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Klara Sturm
Born 5.11.1898 in Rorschach (Switzerland)
Died 9.8.1942 in Aichach (Bavaria)

Alfons Sturm
Born 28.4.1895 in Innsbruck
Died 1944/45 in the Mauthausen concentration camp

Klara Sturm, née Weiss, was a Swiss citizen before she married. She had contact with agents of the French secret service while still living in Switzerland. She spent some time in Paris before moving to Innsbruck in 1934. Her assignment was to establish a reconnaissance service and report on troop movements on the German-Austrian border and the spread of the illegal NSDAP in Austria. In November 1936 she was married in Innsbruck to Alfons Sturm, who agreed to undertake espionage missions to Germany. Alfons Sturm had three jobs: post office clerk, electrician and finally belt weaver. In one case, Alfons and Klara Sturm reported on a Feme murder committed by the National Socialists. When Klara Sturm was questioned by the Austrian police in 1936, she admitted to espionage on behalf of the French secret service. She volunteered to spy for Austria, but the police did not take up the offer. Since her activities had not been prejudicial to the interests of Austria, however, she was released.

Six weeks after the National Socialists seized power in Austria, the Gestapo arrested the couple in Innsbruck on 27 April 1938 and charged them with treason. Klara Sturm described herself as a “fanatical democrat”, who was determined not to allow “Hitler to one day conquer Austria and Switzerland”. The court, however, accused her of having criminal motives and said the explanation for her espionage activities was “primarily her base appetite for making easy money”. On 4 July 1939, the 3rd Senate of the People’s Court sentenced Klara Sturm to ten years in prison and Alfons Sturm to five years, arguing that he had acted under the “sinister influence” of his wife.

Klara Sturm died in Aichach prison in Bavaria on 9 August 1942. After his release from prison on 19 February 1944, Alfons Sturm was not set free but transferred to the Dachau concentration camp.

On 17 August, he was deported to Mauthausen, where he was held in the Linz III subcamp. The camp with its wooden huts was located between the Linz steelworks, the works canal and the confluence of the Traun and the Danube. The site was a peninsula in a floodplain that was often under water. The prisoners were used for forced labour in various places, especially for building tanks and cleaning up after air raids.

The prisoners were frequently mistreated by the guards and also by civilian workers. Alfons Sturm did not survive his imprisonment in the Linz III subcamp of Mauthausen. The date of his death is unknown.

Sources:
Hormayr, Gisela: “Ich sterbe stolz und aufrecht”. Tiroler SozialistInnen und KommunistInnen im Widerstand gegen Hitler, Innsbruck-Wien-Bozen 2012, pp. 41f, 275.

International Tracing Service Arolsen, files of Sturm, Alfons and Sturm, Klara

Online data. DeGruyter. Indictment 9J 56/39g, judgment 3L 30/39 — 9J 56/39

https://www.mauthausen-guides.at/aussenlager/kz-aussenlager-linz-iii