




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.
The entrance to the camp and the site today, and the town itself shown in the background on the right
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. 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.
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.

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.


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.
Some surviving vestiges of the original barracks being used, and along Schlesierstraße
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. 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 nevertheless conquered the city, apparently being greeted with flowers by the population, of whom nothing is known regarding civilian casualties.


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.


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, 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 and April 29, 1945.
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.Info about the excavations:
http://www.archaeologischer-verein-freising.de/index.php…
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 were 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 American flying fortresses 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 American 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 Faction (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.
Isen
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Now the Gasthof Klement, this was the HQ for the Americans staying in the town. The photo on the left is marked by A Troop's Hugh West.
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West himself shown with some local children in Isen; wasn't sure I had the right spot until I got home and noticed the gate and windows lined up. Beside it is how it appeared sporting the sign marking the location for the troops' base.

Near Dingolfing is this memorial commemorating the emergency landing of the "Reichsluftschiff Z1" on April 1st, 1909. 36 metres in length with a diametre of 11.65 metres, the aircraft was powered by two four-cylinder Daimler in-line engines, each with 100 hp which enabled it to reach a top speed of around 45 kilometres per hour. On board was Graf Zeppelin himself, his chief engineer Dürr and various military personnel and flown by airship captain Hacker. As a result, the first long-distance flight to Munich made headlines with houses decked out in flags, children allowed out of school and postcards printed for the event. Zeppelin arrived in Munich at around 9.00 but was unable to land because the wind was too strong and it was therefore driven away to the disappointment of Prince Regent Luitpold who had been waiting to receive the entourage. Its travel over Erding led people to travel all directions to see the giant 'flying cigar' for themselves. Initially, the municipalities of Loiching and Niederviehbach vied for the plot of land on which the zeppelin actually landed, until an agreement was reached on the former although this memorial stone is sited in the community of Niederviehbach on Staatsstrasse 2074. The monument was restored to mark the centenary of the landing.

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 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. Indeed, the Nazi movement found supporters in Pfaffenhofen very early on. In 1922 ten of its citizens had become Nazi Party members, attending Nazi meetings in Munich's Bürgerbräukeller, at which Hitler spoke. The men from Pfaffenhofen asked Hitler to come to Pfaffenhofen which he did on September 23, 1922. Hitler spoke in the Müllerbräukeller; less than a fortnight later on October 4, 1922 the founding meeting of a local Nazi Party group in Pfaffenhofen took place in the next room of the Pfaffelbräu. In 1923 there were already 130 Nazi members in Pfaffenhofen with sixty of them joining the SA. At 2.00 on the day of the Hitler putsch, a regimental commander arrived at the house local group leader Wilhelm Hörskens with orders to immediately provide men for the occupation of Munich.
According to a report in the Pfaffenhofener Volksblatt of November 9, 1933, eighteen men followed this order. According to Hans Niedermayr, whose father and uncle were involved in the putsch, fifteen men absolutely wanted to be taken to Munich but the large Müllerbräulastwagen was not ready for use, and so one had to be content with a smaller car from the brewery. Only eleven revolutionaries would have found space in it. These have been drawn. The four people who stayed at home were entrusted with another task: they were supposed to carry out the "revolution" in Pfaffenhofen. The Pfaffenhofen putschists' truck only got as far as Lohof before being driven into a ditch. According to the Pfaffenhofener Volksblatt of November 9, 1933, the Pfaffenhofeners had fought valiantly and heroically on the front line; at the time however the same newspaper actually admitted that they had fled as soon as they heard the first gunshots.
The land surveying office on the main square shown left which was used by the Nazi district leadership from 1933 to 1945. On the day Hitler was appointed Chancellor the town's ϟϟ squadron marched through the streets of the town with flaming torches at 20.00 Five years later, then-mayor Otto Bauer recalled: "What it was for us when we got the news that Adolf Hitler was Chancellor. Adolf Hitler is in power! Tears of joy filled our eyes and we enjoined the ϟϟ-Heim to fight again for Adolf Hitler, for Germany's way into eternity." In the March 5, 1933 elections a week after the Reichstag fire the turnout in Pfaffenhofen was 90%. 1, 033 voted for the Nazis, making them the biggest party. In comparison the BVP received 826 votes, the SPD 570, and the communists 138. In the Pfaffenhofen district, 10,193 citizens voted for the Nazis, 6,854 for the BVP, 1,286 for the SPD, 570 for the KPD, and 816 for the Bauernbund. This gave the Nazis their best result of all of Upper Bavaria with 43.1% (other sources claim 50.2%) voting for the Nazis.
At noon on March 10, 1933, the Nazi flag was raised from the balcony of the town hall as seen on the left.
Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm





Later that year Pfaffenhofen had a second vote on November 12 to vote on Hitler's policy- 3,070 people from Pfaffenhofen voted 'yes', 62 'no'. The residents of a now demolished Wallnerhaus on Sonnenstrasse voted unanimously with "no" with its house ending up being smeared with fæces.
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 Jerzy Kwiatkowski, an eyewitness interned at Majdanek during the time, 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.



