Günter Kiermaier

Günter Kiermaier was born on 10 November 1942 in Amstetten, Lower Austria. He attended primary and secondary school from 1949 to 1957 and then trained as a retail salesman between 1957 and 1960, working in that trade until 1961. After his military service he served a second apprenticeship, as a waiter, from 1962 to 1965.

He described his family as middle class rather than working class. His attachment to social democracy, he said in a 2022 interview with the regional paper NÖN, came from an elderly neighbour who was like an aunt to him. She took him to a May Day march without his parents' knowledge, and he was struck by the sight of old men who had been imprisoned at Wöllersdorf in 1934 greeting each other as comrades. From her, he said, he learned the principles of freedom, equality and solidarity.

From 1965 to 1972 Kiermaier worked as a waiter in his parents' business in Amstetten, and in 1972 he took over his mother's inn. He was awarded the professional title of Kommerzialrat in 1994. In 1998, after a plan to convert the inn into a Wienerwald franchise restaurant fell through, he rebuilt its guest rooms as a private retirement home with 30 apartments for senior citizens.

In politics he became a city councillor in Amstetten in 1990 and on 5 November 1990 entered the Austrian National Council for the SPÖ, where he served through four legislative periods until 19 December 2002. He was chairman of the SPÖ in the Amstetten district until May 2003 and from 1993 to 2007 president of the Social Democratic business association of Lower Austria. He was also vice president of the Lower Austrian Chamber of Commerce and state chairman of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Christentum und Sozialismus in Lower Austria.

Kiermaier was known as both a convinced Social Democrat and a practising Catholic, and he saw no contradiction between the two. He wrote about his life, his town and the events of the past 70 years in his autobiography Mit Kreuz und roter Fahne. He was married to Monika and had children and grandchildren.

Günter Kiermaier died during the night of 28 to 29 October 2026, aged 83, after a long illness. The specific cause was not made public. His death was announced by his family in a death notice through Bestattung Tempora in Amstetten and reported by NÖN, which said the Amstetten Social Democrats were mourning him.

A prayer service was set for 4 November 2026 at the Herz-Jesu parish church, and his requiem for 5 November 2026 at 1 p.m. in the Stadtpfarrkirche St. Stephan in Amstetten, followed by burial in the Alter Städtischer Friedhof. The family asked for donations to Caritas instead of wreaths and flowers.

Kiermaier represented the Amstetten region in parliament for twelve years and shaped the local SPÖ for more than a decade as district chairman. His honours included the Grand Silver Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria in 2001, the Silver Commander's Cross of the Decoration of Honour for Services to Lower Austria in 2008, the ring of honour of the Social Democratic business association of Lower Austria in 2012 and the SPÖ's Victor Adler plaque in 2022.