Remaining Nazi Sites around Freising

Pettenbrunn

It was just outside Freising to the north at the Haidberghof (which I run past every 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 south of 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. 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. Before his involvement in major Nazi productions, Marian was described as a "rather oily matinee idol" who bore a resemblance to the American comedian Ernie Kovacs. He had a relatively small following and had appeared in films as early as the Weimar period, such as the 1930 production Somme. Das Grab der Millionen. His personal life was complicated by the regime’s racial laws; his first wife was Jewish, and he had a daughter by her. Despite the risks, he initially refused to divorce her, which led to conflicts with the Propaganda Ministry Marian’s refusal to fully comply with Nazi social mandates continued to cause friction. Goebbels eventually denied him a major role in the colour film Die goldene Stadt because of this. 
The casting of Marian in the role of Joseph Süss Oppenheimer was the result of direct coercion by Joseph Goebbels. After other prominent actors like Gustaf Gründgens and Willi Forst were considered or refused, Goebbels summoned Marian to a meeting in late 1939. Marian reportedly begged the director, Veit Harlan, to help him escape the role. During their interview, Goebbels insulted Marian's appearance, calling him a "ham" and a "clown," before demanding he take the role for the Führer. Cowed by the threat of being treated as a "deserter" (which carried a death penalty), Marian eventually agreed. His portrayal of the "monstrous" Nazi-interpreted version of Süss was highly effective for propaganda purposes; critics of the era noted that he acted superbly and made the character a "personified Satan". The film became a massive box-office hit, screened throughout Germany and occupied territories to incite hatred against Jewish populations. 
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. 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 in fact a 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 support against it. His losing fight to not appear in the film was the subject of the terrible 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 Nazi 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. In a tragic postscript, his second wife was found drowned in Hamburg shortly after the conclusion of Veit Harlan's 1950 trial for crimes against humanity.  

Kloster Wies in 1848 and today, just outside Freising to the north. It's a small Augustinian monastery complex attached to the Freising “Wieskirche” (Wallfahrtskirche „Zum gegeißelten Heiland in der Wies“ on the road towards Zolling. During the Nazi period this meant that Kloster Wies functioned as a small Augustinian house serving the pilgrimage church as part of the Archdiocese of Munich-Freising under the authority of Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber. During this period, religious institutions faced constant pressure as the Nazis attempted the Gleichschaltung of all social and spiritual groups. Although welcoming Hitler’s 1933 Concordat with the Vatican, Faulhaber soon protested against its violation. In the same year he preached on the Jewish origins of Christianity and condemned racial hatred as a ‘poisonous weed’ and collaborated on the 1937 papal encyclical, ‘In deep Concern’. However, he maintained a distance from the Resistance, and during his interrogated after the July Plot, he declared his allegiance to Hitler.  Goldhagen, not a particularly objective source, in both Hitler's Willing Executioners and A Moral Reckoning attacked his role in the Third Reich:

Although Faulhaber defended the Jewish religion and the Jews who lived prior to Jesus, he made it clear that those Jews were to be distinguished from the Jews who lived after Jesus, a group which, of course, included contemporary Jews. When, the following year, foreigners misrepresented his words by asserting that Faulhaber had championed Ger­man Jews, Faulhaber emphatically denied this."Before and during the Nazi period, Catholic publications, whether written for the laity, clerics, or theologians, disseminated the contemporary antisemitic litany in ways that were often indistinguishable from the Nazis’, and justified the desire to elimi­nate the Jewish 'alien bodies' (Fremdkörper) from Germany. Taking action against the Jews, according to the body of these publications, was “ justifiable self-defence to prevent the harmful characteristics and influences of the Jewish race.”

In the last days of the war, the area around the Wieskirche and Kloster Wies briefly became part of the local front line when on April 29, 1945, a poorly equipped Volkssturm company from Lerchenfeld took up positions on the road to the Wieskirche and came under heavy American artillery fire. A white flag was raised shortly before the first United States units arrived. By 16.00 the Americans crossed the Amper River; by 17.30 they had reached the Wies Monastery. At 18.00 they began advancing slowly towards Freising. They stood at the first access road which was here on Mainburgerstraße. At 19.00 they arrived at the second, Thalhauserstraße; and a quarter of an hour later, at the third- Wippenhauserstraße.
After the war, from 1947 to 1955, the Wallfahrtskirche and the attached community were served by the Augustinian priest Ildefons Maria Dietz, who had been known as an opponent of the Nazi regime. He was ordained a priest on February 20, 1937, in a Church already under increasing pressure from the regime’s attempts to control preaching, youth work and religious organisations. That same year he was arrested by the Gestapo “because of his resistance against the Nazi regime” and held for about six months, then released in a severely ill state. After his release he remained in the order and survived the war. His tenure at the closter coincided with the era of denazification, during which residents were required to complete a mandatory "Questionnaire" (Fragebogen) regarding their conduct under the dictatorship. The Augustinian chapter at Kloster Wies eventually came to an end in 1954 when the monks were withdrawn and replaced by secular clergy, a transition that concluded half a century of Augustinian service at the site. 

