Former Nazi Sites in Moosburg and kreis Freising

Moosburg

Münchenerstraße during the Nazi era. The Nazi Party in Moosburg began in 1922 culminating on March 16, 1923, when a local group of the party was founded in the city, the first in the entire district. The Moosburg local group supported the founding of the local branch in Freising and by 1928 the district management of the Nazi Party was for the district in Moosburg.

Stalag VIIA

In September 1939, a prisoner of war camp Stalag VII-A was built to accommodate ten thousands of prisoners. The General Command of the Military District VII in Munich chose this site between the Isar and Amper rivers along with the General Command of the Wehrkreis VII in Munich. Within a fortnight the camp was ready for the first prisoners who arrived on October 19, 1939. They were initially housed in tents. In the hall of an adjacent artificial fertiliser factory a delousing facility was built. Initially, the camp accommodated Polish and Ukrainian soldiers captured in 1939. From 1940 additional barracks were built so that by the summer of 1940, the area of the camp had grown to 350,000 m². Thus after the Western campaign in 1940, French soldiers (and members of the Polish armed forces in France ) were increasingly deported to Moosburg. After the invasion of the Soviet Union in mid-1941 there correspondingly followed a large number of prisoners of the Red Army. By the end of the war, the number of inmates grew to 80,000 (including increasingly Western allied airmen who had been shot down in the bombing of Germany, including roughly two hundred generals alone); they were used in surrounding industries, agriculture and trade whilst Moosburg itself had only about 5,000 inhabitants. Tens of thousands of prisoners of war were housed in subcamps and labour detachments around the area. About 2,000 German guardsmen of the 512th Landesschützen battalion were stationed in their own barracks area between Moosburg and the Stalag. Due to the presence of the camp the entire surroundings were spared from allied bombing.

On the right is a covert photograph taken at Stalag VIIA at Moosburg in November 1943, showing British PoWs resting by the side of a hut. By early 1945, the number of registered prisoners had grown to more than 80,000 - many working in regional industries and farms. It is likely that the presence of this camp close to the town centre spared it from large-scale bombing. Indeed, whilst the Anglo-Americans dropped bombs on Erding, Freising and Landshut, the Dreirosenstadt was spared because of the Stalag. Nevertheless, there were frequent air raid alarms in Moosburg as, for example, when American pilots bombed a passenger train near Isareck leaving eighteen dead. In Moosburg itself there were four air-raid shelters, including at the fire station and the site of today's library as some Moosburgers had dug protective ditches in their gardens.
On April 29, 1945 the camp was liberated by a unit of the 14th Armoured Division of the American 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 Nazi period- 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 15 miles 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. Its size and scope provide a microcosmic glimpse into the larger military strategies employed during the conflict. It's essential to comprehend that the German war strategy was dependent not just on the force of arms but also on psychological warfare. Prisoners, especially officers, were often taken to extract crucial military intelligence and to potentially negotiate exchanges. Stalag VIIA, housing over 130,000 PoWs at its peak, was emblematic of this strategic approach. Herein, the camp served as a theatre for psychological warfare where the German High Command tried to influence Allied soldiers' morale and loyalty.

The entrance to the camp and the site today. A.J.P. Taylor argued that Stalag VIIA was instrumental in revealing the systemic patterns of Nazi PoW policies, allowing for a better understanding of the complexities of the Third Reich's administration. Contrary to the expectations of an ordered and efficient German administrative system, the conditions and practices within Stalag VIIA reflected disorganisation, chaos, and the lack of a uniform policy regarding PoWs. More recently Kershaw's work on the administrative chaos within the Third Reich, characterised by competing power centres and conflicting directives, can be applied in the context of Stalag VIIA's chaotic and inconsistent policies which led to a range of living conditions and treatment of prisoners. This chaos also presented opportunities for resistance and survival among the prisoners, from maintaining morale through cultural activities to gathering intelligence that could be usedThis complexity challenges the traditional narrative of a 'totalitarian' Nazi state with a monolithic power structure. Closely associated with this aspect is the significance of Stalag VIIA in terms of military strategy. The existence of such a large PoW camp, situated deeply within German territory, served multiple purposes. As Evans argued, it functioned as a deterrent against potential uprisings in occupied territories. It also had the strategic benefit of forcing the Allies to divert significant resources, including manpower, for PoW rescue operations, which would otherwise have been utilised on the frontline. The experiences of those interned in Stalag VIIA were also reflective of the broader societal and cultural effects of the war. The narratives emerging from this camp highlight the intricacies of wartime experiences and provide an insight into the lived reality of the soldiers.

