Hans Maršálek
Hans Maršálek (19 July 1914 – 9 December 2011) was an Austrian typesetter, political activist, detective, historian, and suspected spy[1] for the Soviet Union.
After the war, he joined the Austrian political police and was instrumental in tracking down and convicting numerous Nazi criminals.
Recently uncovered documents indicate there are grounds to believe he was responsible for helping the Soviets kidnap at least four people and illegally render them to Moscow for torture and interrogation.
He was arrested and subjected to brutal interrogations for being a member of the Austrian wing of the International Red Aid, an organisation supporting persecuted left-wing dissidents.
[3] Following the 1938 integration of Austria into Nazi Germany, Maršálek fled to Prague to dodge the draft but remained politically active in the Social Democratic expat community.
Even most erstwhile Nazi opponents had become infected with infatuation and avoided Maršálek, rationalizing that Nazism might be distasteful but resistance was pointless.
[3][5] In September 1941, the Gestapo launched a mass arrest of members of what they called "the Czech section" of the Austrian Communist Party.
[3] After stints in various jails, including three months in a basement in the city's infamous Morzinplatz Gestapo headquarters, he was moved to the Mauthausen concentration camp on 28 September 1942.
On 28 May he returned to Vienna and joined the State Police (Staatspolizei), Austria's domestic political security agency.
[4] Drawing on his intimate knowledge about camp and SS internals, he played an important role in prosecuting Nazi criminals of war, especially in the early days.
With 61 defendants found guilty and 58 death sentences handed down, the camp trials remain the most stringent and successful attempt at holding Mauthausen criminals accountable.
[4] In 1963, the Austrian Ministry of the Interior invited Maršálek to establish a museum in the former concentration camp, which had been declared a national memorial site in 1949.