Further down by about a kilometre within the church cemetery of Tüntenhausen is this grave to victims of a death march near the end of the war which began on April 25, 1945 when roughly 850 prisoners were marched south down the B301 (Münchener Straße) according to a report by the Catholic priest Josef Ziller of nearby Kranzberg, who stated that around April 20, 1945, about 300 prisoners from various countries were driven by ϟϟ guards through the hamlet and spent the night in a barn there; two prisoners killed by the guards were buried in the Tüntenhausen cemetery and could not be identified by name at the time. A later article on a commemoration service at St Michael in Tüntenhausen on April 27, 2025, summarising research by the historian Guido Hoyer, states that on April 27, 1945, about 850 of originally 1,500 Buchenwald prisoners were driven through Tüntenhausen towards Freising, with Dachau as the intended destination. In the turmoil around an International Red Cross food wagon near Erlau four prisoners escaped; two of them later died after hiding near the Amper and found starving to death in a barn days later and were buried in Tüntenhausen. On the basis of archival work, Hoyer identified the two dead as Adolf Lodowski from Poland and Sergej Petrow from Russia; until 2015 only their prisoner numbers were known on the grave. 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 burial occurred around 14.00, lasting about 30 minutes, with five-10 villagers and an unspecified number of ϟϟ guards present. The focus was rapid burial to keep the march moving. Because these modern accounts use different prisoner totals (300 and 850) and differ on the exact circumstances of the two deaths (killed by guards versus dying of starvation while hiding), both figures should be treated cautiously; what's firmly attested is that a column of concentration‑camp prisoners passed through or stayed at Tüntenhausen in April 1945, that at least two prisoners died in connection with that march in the immediate area, and that their grave on the St Michael cemetery is now a documented local site of Nazi crimes. 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. 

A memorial stone, erected by the Freising diocese on June 15, 1985, stands in the cemetery near the church entrance. The unveiling ceremony, attended by approximately fifty locals and diocesan representatives, lasted one hour, with speeches focusing on remembrance. The stone’s inscription reads, “Zum Gedenken an die Opfer des Todesmarsches 1945.”

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.

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. Recent local efforts, such as the Arbeitskreis Heimat Zolling, eyewitness collection projects, and historical walking paths, have worked to document oral histories and Zeitzeugen accounts before they fade. 
On the morning of April 29, 1945, Wehrmacht and ϟϟ units blew up the Amper bridges in Zolling, nearby Palzing, and Kirchdorf as American forces approached. They entrenched in the forest above Erlau at the Amperleite in a futile attempt to delay the end. White flags appeared on church towers in Thann and other nearby spots, signaling surrender. Zolling was taken by American troops that day and moved on toward Freising shortly thereafter. Local policeman Josef Schranner escaped an ϟϟ checkpoint near Kirchdorf whilst coming from Allershausen and continued toward Siechendorf; he and 19-year-old Lorenz Brückl from Siechendorf narrowly avoided being shot by advancing Americans from Wolfersdorf. One Nazi official named Hörl committed suicide in Palzing to evade responsibility as the regime collapsed. 
On April 27, 1945, between 13.00 and 15.00, the Buchenwald death march of approximately 850 prisoners) passed through Zolling. At least three prisoners died from exhaustion or execution by ϟϟ guards. The bodies were buried in a shallow roadside ditch by ϟϟ personnel, taking less than twenty minutes per burial, with 10-15 guards present and no villagers involved. The focus was quick disposal to conceal evidence. A memorial stone, placed by the Zolling historical society on September 10, 1990, stands along a rural path off the B301. The unveiling ceremony, attended by thirty residents and officials, lasted 45 minutes, with speeches on victim anonymity due to missing records. The stone’s inscription reads, “Für die Opfer des Todesmarsches aus Buchenwald, April 1945.”
A couple of local authors and works preserving these details include Josef Brückl (Siechendorf und rundherum ist Heimat and Die Straße war ihr Schicksal), Georg Völkl on Palzing.

 

Attenkirchen 

A few miles north of the Amper. On April 26, 1945, at approximately 16.00, a death march of 200 prisoners from a Dachau subcamp passed through Attenkirchen. One prisoner was executed by ϟϟ guards for attempting escape, as documented in a 1947 report by historian Marco Grätz. The body was buried in a shallow forest clearing by 5-7 guards, taking 15 minutes, with no locals present. The focus was rapid concealment. A memorial stone, erected by the Attenkirchen community on November 11, 1995, stands near the forest edge. The unveiling ceremony, attended by 40 residents and officials, lasted 50 minutes, with speeches on local accountability. The stone’s inscription reads, “Zum Gedenken an den ermordeten Häftling, April 1945.” 
The term "death marches" (sometimes euphemistically called "evacuation marches") refers to various "clearance operations" carried out by ϟϟ guards during the final stages of the war. From 1944 onward, the ϟϟ dissolved concentration camps near the front lines, including Auschwitz, and forced most of the prisoners to march toward the centre of the Reich or locked them in railway cars for transport. Very often, prisoners unable to march were shot in large numbers. Many parts of the camps were set on fire by the ϟϟ. Numerous concentration camp prisoners didn't survive the marches and transports, which lasted for days and weeks: they froze to death, starved to death, or collapsed from exhaustion and were then shot by the ϟϟ guards. Some trains were accidentally strafed by Allied fighter planes engaged in ground combat, others were left stranded on alternative routes without supplies; some death marches ended in a catastrophe, such as the sinking of the Cap Arcona, or in a massacre, such as at the Isenschnibber field barn in Gardelegen. Goldhagen notes that as the Allies approached, camp commanders often attempted to move prisoners toward Dachau. For instance, Alois Dörr, the commander of the Helmbrechts camp, initially intended to march his prisoners to Dachau, but found it was "unreachable, since it had been captured by the Americans." 

