Kloster
Wies during the Great War and today. Further down by about a kilometre
is the town Tüntenhausen. In its church cemetery is this grave to
victims of a death march near the end of the war. Tüntenhausen's pastor Josef Schmid wrote in his report to his bishop on July 15, 1945 that on April 27, shortly after noon, around 850 Buchenwald concentration camp prisoners were driven through the village with two other prisoners who died in Hospital 1004 on Freising's Domberg coming from the Straubing prison. They had come from Zolling
twoards the direction of Freising. The prisoners had suffered abuse
continuously on every occasion with footsteps, butts, and strokes. Two
of the starved prisoners were buried here and are recorded on this
memorial.
The former site of the memorial to the west of Freising in the village church of Hohenbachern; no trace of it remains.
Just outside Hallbergmoos is this 1.20 metre high memorial on which is written in bronze letters "In memory of the prisoners' march of April 29, 1945. Alberto Labro † May 8, 1945". It is intended to stand on the path of the march, disturbing it as it commemorates the so-called death march of around 300 concentration camp prisoners coming from Neufahrn which ended in Hallbergmoos/Goldach. At the same time, a march of thirty to 40 prisoners from the Straubing prison was underway. The escaped Labro, formerly Mayor of Longwy in northern France, later died in the Loibl estate, where he had found shelter. His body was eventually exhumed in November 1946 and transferred to his hometown. He had been sentenced to five years in prison for 'favouring the enemy' and was then transferred from Brussels to Rheinbach and Kassel to Straubing. From here, Labro had to start the march towards Dachau concentration camp on April 24, 1945 together with around 3,000 other prisoners. On April 29, Albert Labro gained freedom in Hallbergmoos - and died in a stable nine days later. The fate of Albert Labro is described in detail in Collection Sheet 36 of the Heimat- und Traditionsverein Hallbergmoos.
The road entering into the
complex, Major-Braun-Weg, is named after Major Alois Braun,
head of the Freisinger Panzer Replacement Division 17. It was just outside Freising to the north at the Haidberghof (which I run past very week) in the hamlet of Pettenbrunn that Braun chose as a base for the anti-Nazi Freiheitsaktion Bayern (FAB). In
early April 1945, the Major met with members of the FAB which consisted
mainly of members of the military in Freising, Munich and Moosburg, who
had also reached out to civil society groups and even American
intelligence in Switzerland. It wasn't until the night of April 27-28
that they initiated any action involving the removal of higher military
personnel and the Gauleiter of Munich and Upper Bavaria before, based on
a ten-point programme, a transitional government would be established.
With leaflets, newspaper and radio, the public was called upon for
support. In the end, nearly 440 soldiers were involved.  |
| The CIA Safehouse nearby |
Memorial
in Aign about twenty miles north of Freising to the murdered crew of an
American B24 bomber, the Gawgia Peach (42-52709), which
crash-landed
near Sillertshausen in the district of Freising on June 13, 1944 during a
bombing mission to the Milbertshofen Ordnance Depot in Munich, by
German ME 109s. Almost all members of the ten-man crew managed to rescue
themselves via parachute only to have three of them- Dennis Griggs,
Theoron O. Ivy and Robert Boynton- murdered by the Nazis. On the right
is a photo of the crew of the 831st Squadron- The second man in the
front Row is Boynton; Theoron Ivy is second to the right alongside
flight engineer Francis Winners. Griggs, the copilot, is third in the
back row next to pilot Herbert Frels who, in 1999, received the
Distinguished Flying Cross for heroism from then- Texas Governor George
W. Bush. At the time Frels had been loaded into an ambulance and taken
to the Freising hospital (where my son was born) where he would stay for
two months before going to a PoW camp. Boynton was murdered on the
ground
by Nazi officials, as was Griggs who was killed by enraged German
villagers after parachuting down to safety. It is believed that Ivy was
killed several days later by the same group of Nazis.
