




On April 29, 1945 the camp was liberated by a unit of the 14th Armoured Division of the United States Army under General Charles H. Karlstad, wherein the ordered transfer of the camp occurred almost without a fight. The site was converted into a detention centre for 12,000 German civilians held accountable for their activities during the period of National Socialism- the "Civilian Internment Camp No. 6". The camp was released by the Americans in 1948 and served to house German refugees exiled from eastern areas. It became a new part of the town, named Moosburg-Neustadt. Three remaining guard barracks were included in the Bavarian monument list on February 15, 2013.
Moosburg Stammlager VIIA, 1945. Pictures from Edward J. Paluch 780 Bomb Squadron. From Fall 1944- Feb 1945 interned in Stalag Luft III. This town about 20km from where I live was the site of Stalag VII A, a PoW camp covering an area of 85 acres which also served also as a transit camp through which prisoners, including officers, were processed on their way to another camp. At some time during the war prisoners from every nation fighting against Germany passed through it. By the time it had been liberated on April 29 1945, there were 130,000 prisoners from at least 26 nations on the camp roster. It was thus the largest prisoner of war camp in Germany.

Moosburg concentration camp warden from the video game Death to Spies: Moment of Truth, where he wears an armband signifying he's from the 5th ϟϟ Panzer Division Wiking. In the centre is Oberst Hans Nepf, Lagerkommandant 1939-1943, and his successor Oberst Otto Burger. The real-life commandants were no video game villains- Nepf was said to have provided decent accommodation for both German soldiers and prisoners of war, and during his time it had been reported that Stalag VII A was "with its beautiful facilities and facilities the most exemplary prison camp in Germany". By the time he resigned in 1943, Nepf was said to have been criticised by Munich-based Nazi authorities for being too decent towards the prisoners. He would eventually die in September 1952 at the age of 73 years in Garmisch. Burger's time as commandant was certainly the most demanding and his courage at the end of the war acknowledged by all. Disregarding the express orders of the Gauleiter, acting as Reich Defence Commissar, Burger made every effort to hand over POWs to the approaching American troops of General Patton. Given that the stalag was surrounded by fanatical Nazis officials, his ability to save the lives of civilians, prisoners and soldiers on both sides is remarkable and prevented Moosburg from being shelled. After the war he and his family continued to live in Moosburg until 1957; his wife worked s a teacher whilst his son Willy- now a lawyer and bank director in Munich- attended elementary school in Moosburg and later grammar school in Freising. In 1964 Burger died at the age of 76.


On the left the funeral procession for two Russian prisoners of war who died on the day the camp was liberated. The right GIF shows by contrast former prisoners of war with recently issued Red Cross food parcels following the liberation of the camp- a number of buildings are still in use. The cases of Americans and British Imperial troops were unique in several respects: their countries were unoccupied by Germany, they held large numbers of German servicemen in captivity, ensuring the attention of the German government, and lastly, their status as 'legitimate' signatories to the Geneva Convention was not called into doubt by Germany (unlike the Soviet Union or, after 1939, Poland). The inspectors were not just valued by the home governments as a source of information - their agents usually argued forcefully for the improvement of conditions of their charges directly with the Commandants of the camps, and noted in their reports if their complaints were satisfactorily dealt with at that level or whether further action would be required at a higher level of authority.



The cemetery of the camp was situated here in the south-western outskirts of Moosburg, an area called Oberreit, among whom 22 or 23 buried were British. From 1946- 1958 the mortal remains moved to central cemeteries before finally being closed in 1958 when 866 bodies were exhumed and reburied at the military cemetery in Schwabstadl near Landsberg. The bodies of 33 Italians were reburied at the Italian Memorial Cemetery near Munich. In 1982 the Moosburg City Council purchased a plot at the site of the old Oberreit cemetery and erected a wooden cross with a simple stone remembering the dead of Stalag VII A.





In the autumn of 2014 on the 75th anniversary of the opening of the camp, this historical marker was relocated at the site, its façade covered by this bronze plaque but steel helmet remaining above.
Today the municipal authorities have seen fit to place a dog association right next to it...


