List of stumbling blocks in Tyrol

Stumbling block for Hans Vogl and placeholder for Hilde Vogl in Zell am Ziller

The list of stumbling blocks in Tyrol contains the stumbling blocks in the Austrian state of Tyrol , which remind of the fate of the people who were murdered, deported, expelled or driven to suicide by the Nazis in Tyrol. The stumbling blocks were laid by Gunter Demnig . As a rule, they are in front of the victim's last self-chosen place of residence.

The first installation in Tyrol took place on September 20, 2019 in Zell am Ziller .

The laying of six stumbling blocks in Wattens sparked political controversy. A citizens' initiative opposed the negative stance of Innsbruck's Vice Mayor Ursula Schwarzl from the Greens , who does not want to approve stumbling blocks in the state capital.

Tyrol during the Nazi regime

Tyrol is traditionally a conservatively dominated federal state with a high proportion of Catholics, a strong farmers' association and little industry. The Tyrolean People's Party dominated political events as early as the interwar period . It always achieved absolute majorities in the state elections in the First Republic - with results between almost 60% and more than 65% - and consistently provided the state governor . The Social Democrats had in Tirol always a difficult time, but could establish itself as the second strongest force. The German national forces were also represented in modest strength in the Tyrolean state parliament in the interwar years , but not the communists and the national socialists. The NSDAP achieved its best result in 1925 with 3,260 votes, that is 2.07% of the electorate. So she failed again in the attempt to move into the state parliament. Nevertheless, the jubilation on the occasion of the march of the German troops in March 1938 and the so-called annexation of Austria to the Third Reich was great, Innsbruck was flagged with Nazi flags in no time and the still young writer Gertrud Fussenegger , former student at the University of Innsbruck, paid homage to the Führer in verse in the Völkischer Beobachter :

"
People who cry joyfully meet him in prayer,
to bring themselves as a gift,
willing to make the greatest commitment"

- Gertrud Fussenegger : Voice of the Ostmark; Volkischer Beobachter, March 15, 1938

Innsbruck in March 1938

The poet's visionary was describing a scene that would only take place in Innsbruck on April 5, 1938, when Adolf Hitler came to visit the Tyrolean capital. The Nazi regime established itself quickly and without friction in the predominantly Catholic Tyrol. Gauleiter was Franz Hofer , a staunch and brutal National Socialist who had the ambition the new Gau Tirol Vorarlberg as soon as possible " free of Jews to make". His approach was quick and extremely brutal. During the November pogroms of 1938, four respected citizens of Innsbruck were killed or stabbed to death. In order not to cause a stir, the local SS dispensed with uniforms and firearms. The murder and robbery operation was carried out in plain clothes in the middle of the night. The chairman of the Israelite Community for Tyrol and Vorarlberg , Richard Berger , was thrown into the Inn. Tyrol and Vorarlberg each had only a small Jewish population, only 407 people in these two federal states stated in the 1934 census that they belong to the Jewish denomination. That was 2.1% of all Jews living in Austria at the time. For this small group, the night of November 9th to 10th, 1938, was an example of what was ahead of them. Many left their homeland immediately, most of the others were housed in collective quarters in Vienna. On March 15, 1939, Tyrol was declared “free of Jews”.

Resistance was sparse and it came late. The historian Horst Schreiber stated: “The resistance in Tyrol was scattered and isolated, there was hardly any supra-regional cooperation. To a large extent it was borne by inexperienced people [...] Resistance was a rare exception in Tyrol, enthusiasm and sympathy for the Nazi regime, followers, opportunism and adaptation the rule. ”Between 1938 and 1940, the legitimist- monarchist resistance played one certain role, after which it was broken by arrests, solitary confinement, dark arrest and beatings. There was also some resistance from clergymen, but the main part of the resistance against the Nazi regime came from socialists and communists, who lost at least 24 members.

The market town of Zell am Ziller reports on its website that there were three no votes in the vote on the connection in Zell in 1938. The number of votes in favor is not mentioned. After the fall of the Nazi regime, it was established: "The final calculation was tough: 49 dead and the [...] executed principal school director Hans Vogl."