 Whatever hallucinatory notions those who ordered the death marches may have had about using the prisoners for work, the ordinary Germans guarding the Helmbrechts and other marches could have been under no illusions, when facing these walking corpses, that their task was to husband them as valuable productive resources. Ideologised or not, every person recognises such weak­ened people as incapable of physical labour. No person in possession of his senses could have believed that the marches served any utilitarian purpose save the victims’ further punishment, suffering, and deaths. When it came to Jews, Germans- from the lowest of ranks to Hitler himself- understood what they with their actions were seeking to accomplish.  

Goldhagen (371) Hitler's Willing Executioners

According to the chronical of the Freiwillige Feuerwehr Attenkirchen, American forces shelled the village with artillery on April 29, 1945, causing in parts “considerable damage." 
Local historian and Gemeinderat member Dr. Walter Schlott has created a thematic Geschichtswanderweg with eleven information boards across Attenkirchen and its districts installed during the Wuhan 'flu in collaboration with ILE Ampertal. They cover local history from the town's first documentation from 830 as “Z´Artinchirchia;” Schlott apparently plans further research and documentation on the Nazi period including the death marches for future boards with former mayor Brigitte Niedermeier aiding the project.

Haag an der Amper 

The Nazi flag flying from the window of the Pfarrkirche St. Laurentius church tower from a 1935 postcard. Haag an der Amper is a rural municipality on the Amper; in the Nazi period it was a small farming and craft community with an hydroelectric power station (the Haag power plant on the Amper canal, built in 1923) and a railway halt on the Hallertau local line. Apart from that, there doesn't seem to be any digitised source that lists its local Nazi party officials, membership figures, or detailed forced‑labour placements. I'm assuming those details are almost certainly documented, if at all, only in the local chronicle “Haag, Heimat im Ampertal” (1987). The best documented local event under Nazi rule remains the Buchenwald death march that passed through the municipality at the end of the war. A 2025 council paper, based explicitly on files from the Moosburg city archive, the Freising district office and reports of the American military government, reconstructs that on April 27 and April 28, 1945 one or two prisoner transports with roughly 500–600 men from Buchenwald, moving from Moosburg or Wang towards Dachau, went through the then separate municipality of Inkofen and the village of Haag on the state road in the direction of Zolling. 
In Inkofen, according to post‑war investigations and mayoral reports of August 12, 1946 and March 28, 1947, seven to eight prisoners were beaten to death and buried in a mass grave; in the Höllgraben between Inkofen and Kirchamper another prisoner, probably of French or Belgian nationality, was shot and buried. The American military government later classified these events as part of the evacuation of Buchenwald; its own summary assumed April 27, 1945 and around 600 prisoners for the column. A local eyewitness from Inkofen, who was a teenager at the time, has confirmed both the approximate prisoner number and the location of the mass grave; his statements match the contemporary map in the files.  

Hangenham

Between Freising and Moosburg 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 wasn't 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.

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.

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- two groups of 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. In the early Middle Ages, the locals created raised fields on the barren soil, the remains of which can still be seen in the east of the nature reserve. Through use as general pastureland for sheep, cattle, goats and pigs or as one-cut meadows until the end of the 19th century, the low-growing, lean limestone grassland that characterises the landscape was created, only occasionally interrupted by hedges and trees. The conversion to arable land began after the common land was divided up among the local farmers towards the end of the 19th century. Between 1907 and 1914, the Bavarian Botanical Society bought 23 hectares of land to prevent it from being converted to arable land. The area was not officially designated as a nature reserve "Garchinger Heide" until 1942, but in the last months of the war in 1945, forced labourers from the Dachau concentration camp began removing the top layer of gravel by hand to create a 40 metres wide and 300 to 400 m long runway for the Schleissheim military airport. Foxholes of around 1 m² were dug next to the runway, and are still half a metre deep today. 