For a site devoted entirely to Moosburg: Moosburg Online

Given the considerable growth Moosburg experienced after the war due to the influx of refugees, it's getting harder to find sites with which to compare.
The West and South entrances to St. Kastulus during the 1930s and today
Inside the church during the Nazi era and today


At the foot of the Johannes tower on Thalbacher straße in a 1935 photograph and today. The rental office across the narrow passage from the tower was demolished that year. On the right is the tower from the other side on the High Street during the war and today.


Hitlerjugend on the left in 1937 and the site today
At the other end of the square is the war memorial shown on the right with Bürgermeister Dr. Müller in front of the memorial on March 10, 1940 and today, the Nazi flags being replaced by the red ensign. In 1935 there were plans in Moosburg to redesign Münsterplatz for political rallies by introducing a wide flight of steps leading from Leinbergerstraße to two "honour temples" and a Gemeinschaftshaus at the choir of St. Kastulus which would be directly reminiscent of Munich's Königsplatz although in the end it was never realised.

Landstraße
Photo developer Georg Reindl driving the first car in Moosburg- a Kolibri- in 1908 on Weingraben.
Here at Weingraben 17 Albert Kraaz ran a newspaper and magazine shop until 1969. A sailor during the war, he had been denounced by his colleagues in 1942 for listening to "enemy transmitters". He was arrested and suffered physical abuse in Gdansk. He had been freed during the death march towards Dachau around Altfraunhofen near Landshut; his wife died in Auschwitz. After the war he denied his Jewish ancestry having been categorised as a 'half Jew.' A subsequent medical report written up upon his claim for compensation for suffering under the Nazi regime almost led him to a psychiatric breakdown after his severe suffering, describing him as a "[m]entally overwhelmed person, stubborn, dissatisfied with everything, does what he likes, does not follow dietary rules, leaves the hospital and comes when it suits him."


The chairman of the Jewish community from May 1946 to January 1948, Heinrich Kinas, lived with his wife Lazia at Weingraben 248 (now Münchner Strasse 1). He came from Breslau and was a dentist. He was imprisoned in 1939, and sentenced to forced labour at the Czestochowa concentration camp. When the camp was liberated on January 17, 1945, Kinas fled to Buchenwald after the camp was closed before the death march before coming to Moosburg with his family from the Feldafing camp. In May 1951 he left Germany for the United States.
Mordcha Zajf, the last chairman of the Jewish community in Moosburg, at Weingraben 22 (today number 20) having come from Poland and had also been employed as a slave labourer from September 1939. After liberation, he spent a year in hospitals in Munich and Gauting for a year, presumably suffering from tuberculosis, one of the most common diseases of the camp. His wife Masza also survived the Holocaust, but their two children obviously did not survive because they are nowhere mentioned.


One of the oldest gable-topped houses in Germany shown in a colourised photograph taken just after the war, and as depicted in a 1941 sketch by a French prisoner of war interned in Stalag VII A.


My favourite Pub on Herrnstraße, formerly a bakery, and looking the other way towards Herrnstraße 293, the second building on the right, where the Jewish administration was housed after the war from January 1946 to February 1951. In 1948, 248 Jews were living in the town, about 80 percent of whom came from Poland. They had been through captivity, concentration camps and death marches for which Moosburg was just a stopover - with the aim of emigrating to other countries. In fact, persecution of Jews in Moosburg dates back as early as 1338 when Jewish residents were killed. In 1951 there were only 34 Jews left in the city and the community and the former sports club Hapoel Moosburg dissolved. The former property of Nazi official Alfred Heppner and his wife Centa on Herrnstraße 7, now the site of a flower shop, was given to the Jewish Committee by the American military government. A synagogue was set up there consisting of a 41 square metre lounge and a 23 square metre prayer room, as well as the municipal administration office, another lounge, an anteroom, a small kitchen and two rooms. There were apartments on the upper floors, where Rabbi Hirsch Gornicky and his family lived in one room. In 1948, the Heppners demanded the return of their property and brought legal action against the town, but the Jewish community refused to provide alternative accommodation. With the dissolution of the Jewish community in 1950, the synagogue was also cleared. At the end of the road is the town hall.
When
the Allied forces conquered Germany, they were able to liberate some
tens of thousands of Jewish prisoners. Between 1945 and 1950, however,
the former Third Reich became a temporary place of refuge for about
200,000 Shoah survivors. Besides the prisoners freed from the work and
death camps, these were people who had fled from the Nazis to Russia,
fought in Eastern Europe with the partisans, or in some other way
managed to survive underground. Starting in the fall of 1945, the American
military government set up special Displaced Persons (DP) camps for
them. For a short time, the US General Eisenhower had even considered
allowing the Jews to set up their own territory in Bavaria. This plan
had been proposed to him by David Ben-Gurion, who was travelling through
occupied Germany at that time. However, a Bavarian Jewish state was
never established. Nevertheless, the Americans conceded wide-ranging
rights of self-determination to the Shoah survivors. The British,
Russians, and French granted no such privileges. Supplies, too, were
more plentiful in the American zone, and so about 85% of all
Jewish DPs settled here, considering their residence, however, as but a
temporary measure. The overwhelming majority believed that their future
would only be guaranteed in a country of their own, convinced that “only
Eretz Israel will succeed in absorbing and healing them, help them
regain their national and human balance.” As the state of Israel would
not be established until 1948, some Jews dreamed also of a new life in
the USA, Canada or Australia.


