Weyer interception staff

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The reception staff of the armed forces in Weyer an der Enns combed through restricted zones behind the front of scattered soldiers and let deserters shot by firing squad. The remains of 41 people were exhumed; the exact number of those executed in April and May 1945 is not known.

history

With the unconditional surrender of the German Wehrmacht on May 8, 1945, the Second World War should have come to an end in Europe. However, German field courts continued to carry out executions in areas that had not yet been liberated by the Allies . In Upper Austria, which was not occupied by the Americans until April 29, 1945, a court martial in Weyer an der Enns imposed and executed death sentences against deserted soldiers of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS, presumably even after the surrender.

In the areas still held by the German Wehrmacht, monitored lines were set up which members of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS were not allowed to cross without special permission. The area in front of this line up to the front was systematically combed as a "restricted zone" for deserters and displaced persons. For this purpose, so-called “catch bars” including patrol commands and field tribunals were set up. They were supposed to catch all returning soldiers and, after interrogation, decide whether the men were guilty of deserting.

As the front approached, such a blocking line was fixed in military district XVII from April 9, 1945, which ran from the Styrian Hieflau via the Upper Austrian Ennstal to Waidhofen an der Ybbs . Before April 9th, Army Group South dispatched an interception team under the command of Colonel Paul von Mayer to Weyer an der Enns to monitor them . For a month they tried to get hold of (alleged) deserters in the Upper Austrian Ennstal and, after brief court hearings, had most of them shot. 35 names of victims have been handed down, but it is no longer possible to find out how many soldiers lost their lives in total due to the rescue team in Weyer. Today, memorial plaques at the local cemetery and at the former places of execution in the Schafgraben and Glaserergraben in Weyer remind of their fate with the identical inscription: "In memory of the soldiers murdered at this point by their brothers on behalf of the Führer."

The fact that the Upper Danube Gau itself became a battleground shortly before the end of the war was the responsibility of the Commander-in-Chief of the " Army Group Ostmark ", Colonel General Lothar Rendulic , or Gauleiter and Reich Governor August Eigruber . Both wanted to continue the war. Both Rendulic and Eigruber made tough and uncoordinated decisions in the hustle and bustle of these days, which included, among other things, the ultimately ruthless action against deserters and dispersed soldiers.

The commander of the interception staff in Weyer, Colonel Carl Eberhard Paul von Mayer, came to Weyer with his interception staff including patrol command and field court on April 9th ​​from Mariazell and started work on April 11th. The reception staff moved into quarters in the rectory and in the domicile of the Sisters of the Cross. A collection camp for arrested “deserters” and an interrogation room were also set up here. Day and night stripes were made through mountains and forests, farmhouses were constantly searched. The arrested were taken to the assembly center on the first floor of the “monastery”, from where they were continuously interrogated. Anyone who was unable to identify themselves was sentenced to death by shooting .

First the Glaserergraben was chosen as the location for the shootings, later the Schafgraben. The morning hours remained between 4 and 7 a.m. Members of the firing squad had cynically remarked that they only liked breakfast if they had already shot someone beforehand.

The bodies of the executed were put in sacks and driven to the cemetery in Weyer on a horse-drawn cart. The transports often left a bloody trail from the place of execution to the mass grave. If someone was present at the cemetery, they had to leave the area while the bodies were dragged from the wagon and dragged to the pits. The exact number of those executed remains unclear to this day; contemporary sources give different numbers. During the exhumation of the dead in the Weyrer Friedhof in 1954, the human remains of 41 men were found, 23 of whom could be identified.

Pastor Ennser was the first to write an article in the Oberösterreichische Nachrichten about the victims of the Weyr rescue staff , which was then published on April 5, 1946 under the title "The bloody deeds of the Weyr rescue team ". Attached was a list of 35 victims. Sister Theoklia of the Order of the Sisters of the Cross included these events, which were so shocking for her, in her descriptions in “The Sisters of the Cross in Upper Austria”.

At the head of the reception staff in Weyer was an officer from Dresden named Colonel Carl Eberhard Paul von Mayer. Chief judge Günther Jahn acted as the chief judge of the stand court. After the war, he took up the legal profession again - without being held accountable for his actions - and worked as the district court director in Lüneburg. Among the members of the interception staff was Oberstarzt Tiling, once a division doctor (IVb) of the 292nd Infantry Division between February 1940 and March 1944. The interrogation officer responsible was a Captain Tellies from Hanover.

None of its members had to answer for their actions before a court for the crime of the Weyr interception staff of having executed many soldiers so shortly before the end of the war, while soldiers who refused to go to war continued to accuse them long after the war ended had to live to be branded as traitors and comrade killers.

literature

  • Adolf Brunnthaler: "They didn't like breakfast until they shot a few!" The shooting of alleged deserters using the example of the Wehrmacht reception staff in Weyer an der Enns in April and May 1945 in PRO REGIO - Historisches Jahrbuch für das Enns, Erlauf and Ybbstal , vol. 1 (Purgstall 2016) 55–71. ISBN 978-3-9504470-0-2

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dirngrabner, Erentrud: The Holy Cross Sisters of Upper Austria in the Third Reich. On the history of the Linz Province of the Sisters of the Cross during the National Socialist regime from 1938-1945 . In: Helmut Wagner (ed.): Cross Sisters . Linz 2002, p. 145 .
  2. ↑ Slapnicka, Harry: Upper Austria as it was called "Upper Danube" 1938-1945 . Linz 1978, p. 334-335 .
  3. ↑ Cf. MAW (= Market Archive Weyer an der Enns), New Market Archive, special inventory "Erection of a memorial for the victims of the reception staff in 1945", 1947.
  4. ↑ MAW (Market Archive Weyer an der Enns), cardboard collecting stick, notes of the cooperator Johann Ennser 1945. The same title: Linzer Volksblatt from April 1, 1946.
  5. ^ MAW (Market Archive Weyer an der Enns), box of collecting staff, materials on soldiers who were shot dead in Weyer ad Enns in April 1945.
  6. ^ Upper Austrian news of April 5, 1946 3.
  7. ↑ Dirngrabner: Kreuzschwestern Upper Austria . S. 145 .
  8. ^ Carl Eberhard Paul von Mayer (March 18, 1887 - July 19, 1947 in Plauen)
  9. ↑ MAW (Market Archive Weyer an der Enns), cardboard collection stick, letter from Hans-Joachim Wenk to the Franz Steinreadyhner family from March 13, 1947.
  10. ↑ Brunnthaler, Adolf: "They didn't like breakfast until they shot a few!" The shooting of alleged deserters using the example of the Wehrmacht reception staff in Weyer an der Enns in April and May 1945. In: PRO REGIO Historical yearbook for the Enns, Erlauf and Ybbstal valleys . 1st edition. tape 1 , no. 2016 . Purgstall 2016, ISBN 978-3-9504470-0-2 , pp. 71 .