Took my second attempt to find a reconstructed Roman milestone after work.  It's remarkable as it refers to 'Novivaro' which apparently was the Roman name for Neufahrn- I can't find any info about the site anywhere online and yet Google knows to translate it as such. German Wikipedia states that the first documented mention of Neufahrn can be found in 804 AD with the name “Niwiwara”, which means something like “among the newly settled families” so this really makes no sense to me. This milestone commemorates the Römerstrasse which was built here in the 1st century AD. It led towards Neufahrn with a junction to Garchinger Heide and had a connection to the provincial capital Augsburg (Augusta Vindelicorum). Around 200 AD, Emperor Septimius Severus had many such roads in the province of Raetia renovated.  

It reads:  IMP CAESAR L-SEPT SEVERVS-PIVS PERTINAX-AVG-ARAB ADIAB-PARTHICVS-MAX PONT-MAX TRIB-POT-VIIII IMP-XII-COS. II. PROCOS VIAS-ET-PONTES REST AB-AVG-M P-LXII A-NOVIVARO-M P-III 

Translation: Emperor Caesar Lucius Septimius Severus Pertinax Augustus, the great victor over Arabs, Adiabes and Parthians. Chief priest, tribune for the 9th time, consul for the 2nd time, proconsul restored roads and bridges.  From Augsburg 62 Roman miles, from Neufahrn 3 Roman miles.

Hohenkammer

Schloss Hohenkammer in kreis Freising, flying the Nazi flag. The parish priest Josef Seidenberger reported how the Nazis had exerted a strong influence on Hohenkammer and the surrounding area, especially through the school system, youth work and everyone connected with Schloss Hohenkammer. He wrote that Nazi laws were strictly enforced in the village school, that the continuation school was used for party political events, and that the castle authorities put heavy pressure on villagers through demands for badges, participation in events and similar measures. He also described the Wehrertüchtigungslager at the castle, where constantly changing groups of trainees carried out military sports exercises that damaged fields and where, in his assessment, there was no scope for religious practice.  Indeed, 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 castle dates from the 16th century with its four-wing complex courtyard arcades four bay-like corner towers and square gate tower served various institutional purposes throughout the Nazi period. The castle estate Schlossgut Hohenkammer changed ownership multiple times before and during the Nazi period. In 1920 the St. Georgsheim welfare institution took over the castle as tenant with a house order citing rise at 5.15  and evening prayer and final bedtime at 20.30 cited as two corner points from the house rules. The Heart of Jesus missionaries were followed by an agricultural school of the Benedictines which found its end through the epochal change of 1933. During the Nazi period the castle was a central instrument of control. A Benedictine agricultural school that had operated there in the late Weimar years ended in 1933; from April 1936 the site was rented by an SA collection centre, and from 1937 to 1940 it housed a Nazi co‑operative school with an associated military training camp. Thereafter it served as a forestry workers’ school of the Reich Food Estate until the collapse of the regime. 

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, following 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.

In the last days before the front reached the area, traffic on the state road between Pfaffenhofen and Munich increased sharply; on April 25 and April 26, 1945 retreating SS units moved through, seizing horses, carts, lorries and food and causing considerable confusion and looting. The main Allied advance then bypassed the Pfaffenhofen–Munich road, moving instead via Neuburg, Hohenwart, Petershausen, Dachau, Biberbach, Haimhausen and Lohhof, so Hohenkammer itself was spared major fighting and destruction. On the following Sunday morning at about 09.30, American motorised columns from Petershausen and Pfaffenhofen passed through Hohenkammer, occupied important points and continued towards Munich, arresting SS personnel they found. The Americans then occupied Schloss Hohenkammer and issued orders to the local population, including evening curfews. According to Seidenberger, the commander of the Wehrertüchtigungslager tried to escape, was captured in woodland near Pfaffenhofen, shot when he attempted to flee and initially buried in a nearby forest; his body was later transferred to Scheyern for a church burial. The same report confirms that at the end of the war there were Russian and Polish labourers in Hohenkammer who, after the collapse of Nazi authority, refused further work and committed some break‑ins and thefts, illustrating both their previous status as foreign labour under Nazi rule and the breakdown of control in the first weeks after the occupation. Seidenberger also records that after the arrival of the Americans there were efforts to reverse earlier measures, including applications to restore the girls’ school and the kindergarten to Catholic sisters and to appoint new mayors with a church‑friendly orientation.

 