The birthplace of Josef Furtmeier (born September 3, 1887), one of the mentors of the White Rose, especially Hans Scholl. Sophie Scholl referred to him as "the philosopher."




The bridge that became the main strategic objective
in the battle between Patton and the German ϟϟ in Moosburg, led by the tanks of Sergeants Claude Newton and William Summers and Lieutenants Hack and Boucher. The
Germans eventually bombed the bridge as Newton’s tank moved into the first span in order to keep the American
tanks from crossing it. The battle didn't last long however and by the evening the 14th Armoured Division was established along the Isar. Behind it were miles-long columns of German prisoners being marched to the rear and the fields all around with two thousands of Germans prisoners guarded under lights. Among them lay the burned out German vehicles caught in the fight that morning with the German dead lying in grotesque positions as Graves Registration Officers moved among them preparing for burial and British ex-prisoners of war rode bicycles through the towns. The bridge has recently been replaced by a new one.


Next to the bridge is the Gasthof zur Länd, shown in 1941, April 29, 1945 with Major-General A.C. Smith of the 14th Armoured Division of the 3rd U.S. army overseeing the building of the auxiliary bridge over the Isar by the 300th Combat Engineers, and 73 years later.
About twenty miles south of Landshut is the tiny town of Dorfen, its Marienplatz shown here during the Nazi era and today.
Erding


Prior to and during the Second World War Erding was a Luftwaffe pilot training airfield. It was seized by the United States Army in April 1945 and used as a United States Air Force facility during the early years of the Cold War.


The Nazi flag flying before the stadtturm and flanking the town's war memorial, today its iron cross now replaced from the top.





The
1941 aviation comedy Quax, der Bruchpilot had several scenes shot in or around
Erding- one can for example recognise the Frauenkircherl on Schrannenplatz in the scene shown above.



Some scenes set in and around Erding's Schrannenplatz from the film:








Nazi rallies, marches and demonstrations in Erding

Looking down Landshuter Strasse, comparing the view after the war and today.

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Spiegelgasse |
On Haager Straße the greatest damage was reported as was the number of killed. The pressure of the detonations destroyed roofs and windows in the Innenstadt- on the Schrannenplatz the pharmacy and the Lehner house burned as shown in the photo here. It had taken days of work by mountain commanders to dig up the buried people. To make matters worse, electricity and water were left non-existent for days. The dead wee first placed on the roadside in Hagerstrasse, then brought to the heavily damaged city parish church. The coffins had been stacked on top of one another for reasons of space. Many other towns in Bavaria were bombed that day- Freising, Rosenheim, Dillingen, Augsburg, Neuburg an der Donau and Traunstein. Erding's city archivist, Markus Hiermer, observed that the "flying fortresses" of the US air forces on April 18 should not have actually thrown their cargo over Erding- "An attack on Pilsen was planned, but it was blown off course. They did everything they could to get rid of their bombs." Nazi air defences had already collapsed in the final phase of the war. Nevertheless, Americans and of course the RAF needed to bombard small towns like Erding to break the Germans' last resistance. Thus the attacks were no longer of strategic importance, but it was seen as an appropriate response to the relentless bombing the Germans had happily initiated and continued against civilian populations from the start of their war, particularly against British cities.