Wattens

The seven stumbling blocks in the market town of Wattens are dedicated to different groups of victims, three commemorate Jewish citizens, two to victims of the Action T4 euthanasia program and two to resistance fighters, a farmer and a priest.

image	inscription	Location	Life
	HERE LIVED MARIA OTHER STREETS GEB. WOODEN HAMMER JG. 1901 DISTRIBUTED 20.3.1941 SCHLOSS HARTHEIM MURDERED 1941 'AKTION T4'	If it will not be relocated for structural reasons, it is located in the Wattens Museum as an intermediary object	Maria Andergassen , nee Holzhammer, was born on December 26, 1901 in Hall in Tirol . Maria Andergassen was murdered on March 20, 1941 as part of the Nazi euthanasia program at Hartheim Castle .
	SIMON BACHLER JG LIVED HERE . 1877 DISTRIBUTED 12/10/1940 HARTHEIM CASTLE MURDERED 1940 'AKTION T4'	Franz-Strickner-Straße 2 (today's Raiffeisenbank, formerly a gendarmerie post)	Simon Bachler was born in St. Johann im Pongau in 1877 . He worked as a gendarme in Wattens, fell ill, retired and was sent to the Hall sanatorium. Simon Bachler was transferred from there to the Hartheim killing center on December 10, 1940 and murdered on the same day.
		Bahnhofstrasse (intersection Ludwig-Lassl-Strasse)	Felix Bunzl was born on May 17, 1889 in Vienna into a paper dynasty. His parents were Max Bunzl and Cäcilie, née Tedesco. He had several brothers: Martin, Victor, Robert, Hugo, Emil and Georg and sister Alice, who died at the age of eight. Felix Bunzl studied and did his doctorate. He took part in the First World War and disarmed as a reserve officer in 1919. Then he went to Wattens, where he bought the cotton wool paper mill , successfully rebuilt and expanded it. Felix Bunzl was married to Hilde, née Zerbs (born June 25, 1904 in Vienna). The couple had two children. Hilde Bunzl died at the age of 34. After the annexation of Austria by Hitler's Germany, Bunzl was forced to emigrate in 1939. He went to Lausanne , the factory was " Aryanized ". Felix Bunzl died on December 15, 1956 in exile in Switzerland. A street in Wattens is named after him.
	JAKOB GAPP JG LIVED HERE . ARRESTED 1897 1942 BERLIN-PLÖTZENSEE MURDERED 13.8.1943	Kirchplatz (in front of the Laurentiuskirche)	Jakob Gapp Adoration of the martyr in the Marienkirche in Wattens was born on July 26, 1897 in Wattens. He was the youngest of seven children in a factory worker family. He entered the Marian Order in 1920 and was ordained a priest in 1930. He saw it as his duty to “teach the truth and fight error.” He recognized the barbarism of Nazi ideology and called it by its name. After an intrepid sermon in which he demanded the commandment to love one's neighbor regardless of nationality and religion, given on December 11, 1939 in the Laurentiuskirche in Wattens, his life and limb was in danger. He fled to France and finally to Spain. In 1942 he was lured across the border to France by Gestapo agents who had pretended to be persecuted Jews, where he was arrested and transferred to Berlin. Jakob Gab was executed with the guillotine on August 13, 1943. On November 24, 1996, he was beatified in Rome by Pope John Paul II .
	FRIEDRICH TANNERT JG LIVED HERE . 1901 ESCAPE 1938 ENGLAND	Bahnhofstrasse 11	Friedrich Tannert was born on August 14, 1901 in Krakow . He was an employee in the Wattens paper mill. On May 27, 1928 he married Gertrude, nee Kestel. The couple had at least one daughter. The family had to flee to England from the Nazis in 1938.
	HERE LIVED GERTRUDE TANNERT GEB. KESTEL JG. 1903 ESCAPE 1938 ENGLAND	Bahnhofstrasse 11	Gertrude Tannert , nee Kestel, was born on August 1, 1903. On May 27, 1928, she married Friedrich Tannert, an employee of the Wattens paper mill. The couple had at least one daughter. The family had to flee to England from the Nazis in 1938.
	ALBERT TROPPMAIR JG LIVED HERE . 1891 DEAD IN THE RESISTANCE 3 May 1945 WATTENS	Vögelsbergweg 2	Albert Troppmair was born on April 10, 1891 in Kolsassberg , a municipality in the Tyrolean lowlands . He was a farmer in Wattens. From 1942 he was one of a group of opponents of National Socialism, from which a resistance group formed towards the end of the war. Its members came from the Catholic-conservative environment. The group gathered information, established contacts with other resistance members and tried to prevent the destruction of the local infrastructure. On April 28, 1945 Albert Troppmair was arrested and sent to the Reichenau labor education camp . However, this was already dissolved on May 2, 1945 and Troppmaier was able to return to his home town. When the next day white and red-white-red flags were hoisted in Wattens, scattered SS units wanted to blow up the place and opened fire on the resistance fighters. Advancing US troops thought the attack was aimed at them and returned fire. They met Albert Troppmair and another resistance fighter. Albert Troppmair was fatally wounded, Albert Deflorian was seriously wounded. He left behind his wife, whom he married in 1926, an adopted son and foster daughter. His name was engraved on the Liberation Monument in Innsbruck.