Allershausen

The war memorial from a Nazi-era postcard and today. Information about Allershausen during the Nazi era is scanty. A local chronicle of Allershausen written by Wolfgang Koob was published in 1991. Apparently at the time, Koob was heavily criticised for his "somewhat clumsy handling of the sensitive topic of the Nazi era." Nevertheless, he persevered and tirelessly continued to gather material. He analysed parish registers and collected photographs for a second volume, which was intended to describe individual houses before he died in 2000. 
Numerous high-explosive bombs fell on the open terrain east of Allershausen and north of Unterkienberg, one of which shattered nearly all of the 200 windowpanes in the parish church, as well as twenty panes in the parish rectory. The damage was repaired immediately, with the exception of six round windows; due to certain difficulties, these will not be restored until the young master glazier is discharged from the Wehrmacht. 
For Allershausen the war ended suddenly in quick succession starting at 8.15 o April 28, 1945 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 shown then and now on the right. 
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. Only two barns in Unterkienberg and Hagenau went up in flames due to shelling with five soldiers during the entry as they attempted to flee in full gear. Three of them were given a church burial in a single grave in the Allershausen cemetery and a second buried in the cemetery at Aiterbach. The fifth was buried, by order of the mayor at the time, in Leonhardsbuch, in the meadow where he had been shot during his escape. 
Recently during excavation work for a new town centre in Allershausen, engineers discovered around 6,000 tonnes of soil contaminated with tar containing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons between the Glonn and Münchner Strasse. Apparently it dates to when the area next to the Glonn was reportedly filled to create a parade and march ground for the Hitler Youth and the SA, linking the pollution’s origins to the Nazi era. About two-thirds of the material has already been removed to temporary storage, and although disposal in special landfills will be expensive, the mayor and planners believe the project can probably stay close to budget and largely on schedule, arguing that complete removal is environmentally necessary and also appropriate for dealing with the site’s historical burden. 

 

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.

Memorial in the woods outside Massenhausen 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. 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. 

Nearby at Bernstorf near Kranzberg is the location of what is perhaps the most significant and hotly debated archaeological discoveries in central Europe. Often referred to as the Bavarian Troy, the site has captured scholarly attention because it combines a massive timber-laced rampart with exceptional finds of gold and amber at a time corresponding precisely to the height of Mycenaean civilisation and the traditional period of the Trojan War. In 1994 Dr. Manfred Moosauer from Haimhausen where school is located and his partner Traudl Bachmaier discovered an urban settlement constructed around 1350 BCE. High above the Ampertal, at the confluence with the Glonn, was supposedly a city-like castle dating from nearly 3,400 years ago. What they discovered has raised the astonishing possibility of long-distance exchange networks connecting the north Alpine region directly with the eastern Mediterranean palaces, and potentially even Egypt, during the fifteenth to thirteenth centuries before Christ. The presence of amber pieces bearing incisions resembling Linear B script- the only known examples ever found outside Greece- further intensified interest, suggesting that administrative practices from Mycenaean palace bureaucracies might have reached as far as southern Germany.

 In August 1998 the German archaeological world was stunned when two amateur archaeologists found decorated gold-sheet ornaments on a hill in Bavaria north of Munich, near a farm named Bernstorf, in the commune of Kranzberg. A Bronze Age fortified enclosure was known there, local amateurs having excavated it earlier in the 1990s; later, permission was granted for gravel extraction, trees were cleared and it was in this disturbed area that the gold appeared. The authorities were quickly alerted. Both the Staatssammlung in Munich (Bavarian State Archaeological Museum) and the Bayerisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege (BLfD, Bavarian State Office for Monument Care) took part in inspections and, subsequently, excavations. More gold, including a ‘diadem’, appeared and, in late September 1998, perforated lumps of amber. Then in November 2000, on the edge of an area under excavation by the BLfD, came the sensational discovery of two incised pieces of amber hailed as Mycenaean.

Harding, A., & Hughes-Brock, H. (2017). Mycenaeans in Bavaria? Amber and gold from the Bronze Age site of Bernstorf. Antiquity, 91(359), 1382-1385

The bronze age fortification consisted of a timber laced earthen rampart that enclosed an area of approximately 13 hectares on a plateau rising 55 metres above the Amper river. Excavations documented a perimeter wall exceeding 1600 metres in length whose construction involved substantial oak timbers arranged in a laced framework filled with earth and stone. Systematic burning of the structure produced vitrified slag and reddened deposits, indicating temperatures reaching up to 1300 degrees Celsius at points along the wall. Dendrochronological and radiocarbon analyses placed the main construction and destruction phase in the fifteenth century before the common era, with the final destruction occurring around 1360 before the common era. This destruction date is of exceptional importance, because it coincides exactly with the floruit of the Mycenaean palaces and the period in which the Trojan War is traditionally placed, lending the site immediate chronological relevance to the heroic age of Greek epic tradition. This scale of enclosure distinguished Bernstorf among contemporary sites in southern Germany, where most settlements remained far smaller and less elaborately defended. The timber volume required for the laced construction demanded organised procurement from surrounding woodlands and coordinated labour on a scale that implied the existence of a significant regional centre, not a simple village. Comparable timber laced ramparts appeared at other middle bronze age sites such as the Bullenheimer Berg, yet the Bernstorf example stood out for its overall extent and the intensity of the conflagration that ended its use. The combination of size, defensive investment, and strategic location on a commanding plateau offered oversight of the Amper valley and important routes, suggesting that Bernstorf functioned as a central place capable of controlling and protecting exchange networks at a time when Mycenaean influence was at its peak.
Gold sheet ornaments recovered from the vicinity of the rampart numbered several decorated pieces whose elemental composition underwent detailed archaeometric examination. It contains what has been described as th eoldest gold crown found in Europe. Spectroscopic and X ray fluorescence analyses revealed alloy characteristics that initially prompted comparisons with high purity gold known from Egyptian contexts and Mycenaean workshops. The ornaments displayed stylistic features, including repoussé and chasing techniques, that some observers linked to Aegean and eastern Mediterranean traditions. These finds mattered enormously because they appeared to provide material evidence of direct or indirect contacts between central Europe and the sophisticated palatial economies of the eastern Mediterranean during the Trojan War era. Amber artefacts totalled 56 pieces recovered between 1997 and 2005, the majority unworked or minimally modified.

