance group.

5 April 1945

On 5 April 1945, eight days before Vienna was liberated by the Red Army, Jörn Lange decided to carry out the Nazi order known as “Vienna on the right bank of the Danube”, under which all equipment of military relevance was to be destroyed before the “enemy” entered the city. According to Lange’s own statement, he had received the order the previous day from Vice-Rector Viktor Christian, who had been a member of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) since 29 May 1933. The party had been banned in Austria from 19 June 1933 until 12 February 1938. Christian left it to Lange, who was deputy head of the institute at the time, to decide which equipment was considered “of importance to the enemy” and should therefore be rendered unusable. Other members of the institute were aware of the order, as evidenced by the subsequent statements of Professors Anton Huber and Friedrich Wessely.

Resistance to the destruction

The “Tomsk” resistance group was also aware of the order and had made it its mission to prevent Lange from carrying out his plan. Professor Lange, a German national and member of the NSDAP, was to be detained by resistance members Kurt Horeischy, Ingeborg Dreher and Maximilian Slama until the Red Army entered the city. Although Hans Vollmar was himself a member of both the NSDAP and the SA, he was also persuaded to take part in the resistance operation.

All those involved, with the exception of Hans Vollmar, were armed. The plan was to use firearms to force Professor Lange to abandon his intentions. According to the participants’ statements, however, the weapons were intended solely to intimidate him, not to be used to inflict actual violence. Lange was also armed and refused to abandon his plan. Following a brief exchange between Lange and the resistance members, a shootout ensued.

Hans Vollmar died at the institute from internal bleeding caused by a gunshot wound that passed through his chest and abdomen, as later established by forensic medical experts. Kurt Horeischy died shortly afterwards in hospital, also from internal bleeding. Hans Vollmar’s body remained at the institute for five days after the incident.

The trial of Jörn Lange

Jörn Lange was among the first National Socialists to stand trial before the People’s Court in Vienna. At the end of August 1945, the public prosecutor charged him with “the crime of partially completed and partially attempted common murder” and “the crime of malicious damage to another person’s property”. Following a five-day trial, the People’s Court in Vienna sentenced Lange to death by hanging on 15 September 1945. He evaded execution on 21 January 1946, one day before the sentence was due to be carried out, by swallowing a vial of cyanide. The origin of the vial remains unknown.

A first memorial plaque in 1947

In 1947, a memorial plaque commemorating Kurt Horeischy and Hans Vollmar was installed in the Chemical Institute building. It is now located in the entrance area of the section of the building at Währinger Straße 42. However, the plaque names neither the perpetrator, Jörn Lange, nor Vice-Rector Viktor Christian, who had issued the order to destroy the instruments. Moreover, Horeischy and Vollmar were not merely university assistants. Through their resistance activities, they were part of a courageous and principled group of individuals who actively opposed the Nazi regime. The existence of the “Tomsk” resistance group, which had operated in secret from the institute’s basement, was thus consigned to oblivion.