Apologies- Another work in progress
The radio station in Ismaning was taken over under the command of Lieutenant Ludwig Reiter with a hundred to 150 men and tanks, and from 6:00 the FAB was able to transmit within a radius of more than 100 kilometres, declaring that the FAB had "fought the power of government" and called for support from listeners. In Munich and elsewhere south of the Danube, 78 actions took place involving some 990 participants who responded to this FAB call for action. Governor Ritter von Epp (who had been involved in the Boxer rebellion in China and the first act of genocide in the 20th century against the Herero in German SW Africa, and Nazi member since 1928 when he got elected to parliament, later acting as Reichskommissar and Reichsstatthalter for Bavaria in 1933) had responded hesitantly and had been brought at night to Haidberghof, meeting Major Brown and several officers.
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| The 'CIA Safehouse' nearby |
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 whch began on
April 25, 1945 when prisoners were marched south down the B 301
federal road. The prisoners, guarded by men of the Waffen ϟϟ, were on their way from Buchenwald, Herbruck and Flossenbürg to the concentration camp in
Dachau. 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
towards the direction of Freising. The prisoners had suffered abuse
continuously on every occasion with footsteps, butts, and strokes. In a
courtyard near Erlau north of Freising there was a basket with fodder
potatoes on which some of the starving men rushed. There was a commotion
with the armed guards who were used by four inmates to escape. Two of
them were found starving to death in a barn days later and have recently been identified as Polish farmer Adolf Lodowski and Russian Sergei Petrow.
They were buried with six soldiers and two ϟϟ members who had fought
with American soldiers on April 29 at the Amper near Zolling.
An older Drake Winston beside the Hallbergmoos war memorial at Theresienstraße 7, one of the oldest of its kind in the Freising district. It consists today of a granite stele supporting an obelisk and two bronze lions, flanked by two inscribed steles. It was built by the Hallbergmoos Krieger- und Soldatenverein in 1873, the oldest association in the community. Not much is known about the association, because in the Third Reich all such warriors' associations were united at the Kyffhäuser Conference on May 7, 1933 in Berlin within the Kyffhäuser Bund, which sealed the end of all independent state associations. It was not until the Control Council Act of October 1945 that all Nazi organisations were dissolved and declared illegal, including the NS Reichskriegerbund. The memorial's ceremonial consecration took place on July 7, 1907 at the former location in front of the forester's house at the corner of Leopold-Theresienstraße. The old photo in the GIF shows the original monument, probably after the Great War, with the main teacher Lindermaier, the keynote speaker, together with his two sons. One of them bears the Iron Cross 2nd Class and the Bavarian Order of Military Merit. The cost of the memorial amounted to 945.42 Reichsmark and consisted of donations from Goldach of 208.50 Reichsmarks and Hallbergmoos of 174.60 Reichsmarks. The rest came from private individuals and other districts. The war memorial was extended to include the two columns decorated with lions for the fallen of the First World War; on June 10, 1923, the memorial with the two lions was inaugurated.
At the Ritterturnier held every year on the Pentecost weekend in June on the meadows at the Hausler Hof just outside Hallbergmoos where a knights' tournament is held. I've visited many and although small, this is a great event. The tournament course consists in the middle of a long, coloured railing which separates the two riding arenas. Seconds after the starting call, the horses gallop towards each other as the knights in the saddle have their lances at the ready and their sights on the enemy's shield. When the lance hits, it shatters loudly with a knight needing three points to win, unless the opponent falls off his horse beforehand. Throughout the weekend knights demonstrate their weapons and explain how knights-errant may have once lived. Of course, a family-friendly programme of music and juggling is part of the market activity on the meadows. Besides the large market, a stage programme involving acrobatics and music takes place,
and Viking ships circling the lake, offering free trips to visitors. A
handicraft and grocer's market with around fifty stalls accompanies the
events. The high point of both evenings will be the knights, who will put on a fire show on horseback on Saturday and Sunday at around 21.30.
They
had come from Zolling
towards the direction of Freising. The prisoners had suffered abuse
continuously on every occasion with footsteps, butts, and strokes. In a
courtyard near Erlau north of Freising there was a basket with fodder
potatoes on which some of the starving men rushed. There was a commotion
with the armed guards who were used by four inmates to escape. Two of
them were found starving to death in a barn days later and have recently been identified as Polish farmer Adolf Lodowski and Russian Sergei Petrow.