As Kevin Hall concludes in his study Luftgangster over Germany: The Lynching of American Airmen in the Shadow of the Air War, If the historiography is accurate that a similar number of British war crime trials investigated the mistreatment of a comparable number of downed British airmen, the occurrences of Lynchjustiz committed against downed British and American airmen in Germany conservatively exceeded 600. However, the American and British war crime trials that investigated Lynchjustiz focused largely on the occupied areas of West Germany. Accounting for a large dark figure, which includes cases of Lynchjustiz that occurred in what became the German Democratic Republic, it is likely that there were at least 1,000 cases of Lynchjustiz against Allied airmen within Germany’s postwar borders. However, hundreds of cases remain overlooked, especially those in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and Poland. Preliminary research on violence against American airmen in the aforementioned nations concluded that Lynchjustiz occurred most often in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. This is reasonable given the increased number of airmen shot downed over these countries, the presence of German military and security forces, ardent collaborators, as well as civilians affected by the radicalized air war (tens of thousands of pro-Allied civilians died in bombings during the war). Taking into consideration Lynchjustiz committed against all Allied airmen throughout Europe results in a conservative estimate of 3,000 cases of mistreatment. Considering this, along with accounting for airmen abused in POW and concentration camps and during death marches at the end of the war, it is likely that roughly one out of every ten Allied airman that survived being shot down was mistreated.
Schloss
Hohenkammer in kreis Freising, flying the Nazi flag. The influence of
the National Socialists on the residents of the almost five hundred
inhabitants of the village was considerable. When the rural communities
in kreis Freising were brought into line in April 1933, the estate
inspector of the castle estate and provisional base manager of the NSDAP
in Hohenkammer, Josef Münsterer, became a member of the town council
and its second mayor. The NSDAP and SA had moved into the castle with
the swastika flag hoisted above, becoming the most important employer in
the village. Those who did not go to the party had to worry about being
hired. On July 29, 1945, the Seidenberger Spiritual Council reported
how "[i]n recent years, the NSDAP has exerted a strong influence on
Hohenkammer and the surrounding area, particularly in terms of school,
the growing youth, and all those who were associated with Hohenkammer
Castle: Workers, women, and so on. All Hitler laws were strictly
implemented, especially at school. Even worse was the party's influence
on the continuing education school, which was used for party political
events. The castle authorities exerted enormous pressure on the
population…. "
The church as it appeared in a Nazi-era postcard franked in 1942.
A
recent exhibition titled "Hohenkammer in the Nazi era, names instead of
numbers - life stories from the village resistance" held in the Alte
Gaststube on the grounds of the castle celebrated the reistance of three
school boys from Hohenkammer, Korbinian Geisenhofer, Thomas and Anton
Held and Thomas Groß, who refused to submit to the Nazis in 1933.
Geisenhofer and the Held brothers were declared opponents of the Nazis.
Whether Thomas Groß came to the Nazi authorities because of his own
political convictions or because of his friendship with Geisenhofer and
the others isn't clear, but even
before the Nazis came to power in Bavaria, boys from Hohenkammer
had split into opponents and supporters of the Nazis.
On the morning of June 30, 1933, Groß, together with Geisenhofer and Thomas Held, were arrested by the village constable Friedrich Stoller and taken to the Freising District Court Prison. That day, the three were transferred to the Dachau concentration camp as “protective prisoners”. The night before, from June 28th to 29th, a solstice celebration had taken place in Hohenkammer. As in many other places, it was organised by the SA, Nazi Party and Hitler Youth to celebrate the success of the Nazis to win over the youth. The day after the celebration in Hohenkammer, Münsterer wrote to Special Commissioner Lechner in Freising: “Everyone is thrilled with the beautiful course of the celebration. Only a red opposition group has been working against us for weeks by all means. This morning, to our greatest surprise, we were able to find the KPD's sickle and hammer on the concrete road in the middle of town, painted with red oil paint. The same signs were also found on a pillar at the garden entrance of a member of the party. We could not determine who the perpetrators were, but we ask the following people, known as ringleaders, to move in.” The names of the three boys then followed. It is uncertain whether the three really had anything to do with any graffiti as they always denied the accusations of the Nazi authorities that they were communists, and no evidence was presented.
Nevertheless,
even after they were released from Dachau months later, they made no
secret of their opposition and in 1934 got into a fight with members of
the SA and the SA at the sports school that had been set up in the
schloß, followng a parish dance organised at the Riesch inn In
Unterwohlbach by
boys from Hohenkammer who had not joined the party or the SA. When the
ball was over, a delegation from the military sports school was waiting
for the boys resulting in a fight as a result of which Anton and Thomas
Held and Geisenhofer were arrested and sent to the concentration camp
for the second time. Unlike his friends, Thomas Groß was lucky enough
to be released after a few days in prison as stated in a letter from the
political police to the commandant of the concentration camp from July
3, 1933 stating that he had left the same evening Has been released in
protective custody. Although the district office of Freising tried on
July 18 to prevent his release, Groß was able to return home, no doubt
due to his brother-in-law, Johann Neugebauer, serving as a SS troop
leader in Munich. The day after the arrest, he had written a letter to
the commander of the political police in Munich and Himmler himself,
asking for Thomas Groß to be released n his letter, emphasising that
Groß had never been a KPD member but in fact had even expressed a
wish"to join the SA." The brother-in-law confirmed the close friendship
with Geisenhofer, but claimed that political motives had not played a
role citing Groß's family's links with the Nazis Party as evidence and
how in 1932 Groß would occasionally hand out leaflets that Neugebauer
had sent him during the election campaign. On April 29, 1938, Groß died
at the age of 26 in the hospital in Pfaffenhofen due to stomach
complications and was buried in his father's grave.