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.



Some views of the town before the war and today

Master baker Heinrich Wagenknecht prevented the Ilm Bridge, shown here from around 1935, from being blown up when the Americans invaded on April 27, as they approached Pfaffenhofen on a broad front in a southerly direction. The XIII. ϟϟ-Armee-Korps and the 17. ϟϟ-Panzergrenadier-Division „Götz von Berlichingen“ subordinate to it (mentioned later below in regards the massacre of some of its members), began to withdraw to the area south of Pfaffenhofen. In doing so, they secured the road between Ingolstadt and Munich and the autobahn to the south in order to prevent surprise attacks by American units. The following incident, described by Otto Stumm, possibly prevented a tougher confrontation over the town of Pfaffenhofen:
Army Group H, which was deployed in our area and to which a great many units of the Waffen ϟϟ belonged, was commanded by General of the Infantry Schulz ... Oak leaves adorned the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. His wife had been living here with her one-year-old daughter as an evacuee for some time on the Schleiferberge. On the night of April 27-28, 1945, General Schulz ordered the commanders of the troops under him to go to Mr. Prechter's hunting lodge, which was located in the community of Sulzbach im Walde, on the way from Wolfsberg to Menzenbach to undertake the general withdrawal order to the Isar-Amperlinie near Munich. Did tactical reasons prompt him or did he want to spare his wife and child the horrors of a bombardment and the probable destruction of Pfaffenhofen? Only he knows.


In front of the bridge remains this fountain dated 1934, its swastika removed but leaving no mistake as to what it represented
Formerly a girls finishing school, this building which opened in 1879 continued to serve this purpose until the end of 1965 when it was replaced by a new girls' school on Niederscheyerer Strasse. The old building on the main square was renovated and left to the secondary school until July 1976 when it too could move into a new building. Hidden away on the side to the left of the building is a memorial for the victims of National Socialism erected in 2014 by artist Thomas Neumair. It consists of a red steel beam piercing the upper west corner of the building, apparently it's intended to represent an acupuncture needle that anchors painful experiences of Nazi history into the collective memory of the city. The position of the steel girder was chosen so that it can also be seen from Kellerstrasse and the main square, although I only found the site later once I knew where to look, having taken the photo above not even knowing about it.Brief write-ups of a selection of Pfaffenhofen residents who played a role during the Nazi regime, both victims and perpetrators, are presented at eye level. Intended to bring the past to life through faces and names, the documentation is based on research by Reinhard Haiplink, who meticulously describes the development of National Socialism in Pfaffenhofen in his third edition of the book "Pfaffenhofen unterm Hakenkreuz." Among the main themes are sections highlighting the strength of Nazi support in the town at the time of the Beer Hall Putsch; the children of foreign workers who suffered terribly in the Nazi camp at Uttenhofen mentioned below; the so-called 'apple priest' Korbinian Aigner who had spoken out against the Nazis since 1923, spoke out in support of Georg Elser's attempt on Hitler's life and subsequently sent to Stadelheim, Sachsenhausen and Dachau before managing to escape on April 28 in Aufkirchen am Starnberger See and hide in the local monastery when he and around 10,000 prisoners were forced to march to South Tyrol; the story of Wilhelm Meinstein; Pastor Braun's unexplained death; the persecution of Joseph Rath; and the war criminal Theodor Traugott Meyer.
It wasn't until the summer of 1944 that Pfaffenhofen did suffered direct bombing, with waves of enemy bombers having flown over to target Augsburg or Munich. The first bombs fell on neighbouring fields without causing any damage. Later, lighter bombs were dropped over the forest on Niederhauser Weg near what is now Marienfried. In July 1944 a USAAF bomber had to make an emergency landing near Pfaffenhofen with the plane crashing in Rehgräble leaving six of the crew killed ( two crew members managing to jump out and land in the farmyard of Xaver Spleiß in Erbishofenand) summarily buried. When the Americans occupied Pfaffenhofen in 1945 they forced Nazi Party members to exhume the corpses, whereupon the dead were brought to back to the US. Two crew members of the bomber jumped off and landed in the yard of the farmer Xaver Spleiß in Erbishofen. Sergeant Thomas received them and brought them to Weissenhorn the next day.
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 on the left and it wasn't fully rebuilt until 1949.