The town itself shown in the background of this photo taken right after liberation. The accounts of the PoWs also underscore the resourcefulness and resilience demonstrated by the inmates under challenging circumstances. For instance, British, and American PoWs organised a variety of activities ranging from educational classes to theatrical performances to maintain morale and a semblance of normalcy. These activities, as argued by Gilbert, served a dual purpose: they provided a necessary distraction from the hardships of prison life and fostered a sense of camaraderie and shared identity amongst the prisoners. In the context of cultural history, these experiences in Stalag VIIA illuminate the transformative potential of the arts during times of crisis. Gilbert's assertion that the communal activities in the camp allowed for a form of cultural resistance is crucial here. Even under oppressive conditions, these activities upheld a sense of human dignity and hope, offering a nuanced perspective on the resilience of the human spirit during the war.

On the left is the Moosburg concentration camp warden from the Russian video game Death to Spies: Moment of Truth, where he wears an armband signifying he's from the 5th ϟϟ Panzer Division Wiking which, recruited from foreign volunteers in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, the Netherlands and Belgium, had no connection  in reality to Moosburg but would eventually surrender to the Americans in Austria near Fürstenfeld on May 9, 1945. 

On the right and below on the other hand are 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 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. He disregarded the express orders of April 27, 1945 when, at 20.30, Commander-in-Chief West issued the following order: “The hour of the decision has come. It's about the last resistance and victory. Mutineers and deserters must be dealt with ruthlessly. Everyone has a duty to remove failing officers in order to take the lead themselves." Instead, Burger followed his own conscience, explaining it to the prisoners on the morning of April 28. As Dominik Reither argues, "[i]n doing so, he refused an order in public and put his life in danger." Not only did the guards follow the colonel's lead, but according to reports, citizens of Moosburg are also starting to hide bazookas or render them unusable in order to sabotage further fighting.  He was also ordered to march south with the captured officers who had probably been intended to be used as bargaining chips in possible negotiations with the Allies. Such a march without either prepared accommodation or food would have meant deadly hardships for the prisoners. Whilst the crews were to remain in Moosburg, the camp buildings were to be blown up so that no accommodations could fall into enemy hands. Instead, both Major Koller and Colonel Burger decided to hand over the city and the camp without a fight and prevented the prisoners from being taken away.

 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 as 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. In all probability this was a result of the PoWs finding the cellar in which the Wehrmacht had stored 8,000 litres of wine. The Russian soldiers in particular got drunk and, already physically weakened, the consumption of alcohol became a lethal dose. The next day the military government had to order forty coffins for those who did not survive the binge. When the Americans closed the cellar, angry prisoners set it on fire. A farmer's property also burned when he hesitated to surrender a calf. At the same time, after the second day of the looting seventeen rapes were reported. City pastors and chaplains then set up shelters for women and girls in the rectory; it took eight days for the Americans to contain the looting and another fortnight to stop it completely.

The GIF on the right 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...

...whilst in the town itself this memorial, the Heimatvertriebenen from 1958, commemorates the Germans' suffering; by 1950 1,931 out of 8,677 Moosburg citizens were refugees fleeing the Soviets. On the right is the view down the same road, Sudetenlandstraße, then and now. Whilst the layout is recognisable, today all that remains physically is a single dilapdiated prisoner barrack and three guard barracks.

Showing the area during the war and how it appears today. as a new district renamed Neustadt. Such development began from 1948 when Volksdeutsche refugees from across eastern Europe, including the lost German territory arrived. As in the case in Dachau when then the concentration camp found itself transformed into a council estate accommodating mostly expelled Germans from the Sudetenland, the former Stalag in Moosburg now provided residential and social space within the former barracks, creating an industrial site and housing estate from scratch. Today there is a 'Stalag-Neustadt-Museum' at Hodschager Straße 2 (open only for a couple of hours on Fridays) dedicated to the history of the development of the area using photographs, explanatory texts and original objects which is divided into three sections; during its time as "Stalag VII A;"  the American military government's "Civilian Internment Camp No.6" from 1945-1948 set up to hold Germans found guilty of criminal activities during the Nazi regime; and the settlement of refugees and expellees from 1948 leading to the current district of "Moosburg-Neustadt"