The Stadtturm beside the remains of the church on Friedrich Fischer Straße

Comparison of the same street during the Third Reich and after its wartime bombing
Of
course, many other towns in Bavaria were attacked that day including
Freising, Rosenheim, Dillingen, rural districts around Augsburg, Neuburg
an der Donau and Traunstein. In fact, the plan was for the USAAF coming
from Sicily to attack Pilsen but it was blown off, leaving the crews to
do everything they could to get rid of their burden. By now the air
defences had already collapsed in the final phase of the war.
Nevertheless, Americans and British are deliberately bombarding small
towns like Erding to break the Germans' last resistance. The attacks
were of no strategic importance, but it was an answer to the Germans'
bombing of the civilian population. On
April 30 German troops returned through Erding with the last squad
passing ordered to destroy all the bridges. Only the Freisinger bridge,
under which the power lines run to the power plant, was spared because
the master of the works, Georg Pfab, convinced the responsible officer
that Erding could not be allowed to sink into the dark. A day later,
American soldiers entered Erding from the already-taken Eitting: "After
this blaze of fire, the 34th Regiment stormed Erding at 8 am, and at 11
am, the city was in American hands," according to a military report from
the US Army. When the American tanks arrived at Erding on May 1, winter
returned with snow covering the rubble. On May 5, 1945 Army Group G
signed the capitulation order in Haar near Munich ending the area's war.


Comparison of the same street during the Third Reich and after its wartime bombing




More recently one of Germany's most visible far-right extremists has been sentenced to ten months in gaol for greeting a Jewish interviewer with "Heil Hitler." A judge described Horst Mahler as "utterly incorrigible" after he denied the Holocaust, again, in open court. Mahler is said to have started a conversation for the magazine "Vanity Fair" with "Heil Hitler" and denied the Holocaust. The interview was conducted by the journalist and former vice president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Michel Friedman, who subsequently filed a complaint after the interview. Since the conversation was conducted in a hotel at Munich Airport, the prosecutor in Landshut and the court in Erding are responsible for the case. "Vanity Fair" justified the ten-page interview as an exposure of German right-wing extremists. Friedman himself has defended his collaboration in the interview against the criticism that he had offered Mahler a forum. Mahler himself was co-founder of the left-wing terrorist Red Army Fraction (RAF) and later member and advocate of the right-wing extremist NPD. Most recently, he was convicted in November in Cottbus for giving the Hitler salute and sentenced to half a year in prison without parole.
Described in this Nazi-era postcard as Germany's oldest house, the Herderhaus in Bergham just outside Erding is described by the authorities as an"ancient ground-floor block with a high thatched hipped roof from the mid-17th century." With a date of construction listed as being from around 1650, the Herderhaus is certainly one of the oldest rural houses in Bavaria. Moreover, it has been in the same place since its construction and has probably been inhabited for the past four centuries. The last shepherd lived in the house until 1952 before moving to a retirement home, where he died in 1967. The interior of the house is divided into two parts by a corridor, the Flez, on the left of which is the parlour, kitchen and the room for the children. On the right is a small sheepfold for half a dozen sheep belonging to Herder himself. At the north-west corner is the largest room for him and his wife. The hay was stored upstairs. With no running water, the fountain in front of the house. Even today there is a well on the site although the well shaft itself is closed.
Wartenberg


Now the Gasthaus Bründlhof, from a 1940 postcard when it was the Tirolerstube and had a photo of Hitler gracing the wall. A year after I took my photo the building had been demolished to make way for apartment buildings.
Ismaning
Hometown of Otto Braun who, under his assumed Chinese name "Li De," was the only foreigner to have taken part in the Long March with Mao, and might have even been the original proposer of the idea of embarking on such a march in an effort to reach the safer interior of China.


