Martial law was declared in Austria in 1934 following an abortive Nazi uprising. The law included the restoration of capital punishment, which was invoked in 1937 when three young men robbed and killed a woman motorist on the Vienna to Semmering road, 40 miles from the capital.
They were Herbert Schlogl, Fritz Fleck and a teenager. Their victim was the daughter of the Paraguayan ambassador, Miss Ingrid Wiengreen, 29.
The fact that the men had committed highway robbery classified their crime as terrorism and brought it under the jurisdiction of the emergency summary court in Vienna. Schlogl, 21, and Fleck, 20, were sentenced to death and hanged within three hours on Tuesday, May 11th, 1937, at Vienna Central Prison. The teenager was sentenced to 16 years in prison.