Some surviving vestiges of the original barracks being used, and along Schlesierstraße

For a site devoted entirely to Moosburg: Moosburg Online

Nearby in front of St. Pius church on land devoted to serve as a memorial to the prisoners of the stalag is this fountain, the Stalag Gedenkbrunnen, which had been created by French prisoner Antoniucci Volti in 1942 and set up in 1963. The reliefs are intended to represent the four great rivers of France- the Garonne, Loire, Rhône and Seine. Volti himself had been born in Albano, Italy, in 1915, before his family moved to France in 1920. A book by art historian Christine Fößmeier, "Volti - A major French artist in Stalag VII A Moosburg," is expected to be published. Volti attended the École des Arts Décoratifs in Nice and later went to Paris. After the war he returned to Paris, where his studio and his works were destroyed shortly thereafter. Moosburg therefore possesses, as Fößmeier's project description states, "a unique excerpt from the work of Volti". He continued to work in Paris after the war, where he died in 1989. Volti's works can be found in the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris, the Musée de la Ville de Paris, Albi, Menton, Nice and Honfleur.  

 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.

Soldiers of the Infanterie Ersatz-Bataillon 423 in front of today's Anton-Vitzthum-Elementary School, shown arriving to eat in the school yard. The division ended up operating in the Ukraine until January 1944 when the division was encircled near Zwiahel and relocated to the Eastern Front after a loss-making break from the pocket. There the division was promptly destroyed due to insufficient combat experience and training. The survivors were then deployed among other divisions for the formation of the 363rd Infantry Division and the 394th Field Training Division which would take over the position of the division in Ukraine.

The West and South entrances to St. Kastulus during the 1930s and today

Inside the church during the Nazi era and today. In 1927 the church Oettingen received a new organ and also a replacement for the bells that had partially melted down during the First World War when 44 per cent of the bells in Germany alone were lost to support the war effort. As Sir Hew Strachan records at 0:12:32 in the episode 'Germany's Last Gamble' for his outstanding First World War series, such were the "signs of the increasing scarcity of metal. In a small town near here, a sad ceremony took place. The church bell, which had rung the people from cradle to grave for 300 years, was requisitioned. The inhabitants performed a funeral service for it. The bell was covered with wreaths and flowers and handed over to the military authorities under tears and protestations." In the end, these replacement bells themselves had to be sacrificed in 1942 for armament purposes. It was not until 1954 that today's seven bells found their place in the bell cage of the cathedral tower. The interior was renovated in 1937 and 1938 and again in 1971-72.

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. During the battle for the town the Americans fired upon the Johannesturm, where ϟϟ troops had established a position. The Moosburgers had already broken off their Sunday service in the neighbouring church and fled to their cellars. Given that ϟϟ troops had no heavy weapons and bazookas had been made unusable in Moosburg, the tanks were able to quickly break their resistance. The Americans couldn't however prevent scattered ϟϟ men from blowing up the Isar Bridge but nevertheless conquered the city as summarised below, apparently being greeted with flowers by the population. However any calm quickly evaporated as American troops looted wedding rings and watches and moved into quarters in private houses with the residents usually only having an hour to pack their essentials before being evicted. Soon groups of newly freed prisoners poured into the town and looted shops such as a military shoe warehouse at the train station which was entirely cleared out. Freed prisoners tore all the maps from atlases out of a classroom at the children's detention centre that provided some orientation for their return home. Farms and private homes all around the surrounding area were targetted as well with food, blankets, beds, jars and frying pans taken away. Already on the second day of looting, seventeen cases of rape were reported as local priests and chaplains set up shelters for women and girls in the vicarage. Whilst thne Americans tried to prevent attacks and return stolen items, they were only able to stem the looting after eight days; it took a fortnight for the rampage to stop completely.

   

Hitlerjugend on the left in 1937 and the site today

At the other end of the square is the war memorial and today, the Nazi flags being replaced by the red ensign. The  images on the right show Bürgermeister Dr. Hermann Müller in front of the memorial on March 10, 1940. 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.

 
Moosburg railway station in 1935 sporting the Nazi flag and now

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."