They were buried with six soldiers and two ϟϟ members who had fought
with American soldiers on April 29 at the Amper near Zolling.
The
former site of the memorial to the west of Freising in this village
church of Hohenbachern shown left; no trace of it remains today.
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 by local
historian Karl-Heinz Zenker in his 120-page book "The Victims of the
Death Marches in the Freising District in Spring / Summer 1945" in
Collection Sheet 36 of the Heimat- und Traditionsverein Hallbergmoos in
which he also describes the fate of Dutch lawyer Johann
Backhuysen-Schuld who had escaped to schloss Erchingen on May 2, 1945
only to die in Freising hospital of general severe exhaustion and
circulatory paralysis.
At the Ritterturnier held every year on the Pentecost weekend in June on the meadows at the Hausler Hof just outside Hallbergmoos where a knights' tournament is held. I've visited many and although small, this is a great event. The tournament course consists in the middle of a long, coloured railing which separates the two riding arenas. Seconds after the starting call, the horses gallop towards each other as the knights in the saddle have their lances at the ready and their sights on the enemy's shield. When the lance hits, it shatters loudly with a knight needing three points to win, unless the opponent falls off his horse beforehand. Throughout the weekend knights demonstrate their weapons and explain how knights-errant may have once lived. Of course, a family-friendly programme of music and juggling is part of the market activity on the meadows. Besides the large market, a stage programme involving acrobatics and music takes place,
and Viking ships circling the lake, offering free trips to visitors. A
handicraft and grocer's market with around fifty stalls accompanies the
events. The high point of both evenings will be the knights, who will put on a fire show on horseback on Saturday and Sunday at around 21.30.
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 radicalised 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.
The incident served as the subject of a documentary by Marcus Siebler
Neufahrn bei Freising
Neufahrn was the site of a satellite camp men's camp where, on April 10 1945, exactly 500 prisoners from the Dachau concentration camp were brought where they occupied
a total of twelve residential barracks. No further barracks that had
already been built on the other side of the street were occupied until
the end of the war. There were also three functional barracks and
outside the camp barracks for the guards. The camp was surrounded by a
high fence and was illuminated by tall light poles. Within the enclosed
area the prisoners were expected to create a 1700-metre-long runway between Dietersheim and Eching for airplanes linked to the airbase at Schleissheim. They
also had to dig cover holes for the guards - tiny dots on aerial
photos taken by the USAAF. The inmates had to work with pickaxes and shovels, but eight of
them were also harnessed to wide leveling shovels. Aerial
photos from April 1945 documents where the Dachau subcamp was located
in Neufahrn, one of which is attached to the new memorial at
Dietersheimer Strasse 56 which was officially inaugurated on April 29,
2017, exactly 72 years after the liberation of the camp. These photos
show the visible traces that the war left in Neufahrn, shown above
superimposed with how Neufahrn looks today from a satellite map. 
On
Samweg shown on the left, for example, the spot where an American
military plane crashed right next to a residential building can be
discerned. One local, Andreas Stegschuster, still remembers the event
when, as a seven-year-old, he was at home with his siblings in his
parents' knitting factory on today's Samweg when suddenly an American
plane crashed right next to the house, and the children saw the burned
body of the pilot. According to him, "[h]e had a wedding ring on one
finger, but when we came back later, the finger and the ring were gone."
Further down Dietersheimer Strasse there were other barracks in the immediate
vicinity of the subcamp, but they were no longer occupied.
On
Samweg shown on the left, for example, the spot where an American
military plane crashed right next to a residential building can be
discerned. One local, Andreas Stegschuster, still remembers the event
when, as a seven-year-old, he was at home with his siblings in his
parents' knitting factory on today's Samweg when suddenly an American
plane crashed right next to the house, and the children saw the burned
body of the pilot. According to him, "[h]e had a wedding ring on one
finger, but when we came back later, the finger and the ring were gone."
Further down Dietersheimer Strasse there were other barracks in the immediate
vicinity of the subcamp, but they were no longer occupied. 