Zell am Ziller

image	inscription	Location	Life
	HANS VOGL JG LIVED AND TEACHED HERE . 1895 ARRESTED IN THE RESISTANCE 04/10/1942 EXECUTED 06/30/1944 MÜNCHEN -STADELHEIM	Old school, Unterdorf 15	Hans Vogl , actually Johann Vogl , was born on April 3, 1895 in Eben am Achensee . He became a primary school teacher in Erl near Kufstein and also worked as a community secretary. He started a family, but had difficulty getting it through. Because as a social democrat and because of his anti-clerical stance, he increasingly encountered incomprehension, distrust and even rejection among the strict Catholic rural population and therefore did not get a better job. Various difficulties in Erl led to his transfer to Jenbach in 1936 . After the annexation of Austria, he came to terms with the new rulers, was appointed principal school director in Zell am Ziller and joined the NSDAP . In June 1941 he was invited to a meeting in Kufstein by Adi Horejs, a friend. There the Berlin communist Robert Uhrig spoke about the economic and military situation. Vogl was not only a listener, he also donated for underground activities. In January 1942 the Kufsteiner socialist and resistance fighter Alois Graus visited him and a few weeks later he met him again on a train when he - just arrested - was transferred to Innsbruck. Graus managed to ask Vogl to warn the members of the Kufstein resistance group Roby. He did this too. Hans Vogl himself was arrested on April 10, 1942. Little did he know that Roby had been under surveillance since the fall of 1941. In addition, the Gestapo men searched his house and found an “extensive Marxist library”. From January 8 to September 23, 1943, he was imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp , under terrible conditions. Numerous letters to his wife testify to this. On April 13 and 14, 1944, he stood before the 6th Senate of the People's Court in Munich. In the main hearing, his party affiliation was his undoing, because he would have "broken loyalty to the Führer and conspired as a mortal enemy of the NS". Hans Vogl was sentenced to death and executed on June 30, 1944 in Munich-Stadelheim. Uhrig and Graus were also murdered by the Nazi regime. In the last notes to his family, Hans Vogl wrote: “I did not die because I did wrong to someone, but because I was always on the side of the poor and helpless, because of my worldview. That shouldn't be a shame for you. You can be proud of it. (...) The correct judgment will tell the story! " He left a wife and four children.

Laying data

The first stumbling block in Tyrol was laid by the artist personally on September 20, 2019 in the market town of Zell am Ziller . The initiative for this came from Anneliese Brugger, the only SPÖ councilor in Zell, and from Josef Thaler, a retired lawyer who also took over the costs of the relocation.

The Stolpersteine ​​von Wattens were laid by Gunter Demnig on July 15, 2020. The project was initiated by local councilor Lukas Schmied (ÖVP), Wattner's cultural advisor, in November 2018. He explained that the historian Philipp Lehar, a museum employee from Wattens, is the “perfect resource” in town. The culture committee gave the initiators a free hand and unanimously accepted the list of names.