 During the Nazi era the Jewish merchant Alois Weiner operated a large department store in Moosburg on am Gries until 1937 when he moved to Munich. The GIF on the left shows Auf dem Gries in 1936 and during the 2016 Herbstshau; Alois Weiner's department store in the large building on the left. He was first sentenced to forced labour in a flax factory for "racial disgrace" (his partner Klara Brunner was "Aryan" according to the Nazis) and, because of his Jewish descent, was then deported. In 1945 he was able to return to Moosburg from the Theresienstadt camp after its liberation and ran his department store again. He became a town and district councillor as a member of the SPD since 1918, and was temporarily the second mayor in Moosburg.

The GIF on the right is looking the other direction in a watercolour by Valentin Ott just before the war.

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 before being 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, 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. 

 http://www.after-the-shoah.org/index.php?id=3

 

The birthplace of Josef Furtmeier, one of the mentors of the White Rose, especially Hans Scholl. Sophie Scholl referred to him as "the philosopher." 

From the end of 1918 until May 1, 1919 he was a member of the Communist Party, and in the spring of 1919 he took part in a communist demonstration at the Justice Palace in Munich. This, and the fact that he refused to use the Hitler salute nor joined any Nazi organisation, led him to be fired in October 1933 on the basis of the law for the restoration of the professional civil service. Up until 1945 he lived in Moosburg and Munich, receiving a pension which was small compared to his last salary. From mid-1941 Hans Scholl got in touch with Josef Furtmeier about Carl Muth and Alfred von Martin. Sophie and Hans Scholl met regularly with Furtmeier. Concerning a conversation on June 4, 1942 with Furtmeier, Sophie Scholl reported: "... a three-hour, uninterrupted and exhausting conversation was held." After the arrest of the leading members of the White Rose, Furtmeier was held by the Gestapo from February 28 to March 20, 1943.  Furtmeier stated after the war period how he had talked with Hans Scholl about the legitimacy of the murder of tyrants. In May 1945 he was appointed mayor of the city of Moosburg and began investigations into former Nazi party members and against Nazi divisions. At the commemorative ceremony for the victims of the White Rose in 1945 in Munich, he gave a speech alongside Romano Guardini. In 1946 he joined the SPD. After 1949 he tried two times to obtain a promotion as compensation for his dismissal in 1933. This was denied him by the ministry which claimed that he had been already adequately compensated. He's buried in the family grave at the cemetery in Moosburg shown here on the left.

Also buried in Moosburg (next to a memorial to those killed in the air bombing) is Koloman Wagner, born April 15, 1905 in Sünzhausen. In 1943 he worked at the Driescher firm producing war materiel when Joseph Goebbels gave his Sportpalast, or total war, speech to a large and carefully-selected audience on February 18, 1943 calling for total war, as the tide of the war had turned against Germany. His colleague, Maria Huber, testified in court that following the speech Wagner repeated Goebbels's question "Do you want your men to come to the front; do you want the total war?" and responded with a sarcastic "yes" before stating that this has "signed your men's death sentence." She went on to say in her denunciation that the female workers were ashamed by his attitude, especially given the number of prisoners of war working alongside them. The Nazi mayor of Moosburg at the time, Dr. Hermann Müller (whose portrait hangs today in the town hall) declared that "Wagner is, in my opinion, a man who threatens public morale through his attitude and lifestyle." Even after the supportive testimony of the company's management which had testified how Wagner had been responsible for labour-saving innovations, his fate was sealed. The Attorney General reported to the minister of justice the enforcement of the judgement on July 27, 1944: "The execution process lasted 53 seconds from leaving of the cell; eight seconds from his handover to the executioner until the fall of the axe. No other incidents or other events of importance occurred."

Nearby is the grave of Heinrich Hiermeier. An active member of the communist party since 1931, he was first imprisoned by the Nazis and held under 'protective custody' in Moosburg from March 10 to May 3, 1933. He remained an antifascist- it had been reported to district authorities in January 1936 that although publicly Hiermeier had abandoned his earlier attitude, it is clear to his work colleagues that he "does not agree with the current system." By the end of that month he had been arrested again and on June 23 appeared before the Higher Regional Court in Munich for apparently planning a treasonous activity before being sentenced to two years and four months at the penitentiary. It's not clear if was released the end of his sentence on June 23 1938 but he is recorded as having died in a camp, possibly one that had used 1000-1200 forced labourers in the Obersalzberg to work on one of the gigantic construction projects at the time. Nor is the nature of his death, recorded on his grave as having been February 19, 1940, other than he had supposedly been crushed by scaffolding which led to a skull fracture, internal bleeding and fracture of neck vertebrae.