Where the local school is currently located on Fürholzer Weg there were
bunkers and barracks for air force helpers and the ϟϟ. Meanwhile the
impacts of emergency drops can be seen in southern Neufahrn - near the
gravel pit that later became a football field and is now a residential
area. The nearly 500 prisoners in the Dachau subcamp were liberated by
the Americans. During the last weeks of the war they were supposed to
build a runway for Nazi planes near the road. Neufahrn
historian Ernest Lang interviewed witnesses who related how two farmers
had thrown potatoes over the fence for the starving prisoners and were
then threatened by guards. An enlargement of the aerial photograph
attached to the monument shows twelve symmetrically arranged barracks
for the prisoners and to the south of them functional barracks as well
as outside the fence accommodation for the guards and next to them cover
holes, similar to those in the heather. Until recently, there were
remains of the building's foundations which had been discovered during
the excavation for the new building area. 
During
his research, Lang came across a letter with which the municipality had
raised an objection to the construction of the runway, asking for it to
be moved one kilometre south or else "the best potato-growing areas
would be destroyed" and the site would be at risk if the nearby runway
were targeted by attacks. The runway was never finished; on the aerial
photo, only a 350-metre-long, partially paved strip of earth can be
seen. The further course was already marked out when the Americans
occupied Neufahrn. After the liberation, the prisoners were looked after
by the local farmers, the youngest being 18 years old. Eventually the
prisoners left the place although the camp elder, Josef von der Bank,
stayed, starting a family in Neufahrn and was a founding member of FC
Neufahrn. The situation in nearby Dietersheim was much worse
given the many ϟϟ men present and the heavy guns from the flak batteries
ready to fire. At 2.30 in the morning an American infantry division
approached from Eching on the road and across the heath. A machine gun
was set up at the crossroads in the middle of the village and was firing
as fighting took place on the outskirts of the village. Eventually
around an hundred German soldiers were taken prisoner and six ϟϟ soldiers
killed. The
parish was plundered by Russians, Poles and the concentration camp
prisoners who were housed in Neufahrn with looting continuing in the
weeks after the invasion and even up to August, especially in the
farmhouses with Dietersheim especially suffering. Apparently American
soldiers also acted violently in some houses and forced people to
deliver food with bicycle theft a common occurence. Pigs were stolen
from several farmers a branch of the Oberpollinger company in Munich was
completely looted.
During
his research, Lang came across a letter with which the municipality had
raised an objection to the construction of the runway, asking for it to
be moved one kilometre south or else "the best potato-growing areas
would be destroyed" and the site would be at risk if the nearby runway
were targeted by attacks. The runway was never finished; on the aerial
photo, only a 350-metre-long, partially paved strip of earth can be
seen. The further course was already marked out when the Americans
occupied Neufahrn. After the liberation, the prisoners were looked after
by the local farmers, the youngest being 18 years old. Eventually the
prisoners left the place although the camp elder, Josef von der Bank,
stayed, starting a family in Neufahrn and was a founding member of FC
Neufahrn. The situation in nearby Dietersheim was much worse
given the many ϟϟ men present and the heavy guns from the flak batteries
ready to fire. At 2.30 in the morning an American infantry division
approached from Eching on the road and across the heath. A machine gun
was set up at the crossroads in the middle of the village and was firing
as fighting took place on the outskirts of the village. Eventually
around an hundred German soldiers were taken prisoner and six ϟϟ soldiers
killed. The
parish was plundered by Russians, Poles and the concentration camp
prisoners who were housed in Neufahrn with looting continuing in the
weeks after the invasion and even up to August, especially in the
farmhouses with Dietersheim especially suffering. Apparently American
soldiers also acted violently in some houses and forced people to
deliver food with bicycle theft a common occurence. Pigs were stolen
from several farmers a branch of the Oberpollinger company in Munich was
completely looted. 
The
prisoners at Neufahrn were also supposed to build another airfield at
Garchinger Heide, but it was never finished although they did manage to
remove the soil for the slope. It's at Garchinger Heide that a
remarkable archaeological site in Eching is located- these bronze age
burial mounds dating between 1800- 1000 BCE. Thirteen of the more than
fifty barrows were opened which contained nine skeletons as well as
jewelery, weapons and ceramics which are now in the archive of the
Prehistoric Collection in Munich.
Hohenkammer
Schloss
Hohenkammer in kreis Freising, flying the Nazi flag. The influence of
the Nazis 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 Nazi Party
in Hohenkammer, Josef Münsterer, became a member of the town council
and its second mayor. The Nazi Party 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 ϟϟ 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 an ϟϟ 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 ϟϟ 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 an ϟϟ 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 starting at
8.15 when the 17th ϟϟ 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 ϟϟ 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 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
