Paul Maria Hafner
Paul Maria Hafner (born February 24, 1923 in Mals , South Tyrol , Italy , † February 2010 in Spain ) was an officer of the Waffen SS , pig farmer and inventor . He was a supporter of National Socialism until the end . The South Tyrolean had lived in Spain since 1954, but was an Italian citizen.
biography
Paul Maria Hafner was born as the eldest son of a restaurateur and farmer. After attending school in Mals and Schlanders , Paul Hafner went to the Franziskanergymnasium in Bozen , from which he moved to the Lyceum in Merano in 1938 .
Hafner came to Berlin in 1940 with the support of the Völkischer Kampfrings Südtirols , where he joined the SS on February 17, 1941 (membership number 490.167). He fought in the following war years until 1944 in the 6th SS Mountain Division "North" on the Eastern Front in Finland . He also worked temporarily as a trainer at the SS Junker School in Bad Tölz and in the Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps . At the end of the war he belonged to the 38th SS Grenadier Division "Nibelungen" , which surrendered to the US Army near Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1945 . As a prisoner of war he met Otto Skorzeny and Josef Schwammberger , with whom he later maintained close contact.
After the war, studied Hafner at the University of Innsbruck , where he met with a 1949 dissertation on the economic relations between North and South Tyrol doctorate . In the following years he worked in Milan and Bolzano , from 1951 to 1953 he was the technical director of the Generalpioggia company owned by Karl Nicolussi-Leck and Much Tutzer, a subsidiary of Mannesmannregner GmbH. In December 1953 he married in Innsbruck and shortly afterwards moved to Madrid . Hafner always had close contacts to his SS comrades in South Tyrol and benefited from their international connections. SS officer Karl Nicolussi-Leck found Hafner in Spain for a job at Mannesmann. Hafner later tried his hand at running the “Tiroler Hof” inn in Madrid and also ran a pig farm there. Hafner died according to death notices of the community several times in February 2010 in Spain. The urn burial took place at the end of July in the cemetery of his birthplace Mals in Vinschgau .
Paul Maria Hafner became known to the international public in 2007 through the documentary film Hafners Paradies by the Austrian director Günter Schwaiger . In the film Hafner shows his enthusiasm for Adolf Hitler and National Socialism , which will last until the end of his life .
War awards
- Iron Cross 1st and 2nd class
- Finnish Freedom Medal
- Wounded badge
literature
- Georg Mair: A life as a Nazi. The unbelievable story of the South Tyrolean SS man Paul Hafner, who is still openly committed to National Socialism. FF weekly magazine 5/2008. http://www.hafnersparadise.com/press/ff-Wochenmagazin.pdf
- Gerald Steinacher : Nazis on the run. How war criminals escaped overseas via Italy . Studienverlag Vienna-Innsbruck-Munich 2008 ISBN 978-3-7065-4026-1 .
- Gerald Steinacher: Exclusion in the economy? Careers of South Tyrolean National Socialists after 1945. In: Hannes Obermair et al. (Hrsg.): Regional civil society in motion. Vienna-Bozen: Folio Verlag 2012. ISBN 978-3-85256-618-4 , pp. 272–285, especially pp. 276–278.
Web links
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hafner, Paul Maria |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Hafner, Paul |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian officer of the Waffen SS, pig farmer and inventor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 24, 1923 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Mals , South Tyrol , Italy |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 2010 |
| Place of death | Spain |