Franz Thaler

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Franz Thaler (born March 6, 1925 in Durnholz ; † October 29, 2015 in Sarnthein ) was a South Tyrolean author , quill pen and survivor of the Dachau and Hersbruck concentration camps .

biography

Franz Thaler was born in 1925 in the municipality of Sarntal in South Tyrol. When his father decided against emigrating to the German Reich in 1939 , the family experienced a period of harassment and marginalization. Among other things, Thaler was excluded from school lessons. In 1944, despite his Italian citizenship, he received the warrant for the German Wehrmacht . Although he initially hid from the National Socialists , he finally turned himself in when the family was threatened with kinship liability . Thaler was sentenced to ten years in a concentration camp by a court martial.

In December 1944, he arrived in the Dachau concentration camp and was in the same month in the Flossenbürger satellite camp moved Hersbruck where he henceforth work in construction crew had to. On April 29, 1945 the concentration camp was liberated by American troops; Thaler was initially interned in a French prison camp. When he returned to his homeland in Sarnen in August 1945, Thaler gradually began to grapple with what he had experienced and, in particular, to address the role of the Nazi resisters, disparaged as “deserters”, in letters to the editor. He also began to write down his memoirs, which were first published in book form in 1989 and subsequently also appeared in Italian and English. Thaler worked as a quill pen in the Sarntal valley until his retirement.

Thaler's memoir Unforgotten contributed significantly to the confrontation with the Nazi era and to the development of a critical culture of remembrance in South Tyrol . In 1983 Thaler received the South Tyrolean Press Prize . In 2010 he was from the city of Bolzano together with the anti-Nazi and Victims Josef Mayr-Nusser to honor citizens appointed. In 2013 the Politika society named him “Political Personality of the Year”.

In 2016, Thaler's estate was handed over by his heirs to the Bolzano City Archives , which is working to process it. On February 12, 2017, an asteroid was named after Franz Thaler: (6212) Franzthaler .

Publications

  • Unforgotten. Option, concentration camp, captivity, homecoming. A Sarner tells. Edition Raetia , Bozen 1999, ISBN 88-7283-128-8 .
  • Dimenticare may: opzioni, campo di concentramento di Dachau, prigioniero di guerra, ritorno a casa. Translation by Peter Litturi, foreword by Carlo Romeo , timeline by Leopold Steurer . Edition Raetia, Bozen 1990, ISBN 88-7283-206-3 .
  • Unforgotten: a Memoir of Dachau. Translated by Paul Crichton and Christl Kiener. Kiener, London-Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-943324-99-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heinrich Schwazer: Franz Thaler is dead . Neue Südtiroler Tageszeitung , October 29, 2015, accessed on October 30, 2015
  2. ↑ a b c Patrick Gamberoni, Hannes Obermair : “Unforgettable” - the estate of Franz Thaler . In: City Archives Bozen (Ed.): The exhibit of the month of the City Archives Bozen . No. 61 , January 2017 ( online [PDF; accessed January 1, 2017]).
  3. ^ Gerhard Mumelter : Franz Thaler - A memory . salto.bz , October 31, 2015
  4. ^ Honorary citizenship for Franz Thaler , accessed on November 6, 2015
  5. ^ Politika - South Tyrolean Society for Political Science: PPJ 2013
  6. ^ Hannes Obermair: Multiple Pasts - Collecting for the City? The Bolzano City Archives 3.0 . In: Philipp Tolloi (Ed.): Archives in South Tyrol: History and Perspectives / Archivi in ​​Provincia di Bolzano: storia e prospettive (=  publications of the South Tyrolean Provincial Archives 45 ). Universitätsverlag Wagner, Innsbruck 2018, ISBN 978-3-7030-0992-1 , p. 211–224, here: p. 223 .
personal data
SURNAME Thaler, Franz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian author, quill pen and survivor of the Dachau concentration camp
DATE OF BIRTH March 6, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Thornwood
DATE OF DEATH October 29, 2015
Place of death Sarnthein