On the morning of June 30, 1933, Groß, together with Geisenhofer and Thomas Held, were arrested by the village constable Friedrich Stoller and taken to the Freising District Court Prison. That day, the three were transferred to the Dachau concentration camp as “protective prisoners”. The night before, from June 28th to 29th, a solstice celebration had taken place in Hohenkammer. As in many other places, it was organised by the SA, Nazi Party and Hitler Youth to celebrate the success of the Nazis to win over the youth. The day after the celebration in Hohenkammer, Münsterer wrote to Special Commissioner Lechner in Freising: “Everyone is thrilled with the beautiful course of the celebration. Only a red opposition group has been working against us for weeks by all means. This morning, to our greatest surprise, we were able to find the KPD's sickle and hammer on the concrete road in the middle of town, painted with red oil paint. The same signs were also found on a pillar at the garden entrance of a member of the party. We could not determine who the perpetrators were, but we ask the following people, known as ringleaders, to move in.” The names of the three boys then followed. It is uncertain whether the three really had anything to do with any graffiti as they always denied the accusations of the Nazi authorities that they were communists, and no evidence was presented.
Nevertheless,
even after they were released from Dachau months later, they made no
secret of their opposition and in 1934 got into a fight with members of
the SA and the SA at the sports school that had been set up in the
schloß, followng a parish dance organised at the Riesch inn In
Unterwohlbach by
boys from Hohenkammer who had not joined the party or the SA. When the
ball was over, a delegation from the military sports school was waiting
for the boys resulting in a fight as a result of which Anton and Thomas
Held and Geisenhofer were arrested and sent to the concentration camp
for the second time. Unlike his friends, Thomas Groß was lucky enough
to be released after a few days in prison as stated in a letter from the
political police to the commandant of the concentration camp from July
3, 1933 stating that he had left the same evening Has been released in
protective custody. Although the district office of Freising tried on
July 18 to prevent his release, Groß was able to return home, no doubt
due to his brother-in-law, Johann Neugebauer, serving as a SS troop
leader in Munich. The day after the arrest, he had written a letter to
the commander of the political police in Munich and Himmler himself,
asking for Thomas Groß to be released n his letter, emphasising that
Groß had never been a KPD member but in fact had even expressed a
wish"to join the SA." The brother-in-law confirmed the close friendship
with Geisenhofer, but claimed that political motives had not played a
role citing Groß's family's links with the Nazis Party as evidence and
how in 1932 Groß would occasionally hand out leaflets that Neugebauer
had sent him during the election campaign. On April 29, 1938, Groß died
at the age of 26 in the hospital in Pfaffenhofen due to stomach
complications and was buried in his father's grave.
Allershausen
For Allershausen the war ended suddenly in quick succession: At 8.15: The 17th SS Panzer Grenadier Division "Götz von Berlichingen" departed the area followed twenty minutes later by the sight of white flag on the church tower. This was particularly dangerous given that a member of the division shot and killed the mayor of Burgthann, twenty kilometres southeast of Nuremberg, shortly before on April 17 after he had raised white flags as a sign of surrender. Mayor Andreas Fischer, who had been in office since 1935, was ordered to remove the flags again. When he refused, he was shot by a soldier from the division. In fact, a later trial against the soldier was discontinued in 1958 because he had acted according to the law applicable at the time, the so-called flag order which had been issued in April by Himmler, according to which every male person from a house on which a white flag was hung was to be shot immediately. This allowed members of the Wehrmacht and SS to simply execute civilians without a court martial and in arbitrary vigilante justice although already by 8.45 American tanks were entering the town.