Two pieces carried incisions: one depicting a bearded male face and another bearing four signs resembling Linear B characters. These incised amber objects represented the only known examples of Linear B like script found outside the Aegean area and raised immediate, sensational questions of direct contact between central European elites and Mycenaean palace administrations during the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries before the common era. The bearded face motif invited direct comparisons with Mycenaean gold death masks, whilst the overall assemblage of gold and amber at a fortified site of this scale led to early characterisations of Bernstorf as the Bayerisches Troja, a northern counterpart to the legendary centres of the eastern Mediterranean at the time of the Trojan War. The reverse shows three symbols: on the left is a long line with a triangular extension like a spear; the centre shows a cross within a circle; the right showing a symbol comprising a trapezoid and a vertical line - possibly symbols for "flame" or "lance" and known from the Mycenaean as a  "double axe", which in turn is a sign of cereals. It could thus have served as a seal of authority, trade and supply, or possibly as a passport for protection, free trade and suppliers. It is possible that it correlates with the syllables "do-ka-me" of the Linear B script, the oldest readable language of the Greeks. Such interpretations positioned the site as a potential key node in trans-European exchange networks stretching from Baltic amber sources to the courts of Mycenae and possibly Egypt.
 The second piece of amber is engraved with four characters divided into two zones: three adjacent characters over a graphic symbol extending across the entire width. The top three characters are argued to correspond to three characters of the Linear B script in the upper zone. If so, it would read "pa-nwa-ti", exactly the opposite as a seal impression, "tin-wa-pa." The character set is not yet occupied in texts, but probably the syllable sequence "Tinwa" as part of their name in Pylos. The sign in the lower zone shows despite shorter headband is a similarity with the crown-like gold diadem of Bernstorf, but also Mycenaean representations of ships look similar. The Greek chronicler Georgios Sygkelos reported in 2002 that the name "pa-nwa-ti" was the name of an archon in the period in which the Argonauts went to Colchis.

Visiting the site being excavated. Questions about the integrity of the inscribed amber pieces and the associated gold arose almost immediately after discovery. Comprehensive material and contextual analyses determined that the two incised amber objects derived from upper modern soil layers rather than secure bronze age contexts. Evidence included uncharred plant residues, residual caesium 137 radioactivity linked to the 1986 Chernobyl event, and a mineralised conifer needle yielding a radiocarbon date after 1950. Surface examinations and fluorescence tests further indicated recent tool marks inconsistent with bronze age working techniques. These findings, published in detailed catalogues and reports from the Archäologische Staatssammlung München, separated the 19 pieces plausibly associated with bronze age deposition from the remainder showing modern placement. Subsequent independent reviews in German archaeological literature confirmed the modern origin of the Linear B like incisions and the bearded face. The gold finds have also faced scrutiny regarding their exceptional purity levels, which some analyses suggested were more consistent with modern refined gold than with prehistoric material. Because of the unusual purity of the gold jewelry, Ernst Pernicka, Professor of Archaeometry in Heidelberg, expressed his doubts whilst presenting the results of his analysis  for the first time at the 6th Central German Archaeologists' Day from October 17- 19, 2013 in Halle (Saale), whereupon the authenticity of the finds was intensively discussed. He argued that gold of this degree of purity can only be produced by electrolysis, making them modern imitations. On the other hand, the head of the Archaeological State Collection in Munich, Rupert Gebhard and Frankfurt-based archaeologist Rüdiger Krause, who was responsible for the Bernstorf excavation, said these gold sheets were authentic gold objects from the Middle Bronze Age, justifying the degree of purity with the fact that gold was already refined by cementation in ancient times. Chemically, the Bernstorfer find is similar to the gold decoration on the so-called coffin of Akhenaten. Nevertheless Pernicka's analyses using laser ablation and mass spectrometry revealed a fineness of 99.99 % for the Bernstorf gold sheets, which does not occur naturally, and an average of 104 μg/g silver. This puts it very close to modern Degussa-Gold containing exactly 102 μg/g silver at a purity of 99.99%. No authentic gold object from antiquity was found to have anything like this high degree of purity, even when cemented with common salt. In the case of the Akhenaten coffin, the silver and copper content is orders of magnitude higher, which alo applies to Roman coins. The copper content of less than 0.02% is a clear indication of modern electrolysis, because it cannot be reduced to such an extent using prehistoric processes. Small variations in the silver content indicate the presence of microsegregations, as they also occur in modern commercial gold from the Degussa company.