Controversies about the second stumbling block in Zell am Ziller

The old school, place of work and residence of the resistance fighter Hans Vogl

The laying of a second stumbling block for Vogl's widow was suggested by the initiators, but rejected with the votes of the ÖVP and FPÖ community councils. Resistance came from the FPÖ mandate Christoph Steiner , who is also represented in the Federal Council . In return for his approval of the Stolperstein for Vogl's widow, he asked for a memorial for the local war widows. Gunter Demnig distanced himself from Steiner's statements and announced that he would move a placeholder for the Hilde-Vogl-Stolperstein.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ORF (Tyrol): Stumbling blocks become a political issue , August 9, 2020
2. ↑ Tiroler Tageszeitung (Innsbruck): “Stumbling blocks for Tyrol”: Initiative wants to make victims of National Socialism visible throughout Tyrol , August 8, 2020
3. ↑ Michael Forcher : Little History of Tyrol , Haymon, Innsbruck 2012, ISBN 978-3-85218-902-4 .
4. ^ Roman Spiss: Economic and social upheavals between the world wars. (PDF; 417 kB) In: Remember.at . Teaching material, accessed on January 6, 2020.
5. ↑ Friedrich Stepanek, Simon Lukasser: "But the fact that there are unfortunately also Tyroleans who were able to vote in a social democratic manner [...] is simply incomprehensible for a real Tyrolean". State election campaigns in the state of Tyrol 1919–1933. In: Herbert Dachs , Michael Dippelreiter , Franz Schausberger (eds.): Radical phrase, electoral alliances and continuities - state election campaigns in Austria's federal states 1919 to 1932. Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2017, ISBN 978-3-205-20587-6 , P. 452.
6. ^ Austrian Commission of Historians : Final report of the Commission of Historians of the Republic of Austria . Volume 1. Oldenbourg, Vienna 2003, pp. 85-87. 365 Jews were counted in Tyrol and 42 in Vorarlberg. How much the population changed between 1934 and 1938 is not known.
7. ↑ From the history of the Jewish communities in the German-speaking area: Innsbruck / Tirol (Austria). In: jewische-gemeinden.de . Retrieved January 6, 2020.
8. ↑ ^{a b} Alexander Wallner, Claudia Bucher, Markus Seeber: Resistance and Liberation in Tyrol 1945. (PDF; 4.6 MB) In: Remember.at . Retrieved January 6, 2020.
9. ↑ An excursion into the history of the place. In: gemeinde-zell.at . Retrieved January 6, 2020.
10. ↑ ^{a b} Andrea Sommerauer: Temporary Memorial / In memory of 360 victims of Nazi euthanasia , StudienVerlag 2007, p. 31
11. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} ORF (Innsbruck): Stumbling blocks remember Nazi victims , July 18, 2020
12. ↑ Tiroler Tageszeitung: Memorials in Wattens: “Stumbling blocks” are intended to initiate the culture of remembrance , accessed on August 8, 2020
13. ↑ Max Bunzl's obituary listing all relatives , accessed on August 9, 2020
14. ↑ Alice Bunzl obituary , accessed on August 9, 2020
15. ^ Hohenems Genealogy: Dr. Felix Bunzl / male / 1889-1956 (67 years) , accessed on August 9, 2020
16. ↑ Wattens (Laurentiuskirche), Innsbruck Land District, Tyrol, Austria , accessed on August 9, 2020
17. ↑ JAKOB GAPP. Priest. Resistance fighters against the Nazi regime. Executed. , accessed on August 9, 2020
18. ↑ Ecumenical Lexicon of Saints: Jakob Gapp , accessed on August 9, 2020
19. ^ Hohenems Genealogy: Friedrich Tannert / male / 1901- , accessed on August 10, 2020
20. ^ Hohenems Genealogy: Gertrude Kestel / Female / 1903- , accessed on August 10, 2020
21. ↑ Eduard-Wallnöfer-Platz in Innsbruck: Albert Troppmair / born April 10, 1891 in Kolsassberg / died May 3, 1945 near Wattens , accessed on August 10, 2020
22. ↑ Philipp Lehár: It's about choices– 3 Austrian scout leaders with courage in the 20th century , thesis for the course “Pedagogy in Memory Locations ” 2014–2015, p. 74
23. ↑ Stumbling stone laying in Zell / Ziller. In: Zillertaler Zeitung . Retrieved January 6, 2020.
24. ↑ The Eduard-Wallnöfer-Platz in Innsbruck (website), there two pages, both accessed on January 6, 2020:
    * 35 Alois Graus (1897–1943),
    * Hans Vogl (1895–1944).
25. ↑ ^{a b} Steffen Arora: Zell am Ziller receives Tyrol's first stumbling block and prevents the second. In: The Standard . September 21, 2019, accessed on January 6, 2020.
26. ↑ Tiroler Tageszeitung (Innsbruck): Memorials in Wattens: “Stumbling blocks” are supposed to initiate the culture of remembrance , July 7th, 2020

Web links

• Stolpersteine , official Demnig website

 Map with all coordinates: OSM | WikiMap