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. On the morning of April 28 ϟϟ formations arrived in Moosburg with a regiment of the Nibelungen division taking up position in the town supported by a combat group made up of members of the French 33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the ϟϟ Charlemagne. The ϟϟ commander was initially determined to defend Moosburg "for the long term" but was eventually dissuaded by Colonel Burger who instead sought to send a negotiating delegation made up of Red Cross representatives and captured officers to the Americans, who had already reached walls. By 15.30 the delegation and the ϟϟ officer headed towards the front. 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 but 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 seen here.

 Next to the bridge is the Gasthof zur Länd, shown in 1941 and April 29, 1945 below. According to author Dominik Reither in his recent book "Zwischen Hakenkreuz und Sternenbanner - Kriegsende und Nachkriegszeit in Moosburg" which focuses on the period between April 29, 1945, when the Americans marched into Moosburg and the election to the first Bundestag on August 14, 1949,  Moosburg, which had previously been spared major bombardments, only suffered from them towards the end of the war, when the front drew closer and low-flying aircraft attacks in the area increased. Whilst city commander Major Rudolf Koller, camp commander Colonel Otto Burger and Mayor Hermann Müller had decided not to defend Moosburg and hand it over to the approaching Americans, ϟϟ units resisted when the American Army took the city and liberated the camp. Reither writes how there were no dead or wounded in Moosburg during the invasion but chaotic days of looting, rape and arson by freed prisoners followed. It is believed that there were 70,000 to 80,000 people in the overcrowded Stalag at the end and Reither describes how western prisoners of war were brought home whilst those from the east remained as displaced persons in the town as the city administration was rebuilt, a Jewish community formed, expellees and refugees were taken in and the Neustadt district came into being on the Stalag site. Reither also addresses denazification, such as the case of ex-mayor Müller, who after three years of internment ultimately received a mild sentence and was only classified as a follower, even though he was a staunch Nazi. Reither's book also provides insights into the "German Youth Activities" programme, with which the Americans also got young people off the streets in Moosburg and led them towards democracy. He describes how cultural, sporting and leisure activities gained momentum again and includes anecdotes such as those from the FC Bayern Munich visit, who made two guest appearances at SpVgg Moosburg in September 1945. 

Drake Winston with his FC Eichenfeld team after winning the 2019 Sparkasse Cup final in Moosburg against the home side.

Had taken considerable time to hunt down the site of a Roman villa that had been excavated just about fifteen 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. Information about the excavations: http://www.archaeologischer-verein-freising.de/index.php…

Around Freising

It was just outside Freising to the north at the Haidberghof (which I run past very week) in the hamlet of Pettenbrunn that Major Alois Braun chose as a base for the anti-Nazi Freiheitsaktion Bayern (FAB). In early April 1945 here at the Haidberghof (shown on the left in 1935 and today), 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 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.

The 'CIA Safehouse' nearby

However, von Epp left the isolated farm in the morning unconvinced. He was later arrested on Giesler's orders after being associated with the Freiheitsaktion Bayern, led by Rupprecht Gerngroß. However, Epp had not wanted to be directly involved with the group as he considered their goal - surrender to the Allies - a backstabbing of the German army. In total 57 people were arbitrarily executed whilst other activists managed to escape and hide. After the war, Major Braun worked in the Bavarian Ministry of Education as an elementary school consultant. From 1947 he founded the "Archives of the resistance movement set up by order of the Bavarian State Chancellery." The documents, which were collected there and are now kept in the Munich Institute for Contemporary History, contain a great deal of important information about the construction of a missile site. If one stands in front of the tombstone of the Holzer family at the site and look north-east, one can roughly make out the spot where the building stood on the opposite hill. 

Nearby is the "Active radar search device for the operational service" - ARED, the official name of the German Air Force's airspace surveillance.