Bernstorf
High
above the Ampertal, at the confluence with the Glonn, was a city-like
castle
dating from nearly 3,400 years ago. The steeply-sloping site protected
the inhabitants from the
south, west and north. Deep trenches and a 4.50 metre-high city wall
nearly two kilometres in length made up of densely interwoven,
mud-plastered
wood surrounded the fortification. For this, about 40,000 oak trees had
to be
felled. A quarter century after its completion, the settlement appears
to have been
destroyed in a devastating fire. It was not until the 20th century that
its remains reappeared before being lost again. Fortunately, part of the
site has been secured
for excavations. Bernstorf soon became one of the most exciting
archaeological sites in Germany. Sensational findings revealed the
former significant regional and international importance of the city:
the oldest crown
tiara of pure gold found in Europe; thirty pieces of amber, two of
which have astonishing engravings- the "amber face" and a seal with
characters in
Mycenaean script. The two amber objects were found in 2000. They were,
with jewellery, embedded in small clay coverings and carefully
buried - perhaps as offerings to the gods. Burn marks on the gold and a
charred wood residue in a gold band are thought to have a connection
with the fire of the city walls.
Selection of gold found and the find site
Sheet-metal belt sections- note the triangular designs throughout
Supposed miniature Diadem with supporters
Possible armband fragment; again, note triangular designs
Supposed needle
Supposed staff. 14C dating has it dating from 1400-1100 BCE
The oldest gold crown found in Europe?
Crown diadem; again, note triangular device
Amazingly, it is claimed that an amber necklace found among the grave treasure of Tutankhamen was made here! Organic
material found within the crown, shown at 35x magnification, which
appears to be resin obtained from the Styracaceae plant family. Styrax
is a natural resin obtained from the wounded bark of Liquidambar orientalis located in Asia Minor. Mnesimachus, Aristoteles, Theophrastus in his Historia Plantarum, Herodotus, and Strabo are the first ones to mention the styrax tree and its balsam.
Sample of pierced amber found at the site in 2001
Reconstruction of the jewellery found at Bernstorf
More (reconstructed) artefacts found at the site from 2001-2005
Most remarkable are these finds from 2000
The face of a Bronze Age ruler?
The
so-called "Amber face" is a roughly triangular piece of amber with
engravings on the front and back. With his inscrutable smile, the "amber
face" recalls the gold masks from the graves at Mycenae and is perhaps
the face of a ruler. The reverse shows three
symbols: on the left is a long line with a triangular extension like a
spear; the centre shows a cross within a circle; the right showing a
symbol comprising a
trapezoid and a vertical line - possibly symbols for "flame" or "lance"
and known from the Mycenaean as a "double axe", which in turn is a sign
of
cereals. It could thus have served as a seal of authority, trade and
supply, or possibly as a passport for protection, free trade and
suppliers. It
is possible that it correlates with the syllables "do-ka-me" of the
Linear B script, the
oldest readable language of the Greeks.
Pa-nwa-ti,
an archon at the time of the Argonauts?
The
second piece of amber is engraved with four characters divided into two
zones: three adjacent characters over a graphic symbol extending across
the entire width. The top three characters are argued to correspond to
three characters of the Linear B script in the
upper zone. If so, it would read "pa-nwa-ti",
exactly the opposite as a seal impression, "tin-wa-pa." The character
set is not yet occupied in texts, but probably the syllable sequence
"Tinwa" as part of their name in Pylos. The sign in the lower part of the stone is also said to bear a similarity with the crown-like gold
diadem of Bernstorf.
The
Bronzezeit Bayern Museum was only opened in 2014 given the difficulty
in obtaining insurance for such valuable items. The brainchild of Dr.
Moosauer, after intensive efforts he managed to establish and organise
the necessary resources for the small but equipped with audiovisual
facilities Museum of which he serves as the current museum coordinator.
It is located on the Pantaleon hill in Kranzberg upon which once stood a
Wittelsbacher castle.
The
castle building were destroyed in 1632 during the Thirty Years' War by Swedish forces. No ruins are to be seen
today as farmers from Kranzberg managed to transport 459,035 bricks from
the ruins to Munich from in the period from July 12 to September 18
1660 for the construction of stables.
