Olympics 1936: When a four-man bobsleigh full of Nazis drove for Austria

The “Connection” should only take place two years later. The Bob “Austria II” but could have been launched as “Ostmark II” as early as 1936. The Viennese author and musician Richard Weihs came across the remarkable crew of Bob “Austria II” while researching his two-volume work on the Nazi history of Semmering (“Shattered Remembrance of Semmering”): All four of them were ardent National Socialists or at least sympathizers.

The brothers Franz and Robert Bednar According to Weihs, people from Breitenstein am Semmering were “staunch Nazis, which would soon pay off for them.” Franz was appointed acting administrator of the Breitenstein sanatorium, whose Jewish owners were expelled or murdered. Brother Robert became the owner of the Aryanized Villa Székely in Breitenstein (it was reluctantly restituted in 1949).

To the driver of the bob, the Semmering master painter Viktor WigelbeyerWeihs at least found out that he was a fan of the Nazi poet Karl Heinrich Waggerl war.

13th and last place

The fourth man in the bobsleigh is the most prominent: Johann Baptist Gudenusfather of the long-time FPÖ MP John Gudenus and grandfather of the latest since his role in Ibiza-Video infamous Johann Gudenus. Old Gudenus was supposed to become Obersturmbannführer in the SA. The author of books such as “Sport is Fight” also competed in the 400-meter run at the Summer Games in Berlin in 1936. Gudenus came last in his heat.

Bob Austria II also only took 13th and last place in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Gap to the victorious Bob Switzerland II: 38 seconds.