Here, just outside Freising in Dürneck where I cycle past everyday to get to work, is where Ferdinand Marian died in a road accident in 1946 in the evening of August 9, 1946 on Münchner Strasse. Just south of Freising's town limits as the city police officer on duty Sieber entered into his report log the following day, a car went off the road and collided with a tree. The two passengers, Karl Hermann from Prague and his fiancé Erna Ladislava, were taken to the hospital with minor injuries. The driver died at the scene of the accident; this was the then well-known actor Ferdinand Marian.. He had been the star of history’s most incendiary film, Jud Süß despite having had an half-Jewish daughter from his first marriage and whose second wife had been married to a Jew whom Marian hid in his house. Apparently he had been driving to Munich drunk with a borrowed car to collect denazification papers that with the permission by American film officer Eric Pleskow that would have allowed him to work again, having celebrated this news just beforehand.

Other sources suggest that the accident was suicide although I can't find any support for this claim. The fact that there were already efforts to allow Marian to act again offer suppot against it. His losing fight to not appear in the film was the subject of the German-Austrian movie Jud Süss - Film ohne Gewissen of 2010. The actor Ferdinand Marian feared that he would no longer be cast by the Reichsfilmkammer, which is why he did not dare to turn down the role. In the period that followed, he also appeared in other National Socialist propaganda films, such as the anti-British film "Ohm Krüger" about the Boer War in southern Africa. As a result, he was further promoted by Joseph Goebbels and ultimately saved from military action in the war. After 1945, these connections to the Nazi propaganda apparatus led to his being banned from working for life by the Allies.

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 which 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.

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. 

 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 although they were cancelled when we went in 2023. 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.

Also just outside Freising but to the east is the 'Naturfreunde' centre in Hangenham overlooking the area which hosted the Nazis in 1933. The Naturfreunde, or 'Friends of Nature', is an international movement committed to the protection of nature. Founded in Austria in 1895, it expanded to Germany shortly thereafter. By the early 20th century, Naturfreunde centres were established throughout the country, becoming popular hubs for nature enthusiasts, social reformers, and political activists. However, with the rise of the Nazi regime, these centres were faced with unique challenges and pressures. Under the Nazi regime, the Naturfreunde centres underwent significant transformations. Steven B. Bowman argues that these transformations were primarily driven by the regime's intentions to manipulate public opinion and control societal institutions. Naturfreunde centres, which had traditionally been known for their politically left-leaning views and commitment to social and environmental justice, were targeted for 'cleansing'. According to Bowman, this was part of the wider Nazi policy of Gleichschaltung or 'coordination', which aimed at bringing all aspects of German life under the control of the Nazi Party. Despite Bowman's argument seeming comprehensive, Richard J. Evans maintains that while there were indeed attempts at manipulating the Naturfreunde centres, it was not solely due to the Gleichschaltung policy, instead contending that the Nazi regime saw these centres as potential platforms for propagating its own ideology about the significance of 'Blood and Soil' – a racially driven environmental ethos, and the volkisch connection to the land. The centres were seen as strategic platforms for indoctrinating the youth and spreading Nazi ideology among the populace.
Despite these transformations and pressures, Naturfreunde centres also served as pockets of resistance against the Nazi regime. Marcus Funck's work, 'Naturfreunde in the Nazi Era', gives valuable insight into this aspect by positing that the Naturfreunde centres, due to their historical commitment to social and political reform, harboured dissenters and acted as discreet nodes of the resistance movement. Evans corroborates Funck's argument, asserting that Naturfreunde centres, due to their historically egalitarian and left-leaning ethos, were likely to be fertile ground for the resistance movement. However, Evans also points out the danger in overstating the level of active resistance these centres could offer, given the level of surveillance and repression by the Gestapo and the fear of reprisals.

Regardless of the levels of resistance, the Nazi regime's suppression of the Naturfreunde centres was ultimately successful. According to Bowman, the regime's strategy of suppression was two-pronged: infiltration and violent repression. Agents from the Gestapo infiltrated the centres, reporting any signs of resistance, while overt signs of dissent were brutally crushed. Many Naturfreunde members were arrested, and the centres were either repurposed or closed. Marcus Funck provides a more detailed account of the suppression through accounts of specific instances of arrests, closures and even the execution of some Naturfreunde members. This intensifying repression forced the centres into a grim struggle for survival, and many eventually went into dormancy or complete dissolution.

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.

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.

 

 

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.

 

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. 

 

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.