To this Gebhard and Krause's defence initially consisted in doubting Pernicka's measurement results leading the Archaeological State Collection to commission the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing to issue an arbitration report, for which the gold objects were again analysed using the latest technology. The results of the report were published online in the journal Archaeometry in December 2016, and the printed version of the article (conveniently in English) finally appeared in October 2017. The publication ended up fully confirming the measurement results published by Ernst Pernicka in 2014. In addition, it refuted false conclusions from earlier measurements that there are unusual trace elements such as antimony, bismuth, sulfur and mercury in the Bernstorf objects. Even after the publication of this arbitration report, Gebhard and Krause confirmed their hypothesis of unequivocal authenticity in the "Focal point/Goldfund Bernstorf" of the journal Archäologie in Deutschland. Without discussing the new spectrometric analysis, they concluded that there is "not a single conclusive evidence of falsification of the gold and amber finds."

At a specialist conference in October 2014, well-founded doubts were expressed about the authenticity of the engraved amber objects found in Bernstorf and about the age of their sediment coating. A technical paper on the amber analyses presented there was published in 2017. An anthology on the subject, edited by Gebhard and Krause, was presented in January 2017. It was designed as a long-prepared refutation of the allegations of forgery. However, even after this volume was published, the authenticity of the finds was the subject of controversial debate. In September 2017, various essays and reviews were published dealing with the Bernstorf finds and their presentation in the anthology of the Archaeological State Collection in which several experts disagreed with the conclusions of the anthology and explicitly damed what was described as a bad forgery and even "tinkering by amateurs."

Such condemnation was further supported by the determination of the manufacturing technique by neutron scattering at the Technical University of Munich. All artifacts showed a texture typical of many cold-rolled and then annealed and recrystallised fcc metals. By comparison with laboratory-made reference samples, hammering with or without subsequent annealing or cross-rolling to produce the gold foils could be ruled out. The rolling of gold has only been documented since the Middle Ages. In summary, today the finds apear dubious given their very unusual material composition and production techniques unknown at the time in question.

From personal correspondence in March, 2012 with Dr. John R. Hale, Director of Liberal Studies at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. He earned his B.A. at Yale University and his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge in England. Professor Hale teaches introductory courses on archaeology, as well as more specialised courses on the Bronze Age, the ancient Greeks, the Roman world, Celtic cultures, the Vikings, and nautical and underwater archaeology. An accomplished instructor, Professor Hale is also an archaeologist with more than 30 years of fieldwork experience. He has excavated at a Romano-British town in Lincolnshire, England, and at the Roman Villa of Torre de Palma in Portugal. Among other places, he has carried out interdisciplinary studies of ancient oracle sites in Greece and Turkey, including the famous Delphic oracle, and participated in an undersea search in Greek waters for lost fleets from the time of the Persian Wars. Professor Hale has received many awards for distinguished teaching, including the Panhellenic Teacher of the Year Award and the Delphi Centre Award. His writing has been published in the journals Antiquity, The Classical Bulletin, the Journal of Roman Archaeology, and Scientific American.

However, he later registered his serious concerns:

What one looks for in a site that has been excavated since the 1990s is not a collection of artifacts, but ground plans and profiles of archaeological trenches, squares, and other units.  Professional archaeologists produce -- first and foremost -- photographs, maps and drawings of the site.  If this were a professional dig, there would also be articles from the soils scientists, the paleobotanists, the zooarchaeologists, the palynologists, and the laboratories that analyzed the materials.  It looks like a blatant fake to me.  And if it really is a Bronze Age site in Bavaria, then it's a crime that it is being excavated by amateurs.

The bronze age fortification at Bernstorf thus remains an archaeologically important site whose verified rampart construction and prestige goods illuminate regional patterns of fortification building, resource organisation, and exchange in southern Germany at the precise time of the Mycenaean world and the Trojan War. Its significance lies in the documented scale of the timber laced wall and participation in central European networks rather than in the now refuted claims of direct Linear B use or Egyptian gold. The separation of modern intrusions from the ancient horizon has refined, rather than diminished, the site’s value for understanding middle bronze age societies in the north Alpine region. Continued study of the securely contextualised material in state collections supports broader models of European prehistory without reliance on speculative long distance connections.

Gold was found in 1998 and amber in 2000

 

Selection of gold found and the find site

 

Sheet-metal belt sections- note the triangular designs throughout  

 Supposed miniature Diadem with supporters

Possible armband fragment; again, note triangular designs

 

Supposed needle

Supposed staff. 14C dating has it dating from 1400-1100 BCE

The oldest gold crown found in Europe?

 

Crown diadem; again, note triangular device

 

The crown X-rayed

 Organic material found within the crown, shown at 35x magnification, which appears to be resin obtained from the Styracaceae plant family. Styrax is a natural resin obtained from the wounded bark of Liquidambar orientalis located in Asia Minor. Mnesimachus, Aristoteles, Theophrastus in his Historia Plantarum, Herodotus, and Strabo are the first ones to mention the styrax tree and its balsam. 

