Karl Tekusch

Karl Tekusch graduated in 1909 from the Imperial and Royal State Gymnasium in Wien (Vienna). For one year, he then completed a voluntary military service and an additional weapons training exercise. Together with his older brother Felix he joined the Wiener AC and was already on the team that sensationally defeated the professional English team from Sunderland in 1909. His position in the team of the Wiener was left half. In 1911, he joined the newly founded club Wiener AF (WAF) and immediately placed third in the 1912 Austrian Championship. His greatest success with this club came in 1914, when they won the Austrian championship immediately before the outbreak of World War I.

Tekusch’s won his first cap as an 18-year-old in 1908 against Hungary and from 1910 onward, he was usually called up alongside his brother Felix. Disputes with the Austrian Football Federation (ÖFV) ultimately prevented all WAF players from travelling to the Olympic Games in Stockholm. In 1914, he was team captain for one game and had the last of his 15 appearances for the national team in 1918 without scoring a goal for Austria.

At the University of Vienna, Karl Tekusch studied German and Romanic languages and received his doctorate in 1912. In addition, he attended a course to become a physical education teacher. After fighting in World War I from 1914-18, Tekusch took up a position as a high school teacher for German and French in Vienna. In 1923/24 he established a working group which led to founding the Germanic Language Association in 1933. In 1932, he became one of the early members of the National Socialist Teachers’ League (NSLB) in Austria, which was only legalised in 1938. Tekusch also became a member of the Nazi Party but in World War II, he was deferred from military service. After the war, he was forced to retire due to his membership in the Nazi Party.

Karl Tekusch was elected chairman when the Mother Tongue Association was re-founded in 1949 in Wien succeeding the Germanic Language Association. From 1954-78 he acted as deputy chairman until he had to retire for health reasons. These activities made Tekusch a central figure in a language purist movement in Austria across different political systems. He eventually died in a Wien nursing home.