Austria's military commemorates resistance within Wehrmacht on 'Day of Remembrance'

Austria's military marked the second annual commemoration of military resistance on August 8, the anniversary of Robert Bernardis' death. The event honored Austrian soldiers who resisted the Nazi regime while serving in the Wehrmacht.

During the ceremony, conscripts read letters from individuals involved in the military resistance. One poignant letter was from Anton Schmid, a Wehrmacht sergeant executed in April 1942. In his farewell letter to his wife and daughter, Schmid wrote, "I only saved people." He was executed for his actions in saving over 300 Jewish men and women in Vilnius.

Schmid, who owned an electrical business in Vienna before the war, had been stationed in Vilnius as a sergeant. His story underscores the risks taken by those who defied the Nazi regime from within its own ranks. The commemoration aimed to highlight the "courage as a democratic duty," emphasizing the moral imperative to resist injustice, even at immense personal cost.