As the fighting was getting closer to Pfaffenhofen, between April 18 and 22 alone the town's sirens sounded 53 times to warn of impending air raids, making it impossible to distinguish whether a pre-alarm, major alarm or the all-clear was being sounded. Despite this, lessons were still being taught in schools.
In total only one person had died from air raids whilst numerous civilians and soldiers would be killed by the shelling of the city by the ϟϟ and from defensive battles on April 28, 1945 conducted by the ϟϟ, Wehrmacht and remnants of the Volkssturm. In 1953 19.2% of the population was still displaced.
The boys' school on Schulstrasse returned to school in September 1945 after several months of interruption which began on April 22, 1945 when classes had been stopped in view of the danger of air raids. American soldiers were billeted in this building until the end of August when they first cleared the building and released it again for school operations. Nevertheless, it took a few weeks before the building was made suitable for school again. The Americans had relocated all school furniture, files and books to the basement and storage room so that the rooms could be used for their units and purposes. Some of the furniture left by the Americans in the classrooms was taken over by the school, and some of it passed into private hands via auction. After three weeks the school was sufficiently repaired to be able to start regular lessons although the start of lessons was further delayed because both the boys 'and girls' schools combined only had nine teachers for 18 classes. This was where the initially strict denazification practice became noticeable, removing all civil servants from their posts so that the teachers could not be filled quickly. City commander Sloat, who returned to Pittsburgh as a university professor, tried his best to improve conditions during his time in Pfaffenhofen from May 1945 to January 1946 only to find that military interests often stood in the way of faster advances in the school system. A couple of miles outside Pfaffenhofen just when entering the small town of Eberstetten is this memorial, inaugurated in 1980, commemorating the killing of young ϟϟ men by American soldiers. On April 28, 1945, around twenty soldiers (sometimes the number 15 is also mentioned), probably all from the "Götz von Berlichingen" division, were discovered by the Americans in a courtyard. They had been fanatical fighters, threatening the farmer with summary execution if he displayed a white flag. The Americans in turn threatened to blow up the property if the ϟϟ did not surrender. They eventally surrendered and were forced to stand in the courtyard with their hands up for an hour before being driven to Pfaffenhofen in tanks. Three jumped off at the edhge of Eberstetten only to be shot immediately. The rest were ordered to dismount and taken into the nearby field where they were each shot from behind. Apparently some called for their mothers and others didn't die until the following day. Their identification tags were taken from them, leaving French prisoners of war who witnessed the execution to indignantly denounce the Americans as criminals. The dead remained in situ for four days until the Americans ordered the male residents of Eberstetten to bury them in a mass grave in the meadow. In 1952 the bodies were exhumed and transferred to the military cemetery in Regensburg.
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 on the left and it wasn't fully rebuilt until 1949.

Three miles from Pfaffenhofen is this parish village of Uttenhofen where, during the Third Reich, there was a children's camp for East European children. The children were so neglected that they died quickly and were buried outside the cemetery wall. This children's camp was a so-called “foreign child care camp” created on the orders of Heinrich Himmler, which was set up in 1944 next to the Köhlhaus near the church, which has now been demolished. This grave overlooking the graveyard at St. Sebastian Church commemorate sixteen Polish children who died in the most adject circumstances at the camp.
Based on burials in the local cemetery, at least sixteen children died in the small camp of Uttenhofen (Bavaria) during the six months of its existence between fall 1944 and spring 1945. We have no records indicating the total number of babies born in this camp, however, or how many could have died and been buried on the campgrounds (as witness statements indicate) without being mentioned in any records.
Scheyern
Nearby Scheyern Abbey, resting place of Bavarian dukes and duchesses Otto I, Agnes von Loon, Ludwig der Kelheimer, Otto II and Agnes von Braunschweig, then and now. The site is historically significant as one of the origins of the Bavarian ruling house Wittelsbach; Joseph Peruschitz, a victim of the sinking of the Titanic, was the abbey's Benedictine priest. During the war Scheyern was a location of the air signal corps of the Luftwaffe. Immediately after the war the American Air Force's listening units were housed in Scheyernand would grow in importance as the Cold War developed. Until the Schyren barracks were abandoned in 1993, Scheyern was also the location of the Bundeswehr although air defence units of the German Air Force have been stationed here since 1958.
