So I want you to visualize two photographs for
a second. In your left hand, you're holding a
picture of a young woman in Vienna. She's got
this soft, hopeful look. She's trained to be
a kindergarten teacher, probably surrounded by
kids, thinking about lesson plans and summer
holidays. Right. It's a picture of a life that's
just starting, full of potential. Exactly. But
now I want you to look at the photo in your right
hand. It's the exact same woman, her main zanard.
But she's 30 years old now. The softness is completely
gone. She's standing in a courtroom facing a
judge who is screaming at her. Yes, scream. She's
a technical draftswoman by trade. But in this
moment, she is a convicted trader and she's listening
to a sentence of death. by guillotine it is a
brutal juxtaposition and uh what makes it so
haunting is that we aren't talking about a movie
script here we are digging into the actual historical
records the court documents the biographical
entries and the final letters of a real woman
who lived and died in the heart of the nazi machine
yeah we are doing a deep dive today into the
life of hermine zanard she was born hermine schwarzer
and honestly going through this stack of source
material you brought it's uh it's really heavy
stuff but Our mission today isn't just to tell
a sad story, right? Absolutely not. The goal
is to understand the transformation. I mean,
how does a house painter's daughter from a working
class district go from organizing youth group
trips to becoming a high priority target for
the judicial system of the greater German rife?
We really need to unpack the human cost of resistance
when the state essentially holds all the cards.
We're looking at political conviction under totalitarian
pressure. And that's the part that really hooked
me. Because on paper, she's just an ordinary
citizen. She's not a general. She's not a politician.
She's a draftswoman. Exactly. So let's rewind
a bit. Where does this story actually start?
Because I'm guessing she didn't just wake up
one day and decide to take on the Third Reich.
No. It starts in a very specific time and place.
Vienna, 1913. She's born on May 26, which is
just a year before World War I explodes. Her
father, Heinrich Theodor Schwarzer, was a house
painter's assistant. So a very working class
background. Very much so. She attends primary
school and then does her vocational training
for kindergarten teaching. But to really understand
her mind, you have to look at her teenage years.
She joined a group called the Red Falcons. or
the rote falcon. Right, I saw that in the documents.
And just to be clear for you listening, based
on the historical records we're looking at, this
was a socialist youth organization. We're not
taking any political sides here, just reporting
what the sources tell us about the environment
she grew up in. Exactly. It was a massive movement
in Vienna at the time. And she wasn't just a
casual member. By 1933, when she was 20, the
records list her as an official of the movement.
Wow. Yeah, and there's this specific detail in
the biographical entries that stands out. That
same year, she actually traveled to Austin, Belgium
for the International Red Falcons Conference.
Which is huge. I mean, for a young working class
woman in 1933 to travel internationally, that's
not just a weekend getaway. That's a major life
event. It shows her dedication, right? She was
deeply committed to this activism. But then we
hit a massive turning point. 1934. the year everything
changes in Austria. Right. The Dolfus government
is in power, ruling by decree, and they completely
ban left -wing activism. All the youth groups,
the political organizations her mind was a part
of, they become illegal overnight. So she's 21
years old. Her entire ideological world is outlawed.
I think most people would probably just keep
their heads down at that point. But she doesn't.
Her mind actually steps up. She joins the young
communists and becomes a group leader for the
Vienna -Margareton district. And there are immediate
consequences for that, aren't there? Oh, absolutely.
Between 1934 and 1938, the records show she served
three separate prison terms. Three terms. Totaling
30 months in prison. Two and a half years of
her early 20s spent in a cell. That establishes
an incredible level of resilience. Long before
the Nazis even crossed the border, she is already
a hardened activist. That's a crucial point.
When March 1938 rolls around and Germany annexes
Austria, her mind isn't some naive idealist.
She is actually released from the Wiener New
Dorf. prison right as the country is being incorporated
into Hitler's Germany. Talk about out of the
siging pan and into the fire. Exactly. And this
is where we enter the period of her double life.
She knows the Gestapo will be watching people
with her kind of record. So she gets a professional
job working as a technical draftswoman in an
office. Which is a job that requires total focus.
Right. But at the same time, she's attending
night school. A matura schule. Wait, let's pause
on this for a second. So the Matura is the exam
you take to get into university, right? Yes.
She is working a demanding day job and then going
to school at night to study for university exams.
That shows so much ambition. She wants an education
despite the absolute political chaos around her.
She's planning for a future. But there's a third
layer to her life. She officially joins the illegal
Communist Party, the KPO, and her specific role
was incredibly dangerous. What was she doing?
The documents say her job was maintaining contacts
between leadership cells across different Austrian
regions. She was the connective tissue for the
underground. I can't even imagine the stress.
You're drawing technical schematics by day, studying
at night, and then secretly coordinating resistance
cells. And it's around this time she gets married,
right? Yes. In 1940, She marries Leopold Zeynard.
He was a typesetter. And the sources note that
they actually met through their anti -government
activism. So their whole relationship was forged
in the resistance. Exactly. But it's wartime.
And Leopold is eventually drafted into the German
army. Even though he's actively opposed to the
government. The records say he was drafted very
reluctantly. But the war machine needed men.
