Alfons Gorbach
| Alfons Gorbach | |
|---|---|
Gorbach in 1965
|
|
| 15th Chancellor of Austria | |
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In office 11 April 1961 – 2 April 1964 |
|
| President | Adolf Schärf |
| Deputy | Bruno Pittermann |
| Preceded by | Julius Raab |
| Succeeded by | Josef Klaus |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
2 September 1898 Imst, Tyrol, Austria-Hungary |
| Died | 31 July 1972 (aged 73) Graz, Styria, Austria |
| Nationality | Austrian |
| Political party | Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) |
| Religion | Catholic |
Alfons Gorbach (2 September 1898 – 31 July 1972) was an Austrian politician of the conservative People's Party (ÖVP). He served as Chancellor of Austria from 1961 to 1964.
Born in Imst, Tyrol, Gorbach served in the Austro-Hungarian Army at the Italian Front in World War I, was severely wounded in the 1917 Battle of Caporetto and lost a leg. After the war he took up a political career in the First Austrian Republic. He joined the Christian Social Party and from 1929 to 1932 was a municipal councillor in Graz, Styria. In 1937 he was appointed a minister (Landesrat) in the Styrian state government, However, upon the Austrian Anschluss to Nazi Germany in March 1938, Gorbach was dismissed and held as a political prisoner at Dachau concentration camp from 1938–42, and again at Flossenburg from 1944 until the end of World War II.
After the war, Gorbach joined the newly established Austrian People's Party, and upon the 1945 legislative election became a president of the National Council parliament, an office he held until 1953 and again from 1956 to 1961. When a deceiving outcome in the 1959 election launched an internal party debate over aging ÖVP Chancellor Julius Raab, Gorbach, backed by the Styrian regional association, succeeded him as party chairman and on 11 April 1961 also as Austrian chancellor.
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