On April 28 the so-called Freiheitsaktion Bayern called for an uprising on the radio, but no one from the village became involved. On April 30, German 'pioneers' blew up the Aschheim Canal Bridge, the bridge to Unterföhring had already been destroyed two days earlier leaving Ismaning largely isolated in terms of traffic. At the same time, the Americans continued from Garching towards Unterdorf and hit the paper mill. This was considered a warning signal and action was taken: a white flag was attached to the church tower. When the local Volkssturmführer exchanged it for a swastika flag, the Americans fired another round. Someone again dared to raise the white flag, this time without being threatened by the remaining Nazi authorities.
On May 1, 1945, the Second World War ended in Ismaning with the invasion of 150 Americans. During the war, refugees and Munich residents who had lost their homes came to Ismaning in search of food and accommodation. In 1946, in addition to its 4,600 inhabitants, the town housed over a thousand displaced persons, mostly from the Sudetenland. There were also other refugees from other regions. Many stayed in Ismaning permanently. Their integration represents a difficult but, from today's perspective, a successful chapter in the local history. The street names of the Bohemian Forest settlement serve as reminders of their former homeland.
Just outside Ismaning is this listed farm house, located on possibly the longest village street in the district of Munich, stretching four kilometres. the In 1905, it was bought by the remarkable widow Therese Randlkofer Therese Randlkofer who managed to own and develop Dallmayr, turning it into what is now the largest delicatessen business in Europe and probably the best-known German coffee brand. She converted the property into a stately model property and gave it the name "Goldachhof" - in the style of the little river that runs through the complex. Randlkofer modernised the system and even had a small E-Werk built in 1906 which was at that time a striking achievement. It exists today, recently renovated according to the guidelines of monument and water protection, and can deliver up to 80 000 KWh of electricity per year.
Adolf-Hitler-Platz
in front of the town hall bedecked with Nazi flags as shown on the
cover of Pfaffenhofen unterm Hakenkreuz by Reinhard Haiplik, now in its
third edition. As Haiplik reveals, in the Reichstag election in 1933,
the Nazis achieved its highest election result in Oberbayern with 43.1
percent of the votes in Pfaffenhofen- "indeed by far." As early as 1923,
some of Hitler's adherents from Pfaffenhofen had participated in the
so-called "Marsch zur Feldherrnhalle," otherwise known as the Munich
beerhall putsch. Some ϟϟ
men from Pfaffenhofen made a career, most notably Anton Thumann.
Between 1933 and the end of the war in 1945 there was a lively support
of the ruling regime among the citizens of the city. In this edition
Haiplik was especially concerned about the subject of war criminals: "I
wanted to name the perpetrators and keep the memory of the victims." In
his newly-written chapter titled "Victims of the Holocaust - Individual
Destinies of Murdered Pioneers," Haiplik devoted his focus to Jewish
families, some of whom lived in Pfaffenhofen for decades and became
victims of the Holocaust. Earlier Haiplik had previously written that
there were probably no Holocaust victims from Pfaffenhofen; he has since
determined that several Jewish families lived in Pfaffenhofen until the
1930s before being sent to Theresienstadt and Auschwitz to be murdered.
SA men jumping out of a wagon in Munich marked "Burgerbräu Pfaffenhofen" during the Beer Hall Putsch, November 9, 1923; some from Pfaffenhofen took part in the attempted coup. Between
1933 and the end of the war there was active support from the
ruling regime among the city's citizens. Indeed, during the Nazi era some ϟϟ men from Pfaffenhofen made noteworthy careers including Anton Thumann who had served in various Nazi concentration camps during the war. He had joined the Nazi party as member no. 1,726,633 and the ϟϟ as member no. 24,444 in the 1930s, serving as a guard at Dachau concentration camp from 1933 onward. Starting in 1937, Thumann was employed in the Office of Guard Command and ascended to the rank of Schutzhaftlagerführer in 1940. By early August 1940 he transferred to Gross-Rosen concentration camp, which at the time was still a sub-camp of Sachsenhausen concentration camp. In early May 1941, Thumann became the Protective Custody Camp Leader of the now independent Gross-Rosen camp, under Commander Arthur Rödl. From February 1943 to March 1944 he was Protective Custody Camp Leader at the Majdanek concentration camp where, due to his sadism and participation in selections, gassings and shootings, he was known as the "Hangman of Majdanek". According to an eyewitness interned at Majdanek during the time, Jerzy Kwiatkowski, Thumann personally executed prisoners and Soviet prisoners of war. He owned a German Shepherd that he used to bite the inmates. For a few weeks between March and April 1944 Thumann was at Auschwitz. He appears in the so-called Höcker Album containing a series of photographs from an ϟϟ recreation camp, the Solahütte near Auschwitz, which had been discovered in 2007. In one of the photos shown on the right Thumann is pictured with Richard Baer, Josef Mengele, Josef Kramer and Rudolf Hoess.
Thumann then served as Protective Custody Camp Leader at Neuengamme concentration camp from mid-April 1944 until the end of April 1945. Often accompanied by his dog, he was very feared in Neuengamme due to his reputation for abuse of prisoners. As the British closed in on Neuengamme, the ϟϟ evacuated the prisoners to prison ships. During the evacuation, 58 male and 13 female resistance fighters from nearby Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp were selected to be brought to Neuengamme to be executed on the orders Georg-Henning Graf von Bassewitz-Behr. With the participation of Thumann, these prisoners were hanged between April 21 and 23, 1945 in a detention cell. When some continued to resist, Thumann threw a hand grenade through the cell window. Under the command of Thumann and Wilhelm Dreimann, the last 700 prisoners remaining at Neuengamme were forced to dispose of bodies and cover up the traces of the camp. On April 30, 1945 the prisoners were then sent on a death march with the aim of reaching the area of the Flensburg government. At the end of the war Thumann was arrested by the British and put on trial before a British military tribunal in the Neuengamme Camp Case No. 1 in Hamburg. Thumann and thirteen other defendants, including Wilhelm Dreimann and Max Pauly, the Commandant of Neuengamme, were charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. The court handed down a guilty verdict on 18 March 1946 and sentenced 11 of the 14 defendants to death by hanging on May 3, 1946, including Thumann, Dreimann and Pauly. The death sentence was carried out by British executioner Albert Pierrepoint at Hamelin prison on October 8, 1946.


Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm





Adolf-Hitler-Platz then and now, renamed Hauptplatz, with the rathaus on the right


The Brauerei Bortenschlager sporting the Nazi flag and today, a K&L clothing shop.
Karl Riemer spent the entire time of the Nazi rule from 1933–1945
in the Dachau concentration camp. He fled from the camp on April 26,
1945. He succeeded in getting through here to Pfaffenhofen, some fifty kilometres
away and already in American hands, by April 29. The American town
commandant there assured him immediate help for the prisoners in the
Dachau concentration camp. Karl Riemer was unaware that the order for
liberating the camp had already been given on the morning of his
arrival.
Nearby is the Holledau bridge on the Bundesautobahn 9, completed as part of the construction of the Reichsautobahn between Nuremberg and Munich. At the end of its sixteen arches is the Rasthaus Holledau," shown then and today. The Rasthof Holledau is the oldest rest stop along Germany's motorway today, built in 1938. Today it continues to boast the sign "Gastlichkeit seit 1938"; apparently Hitler sat beside its fireplace in its Jägerstüberl. A listed bridge today, architect Georg Gsaenger designed the previously 330 metre-long bridge in July 1937. The bridge with the directional road to Munich was inaugurated on November 4, 1938 and its final completion took place in August 1939 at a cost of six million Reichsmarks. On April 28, 1945, the Wehrmacht blew it up as shown here and it wasn't fully rebuilt until 1949. Between 1978 and 1979, the Autobahndirektion Südbayern widened the highway on three lanes in each direction causing it to be slightly altered from how it orginally appeared.
Nearby is the Holledau bridge on the Bundesautobahn 9, completed as part of the construction of the Reichsautobahn between Nuremberg and Munich. At the end of its sixteen arches is the Rasthaus Holledau," shown then and today. The Rasthof Holledau is the oldest rest stop along Germany's motorway today, built in 1938. Today it continues to boast the sign "Gastlichkeit seit 1938"; apparently Hitler sat beside its fireplace in its Jägerstüberl. A listed bridge today, architect Georg Gsaenger designed the previously 330 metre-long bridge in July 1937. The bridge with the directional road to Munich was inaugurated on November 4, 1938 and its final completion took place in August 1939 at a cost of six million Reichsmarks. On April 28, 1945, the Wehrmacht blew it up as shown here and it wasn't fully rebuilt until 1949. Between 1978 and 1979, the Autobahndirektion Südbayern widened the highway on three lanes in each direction causing it to be slightly altered from how it orginally appeared.


Memorial
in Aign about 20 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.




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.