So now her mind is alone in Vienna, running these
dangerous communications while her husband is
in the military. And this brings us to the specific
charges that eventually lead to her arrest. April
29th, 1942. What exactly did the Gestapo catch
her doing? The official charge was advantaging
the enemy and preparing to commit high treason.
And the prosecution's case centered entirely
on one man. Julius Cornwhites. Right, the senior
official. The source material calls him a foreign
communist. Yes, he had been smuggled into Austria
specifically to rebuild the party's leadership.
He was a massive target for the authorities and
Hermine's role was arranging accommodation for
him, hiding him. And there was something else
too, something involving her husband. This is
the critical part. She was accused of facilitating
secret meetings between Cornwhites and her husband,
Leopold. While Leopold was on leave from the
army. Exactly. Wow. So even while wearing a German
uniform, Leopold is meeting with top -level underground
leaders. It was incredibly bold. But it all unraveled.
Her mind is arrested in April 1942. But her trial
doesn't actually happen until September 1943.
And we need to talk about the court where this
trial took place. The Volksgerichtshof in Vienna.
The People's Court. Yes, presided over by Dr.
Kurt Albrecht. And we have to be clear about
what this court was. The government brought these
courts up to date specifically to handle political
cases. This wasn't about finding the truth. It
was a mechanism of state terror. It was essentially
a show trial. Yes. She was tried alongside three
co -defendants, Friedrich Hedrich, his wife Erna,
and Margaret Bronopetnot. Friedrich was eventually
executed while the other two women received jail
sentences. But there's a detail in the court
records regarding Hermine that is just heartbreaking.
When she is standing in that courtroom in September
1943, they don't refer to her as Frau Zeynard.
No, the records refer to her as the widow Zeynard.
Because of what happened to Leopold. Right. Leopold's
standard had already been tried by a court martial
back in December 1942. He was convicted of advantaging
the enemy. The historians note this was likely
for trying to persuade his fellow soldiers to
desert. And he was executed. In early March 1943.
So when her mind faces the judge six months later,
she already knows her husband is dead, killed
for the exact same cause she is on trial for.
The psychological toll of that is staggering.
Standing there, knowing the outcome is already
written. And it was. On September 30th, 1943,
Hermann Zehner and Friedrich Hedrich were sentenced
to death. And to add to the punishment, they
suffered deprivation of civil rights. Meaning
they were legally stripped of their citizenship
before they were even killed. Exactly. There
was a plea for clemency, but it was rejected
by Justice Minister Theorak on November 1st.
So that brings us to her final days. We have
a letter from Early October 1943, right? We do.
While she was waiting in the Vienna courthouse
prison, she wrote a letter to her father, her
in -laws, and someone she calls Sweet Lace Earl.
What does she say in it? She writes that she's
reconciled to her execution. She has accepted
it. Though she admits she still holds onto a
tiny sliver of hope. It's incredibly human. Even
though she has a physical grave, historians actually
consider this letter to be her most effective
memorial. But there's a glaring omission in that
letter. She addresses her father and her in -laws,
but she doesn't address her mother. That's right.
Her mother, who was also named Hermione Schwarzer,
isn't mentioned. And the reason why reveals the
absolute ruthlessness of the regime. They targeted
the whole family. They did. Her mother had been
arrested back in March 1943 on suspicion of distributing
leaflets and treason. There wasn't enough evidence
to actually try her in court. So they just let
her go? No. They sent her to Ravensbruck concentration
camp. My God. She was detained there until May
1945. So Hermine didn't write to her mother because
she likely knew her mother was already in the
camp system. It's just total devastation, the
husband, the daughter, the mother. Yes. And on
November 19th, 1943, the sentence was carried
out. Hermine Zaynard was decapitated by guillotine
in the Vienna District Courthouse. She was 30
years old. It's a lot to process. You start with
this image of a young woman training to teach
kindergarten, and she ends up becoming a pivotal
link in a massive resistance chain. It summarizes
a broader pattern we see in the source material.
The sheer ruthlessness of the judicial system
against domestic resistance. They didn't just
target the individual activist. They systematically
dismantled entire families. Hermine, Leopold,
her mother. The cost. was absolute. It really
was. But, you know, as we wrap up this deep dive,
there's one detail I just can't shake. We've
talked about the smuggling, the secret meetings,
the letters, but my mind keeps going back to
the Matura Shul. The night school. Yeah. I want
you listening to just think about that for a
second. It is the height of the war. Her husband
is drafted. She is organizing an underground
resistance network, knowing that if she makes
one mistake, she will be executed. The pressure
is unimaginable. Right. And yet, in the middle
of all that terror, she is studying for university
entrance exams. She's opening textbooks. She's
doing homework. Planning for DeMar. Exactly.
It makes you wonder about the incredible capacity
of the human spirit to plan for a future, to
invest in an education, even when the present
makes your very survival unlikely. It's almost
the ultimate act of defiance, isn't it? refusing
to let the terror take away your belief in a
tomorrow. It's a powerful thought to leave on.
It really is. Something for all of us to mull
over. Thank you for walking us through this source
material. It's been an incredible deep dive.
Thank you for having me. And thank you for listening.
Keep questioning, keep exploring, and we'll catch
you on the next deep dive.