Arabia is the last of inhabited lands towards the south, and it is the only country which produces frankincense, myrrh, cassia, cinnamon, and ledanum. The Arabians do not get any of these, except the myrrh, without trouble. The frankincense they procure by means of the gum styrax, which the Greeks obtain from the Phoenicians; this they burn, and thereby obtain the spice. For the trees which bear the frankincense are guarded by winged serpents, small in size, and of varied colours, whereof vast numbers hang about every tree. They are of the same kind as the serpents that invade Egypt; and there is nothing but the smoke of the styrax which will drive them from the trees. 

Herodotus, Histories

In ancient Greece, styrax also denoted the spike at the lower end of a spearshaft. Pliny in his Historia Naturalis describes the use of styrax as a perfume, whilst Scribonius Largus drank wine flavoured with styrax. Ciris mentions storax as a fragrant hair dye. Dioscorides in De materia medica reports its use as incense, similar to frankincense, having expectorant (as in medication that helps bring up mucus and other material from the lungs, bronchi, and trachea) and soothing properties.
To put this find in context, Schliemann had discovered only two small amber beads during his work at Troy. Even the wreck of a sunken Uluburun ship from the 14th century BCE off the Turkish coast only revealed five amber beads - this within a fabulously wealthy shipment containing ten tonnes of copper, a tonne of tin and precious objects from all the surrounding countries (including a golden scarab with the seal of Nefertiti).
Amazingly, it is claimed that an amber necklace found among the grave treasure of Tutankhamen was made here!

 

Sample of pierced amber found at the site in 2001

 

Reconstruction of the jewellery found at Bernstorf

More (reconstructed) artefacts found at the site from 2001-2005

Most remarkable are these finds from 2000

The face of a Bronze Age ruler? 

 Pa-nwa-ti, an archon at the time of the Argonauts? 

From German publications

 

 

 

Bronzezeit Bayern Museum

The Bronzezeit Bayern Museum was only opened in 2014 given the difficulty in obtaining insurance for such valuable items.  The brainchild of Dr. Moosauer, after intensive efforts he managed to establish and organise the necessary resources for the small but equipped with audiovisual facilities Museum of which he serves as the current museum coordinator. It is located on the Pantaleon hill in Kranzberg upon which once stood a Wittelsbacher castle. 

 The castle building were destroyed in 1632 during the Thirty Years' War, in a destructive action of fifty Swedish riders. No ruins are to be seen today as farmers from Kranzberg managed to transport 459,035 bricks from the ruins to Munich from in the period from July 12 to September 18 1660 for the construction of stables.

 It wasn't until 1938 that the 2,500 square foot hilltop was built upon again- for the Nazis. The plans here were published in the October 1938 issue of Der Baumeister (333)

Shown in these 1939 watercolours by artist Alfred Thon, there was a long building complex for the Hitler Youth which was connected by a covered walkway.

The museum today accompanied by Dr. Moosauer and the view from its parking lot 

The film room, showing a remarkable documentary in 3D

The entrance and information centre with information about the museum, the sponsors and the use of audio guides. Through a beamer, a film about the fire of the fortification walls is projected.

The information in the museum has been translated into English thanks in part to my students at the Bavarian International school.

Section about the development of bronze with a model of a kiln and, around the corner, a glass showcase with exhibits from the Bronze Age. In two drawers the casting process is explained with more bronze objects (cast mould, axe) for our Grade 7 students to touch. On the wall screen is projected animation about the history of bronze.

 

This section on cultural groups shows colour scale time-differentiated areas outlining the dissemination of Bronze Age cultural groups. The flaps shown open to feature pictures, animations, and audiovisual info for each group.

Through the notches in two sections Grade 7s can playfully learn about ten different areas of archaeological methodology consisting of text and images through transmitted light images or digital frames. Among these applied scientific methods:
- Aerial Archaeology / Aerial Photography - Airborne Laser Scanning
- Radio carbon methodology
- Thermoluminescence measurement - dendrochronology
- Anatomical Wood identification
- 3D Laser Scanning
- 3D scanning strip light
- 3D X-ray computed tomography - neutron tomography
-. Div method for determining the firing temperatures
- Mössbauer spectroscopy (nuclear physics research)

 

Interactive 3D model of Burgberg of Bernstorf with a touchscreen-controlled projector and screen upon which the information is conveyed.

 

Historical overview of the Bronze Age featuring wall projections, 3D models and vertical drawers with transmitted light images of castles in Central Europe.

Inserted into the wall are six 3D glasses with 3D slides (like the old ViewMaster reels we had as kids) showing reconstructed settlement features with different types of houses, and exterior and interior reconstructions. A display case with findings on the subject showing ceramics, spindles et cet..

Section on the remarkable amber finds outlined above. A glass cabinet features copies of the signet and head which can be seen rotating via small motors to appear to float in the dark. The objects are shown and the characters explained.

 

Grave models showing the archaeological findings (flat grave, grave hills, stone box, urn, grave hill) with sliding doors providing models of funeral scenes.

Finally, in the central showcase is the model of the cult image as well as the gold itself displayed in a showcase with further information on a monitor.