It
wasn't until 1938 that the 2,500 square foot hilltop was built upon
again- for the Nazis. The plans here were published in the October 1938
issue of Der Baumeister (333)
The museum today accompanied by Dr. Moosauer and the view from its parking lot
Drake Winston investigating wartime ruins along the Isarweg bicycle route towards Munich at Mintraching (Grüneck) bei Neufahrn. It was a few yards away The Expositus on April 29 that, whilst around 30 to 40 inmates of the Straubing penitentiary moved through Goldach towards Mintraching in the afternoon, machine gun fire in front of the Isar bridge occurred. According to reports from pastor Franz Josef Roßberger from Eching and Dr. Joachim
Birkner from Goldach, at around 2:30 p.m. a
single armoured car from the American Army freed a group of about 250 prisoners
from the Straubing prison, which had been moving on the road from Freising to
Munich, and brought it to Eching. This group had also been observed by Ludwig
Gilch from Mintraching. Another thirty to forty inmates of the
Straubing penitentiary moved through Goldach towards Mintraching that
afternoon. After the machine gun fire,
the group disbanded, the guards disappeared and the prisoners were
housed in the surrounding farms.
Zolling
Nazi-era postcard of the town showing how much has been developed since the war when American troops moved from Zolling on April 29, 1945 to Freising. Such development can also be seen in the area around the war memorial, again shown during the Nazi era and today.
Attenkirchen
A few miles north of the Amper
Memorial to Kurt Willi Schmidt, born on July 15, 1924 in Gera, Thuringia. The non-commissioned officer died at this point in the municipality of
Fürholzen near Neufahrn bei Freising, with his ME 109 G6 fighter plane
was shot down during a dogfight with an Allied bomber group. He had four siblings; one of his brothers died of war injuries, the other committed suicide after the war ended. Kurt's fate remained with his mother and long unknown to his sisters, since the father kept the news of Kurt's death secret, to the mother's hopes that at least one of her sons would go to war had survived not to destroy. Kurt died on April 24, 1944, at just 19 years of age in Fürholzen in the district of Freising. The young non-commissioned officer flew a Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-6 on that day to intercept an American bomber squadron moving to Munich, where he was shot down. He probably died already in the air, as there are no eyewitnesses when the burning fighter plane crashes Watched the parachute rise. The plane wreck was finally found 69 years after the crash by local historians under the direction of Marco Grätz and Ernst Keller who managed to identify Kurt Schmidt as a pilot using the nameplate of the aircraft. His surviving sisters learned about the discovery only after the investigators appealed to a local newspaper to contact them. A memorial stone was erected at the crash site on the occasion of Kurt's 70th anniversary of death, erected by the Krieger- und Soldatenverein Massenhausen/Fürholzen/Hetzenhausen. His
final resting place is in the war cemetery at Schönau near
Berchtesgaden.
Two miles south of Niederhummel are the remains of a Roman road.
Memorial to Kurt Willi Schmidt, born on July 15, 1924 in Gera, Thuringia. The non-commissioned officer died at this point in the municipality of
Fürholzen near Neufahrn bei Freising, with his ME 109 G6 fighter plane
was shot down during a dogfight with an Allied bomber group. He had four siblings; one of his brothers died of war injuries, the other committed suicide after the war ended. Kurt's fate remained with his mother and long unknown to his sisters, since the father kept the news of Kurt's death secret, to the mother's hopes that at least one of her sons would go to war had survived not to destroy. Kurt died on April 24, 1944, at just 19 years of age in Fürholzen in the district of Freising. The young non-commissioned officer flew a Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-6 on that day to intercept an American bomber squadron moving to Munich, where he was shot down. He probably died already in the air, as there are no eyewitnesses when the burning fighter plane crashes Watched the parachute rise. The plane wreck was finally found 69 years after the crash by local historians under the direction of Marco Grätz and Ernst Keller who managed to identify Kurt Schmidt as a pilot using the nameplate of the aircraft. His surviving sisters learned about the discovery only after the investigators appealed to a local newspaper to contact them. A memorial stone was erected at the crash site on the occasion of Kurt's 70th anniversary of death, erected by the Krieger- und Soldatenverein Massenhausen/Fürholzen/Hetzenhausen. His
final resting place is in the war cemetery at Schönau near
Berchtesgaden. 
Took considerable time to hunt down the site of a Roman villa that had been excavated just about 15 miles away back in 1987 before being covered up again with only this photo giving me the clues as to its actual location. It's just outside a little town called Mauern north of Moosburg- the name could come from the Roman "ad murun", and sure enough Roman bricks were found nearby in Alpersdorf in 2007 is not surprising. A small thermal bath and a kiln were excavated here. The thermal bath had underfloor heating and was divided into typical rooms such as changing room, cold bath, tepid bath and warm bath. Concentrated metal objects were found in the heating shaft of the praefurnium that were probably hidden there when the Alemanni plundered the area, but then no longer picked up.Info about the excavations: http://www.archaeologischer-verein-freising.de/index.php…
Rudolfing
