Resi Pesendorfer (born Theresia Laimer: 21 June 1902 - 31 October 1989) was an Austrian political activist, close during the 1920s to the Social Democrats.
She organised a highly effective network of women in the Salzkammergut region, taking a lead in the concealment of increasing numbers of army deserters and others with political records which made them targets for the security services.
[1][2][3] Theresia "Resi" Laimer was born in Bad Ischl, a small town in the mountains east of Salzburg which for centuries had prospered as a centre of salt production.
As a result of the destitution in which they found themselves, Resi Pesendorfer contracted Pulmonary Tuberculosis, from which she would continue to suffer for twelve years.
A critical responsibility was the organisation of a courier service to sustain contacts between illegal communist groups in Ischl, Goisern, Lauffen and Ebensee.
[3] Resi Pesendorfer also engaged locally with the Austrian branch of International Red Aid, a workers' welfare organisation widely seen, especially by political opponents, as a front for the Soviet Communist Party.
In 1938 Pesendorfer escaped permanent arrest by state authorities in the newly established "Reichsgau Oberdonau" region through what sources term "special political circumstances" ( wegen "besonderer politischer Umstände").
[6] Resistance activists who had not been located at the time of the arrests were forcibly conscripted for military service during the months that followed, and sent to serve on the Russian front where the tide was beginning to turn against the hitherto unstoppable German war machine.
It was impossible to know what the authorities already knew of her illegal activities, either from an unsuspected government spy infiltrated into one of the Communist cells with which she associated or from indiscretions disclosed by an arrested comrade under torture.
These contacts proved critically important in October 1943 when she linked up with Agnes Primocic and other women in the Hallein-based resistance group to help in the escape from the labour camp of Josef "Sepp" Plieseis.
Plieseis had been born in Bad Ischl and was already a local hero of the political left on account of his exploits during the Spanish Civil War as a member of the anti-Franco International Brigades.
Agnes Primocic, Mali Ziegleder and other resistance activists smuggled civilian clothes into the camp and helped Plieseis to escape, which following several weeks of meticulous preparation he did on 23 October 1943.
Regardless of whether or not this temporarily confused the authorities at the time, it led subsequent generations of historians and commentators to apply the soubriquet "Willy-Fred" to the Salzkammergut activist network.
[9] During the first part of 1944 Sepp Plieseis constructed a large but secret hideaway-headquarters in the mountains, adapting for the purpose an otherwise unused salt mine.
Salt has been mined in the area for at least five hundred years so there must have been a vast network of tunnels that could provide shelter from the elements and, ample scope for concealment in the event of an unscheduled visit on behalf of the government.
Tasks might simply involve leaving a pile of leaflets urging desertion on park benches, in trains, or in other public places.
Towards the end of 1944 it was estimated that "Der Igel" had become home to approximately 500 men, most of whom had arrived not, in the first instance, to become activist partisan fighters but in order to avoid being found and sent back to their regiments.
[3][9][13] Several of Resi Pesendorfer's resistance comrades - all men - wrote about their war-time exploits or gave interviews on the subject after the fighting was over.
[2][12][14][15] Her war-time exploits became better known after 1985 when the Viennese filmmaker-writer Ruth Beckermann teamed up with students from the History Workshop Salzburg to produce a 37 minute documentary film about the Resistance in the Salzkammergut.