Victoria Savs

Victoria Savs

Viktoria Savs (born June 27, 1899 in Bad Reichenhall , † December 31, 1979 in Salzburg ) was one of two well-known Austrian frontline soldiers of the First World War . She served with the knowledge of her superiors, but practically unrecognized as a woman, on the Dolomite front . After a serious wound in May 1917, she was sent to the hospital . She has received several awards for her commitment and bravery. She became better known as the “hero girl of the Three Peaks”.

Life

Florianiplatz 8, 6 and 4 in Bad Reichenhall

Viktoria Savs was born in 1899 in today's house No. 6 on Florianiplatz in Bad Reichenhall . Her parents separated when she was five years old and she grew up - as the eldest of three sisters - with her father Peter in Arco , near Lake Garda . Shortly before the outbreak of World War I, my father, a master shoemaker, and daughter moved to Obermais near Meran . In 1914 the father was called up to the Kaiserjäger and sent to Russian-occupied Galicia . He came home after a serious injury, and after recovering, he volunteered to join the Landsturm . The 16-year-old Viktoria Savs, who no longer wanted to part with her father, deceived the drafting commission in Merano about her gender and was thus able to join the Standschützen Battalion Merano I on June 10, 1915 . In this battalion, which had been in action on the plateau of Lavarone (southeast of Trento) since May 21, 1915 , she served undetected as a train soldier ( digging worker) "Victor Savs". It was not until December 8, 1916, that she obtained permission from Army Commander Archduke Eugen to volunteer as a Landsturm worker, weapon in hand, and moved into the Landsturm Infantry Battalion Innsbruck II, in which her father also served as a platoon leader . She also received secret permission to work at the front.

Viktoria Savs with her father Peter at the front

Except for a few officers , no one knew that Viktor Sav's soldier was actually a woman. In the front line she showed talent in guiding pack animals and as a reporter on skis. On December 1, 1916, she was assigned to a captain as orderly and soon afterwards even took part in fighting in the front section of the Three Peaks Plateau (Tre Cime) . In an attack on Italian positions in the Sexten Dolomites on April 11, 1917, she led a group of 20 captured Italians behind the Austrian lines, alone and under enemy artillery fire. She has received several awards for bravery and exemplary leadership, including the bronze medal for bravery , the Karl Troop Cross and the Great Silver Medal for Bravery .

Her mission at the front ended with a wound that she suffered on May 27, 1917: A grenade impact loosened a boulder that smashed her right foot so that it was only held by a few tendons on her leg. She was transported to the Sillian military hospital , where her leg had to be amputated below the knee . Even before the hospital stay, her father announced in January 1917 that the soldier "Viktor Savs" was a woman. No longer suitable for the front, she began to work for the Austrian Red Cross , where she was later awarded the Silver Cross of Merit.

After the war she came to Salzburg via Hall in Tirol and various places in Germany, where she settled in 1938. She occasionally attended veterans' meetings until the 1950s ; their participation in a meeting in the 1930s is documented. At that time she joined the NSDAP as a German national that upheld comradeship , not least in order to get a better disability pension. Nothing is known about political activities, but propaganda reports were made about them in the pre-war years of World War II.

Viktoria Savs died at the age of 80 on December 31, 1979 in Salzburg. She was buried with all her awards in the Salzburg municipal cemetery.

Appreciations

The 1999 NCO course at the Army NCOs Academy (HUAk) of the Austrian Armed Forces is named after her.

See also

• List of female military personnel disguised as men

literature

• Reinhard Heinisch: Women in the Army - Viktoria Savs, the "hero girl of the Three Peaks". In: Pallasch, magazine for military history. Issue 1/1997. Österreichischer Milizverlag, Salzburg 1997, ZDB -ID 1457478-0 , pp. 41-44.
• The hero girl of the Three Peaks. At the municipal cemetery in Salzburg there is an inconspicuous grave, on whose tombstone the name Viktoria Savs is barely legible. What is the reason for this Mrs. Savs? In: Communications and reports. Issue 129/2009. Austrian Black Cross, Vienna 2015, ZDB -ID 2708727-X , p. 36.
• Frank Gerbert: The Wars of the Viktoria Savs - from the front soldier in 1917 to Hitler's assistant. Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 2015, ISBN 978-3-218-00991-1 , content text .
  • In addition: Matthias Schulz: Brave girl. From the wounded front soldier to Adolf Hitler's assistant: New documents document the astonishing life of the Viktoria Savs. In: Der Spiegel. No. 38/2015, p. 118.
• David Pfeifer: The Red Wall. Novel. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, 2015. (Novel about Viktoria Savs' mission at the front).
• Albin Kühnel: The "hero girl of the Three Peaks": Victoria Savs - A search for traces. In: Heimatblätter of the Reichenhaller Tagblatt from January 31, 2009.

Web links

Commons : Viktoria Savs  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Photos and vita of Viktoria Savs , on cimeetrincee.it (Italian)
• Hans Savs: Soldier, 17, female , article on dradiowissen.de from June 27, 2014 (19 min 30s)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} In the east there was also a female front-line fighter, the Romanian Ecaterina Teodoroiu (1894–1917), and she is considered a hero there. With the Austrian Stephanie Hollenstein only the comrades knew about it, and when the superiors found out, she was immediately dismissed. The English reporter Dorothy Lawrence (1896–1964) was only ten days at the front and was then interrogated for a long time.
2. ↑ Andreas Hirsch: A piece of old Reichenhall - The upper city ... in the Heimatblätter, supplement of the Reichenhaller Tagblatt from July 2nd, 2018
3. ↑ According to Albin Kühnel, Heimatverein Bad Reichenhall, in the article Hans Savs: Soldat, 17, female , on dradiowissen.de from June 27, 2014, about 4 min 28s
4. ↑ ^{a b} The invalid viceroy Savs with the big silver one. The hero girl from the Dolomite front. In:  Neuigkeits -Welt-Blatt , No. 250/1917 (XLIV. Volume), November 1, 1917, p. 15, center left. (Online at ANNO ). - As recently as 1932, Peter Savs is proven to be a shoemaker in Meran-Obermais, cf. Dolomites . of June 25, 1932, p. 16 ( digital.tessmann.it ).
5. ↑ Official part. (...) In recognition of brave behavior (...). In:  Wiener Zeitung , No. 87/1918, April 17, 1918, p. 1, bottom center. (Online at ANNO ).
6. ↑ (caption :) The war volunteer Viktoria Savs (...). In:  The Interesting Sheet , No. 35/1917 (XXXVI. Year), August 30, 1917, p. 10, bottom left. (Online at ANNO ).
7. ↑ Albin Kühnel: Viktoria Savs - The hero girl of the 3 peaks. A search for clues. Lecture Tuesday, March 10, 2009, Society for Salzburg Regional Studies ( article online ).
8. ↑ Andreas Praher: The forgotten soldier . In: Flachgauer Nachrichten , 28./39. May 2014, p. 24 (on the occasion of the special exhibition War. Trauma. Art. Salzburg and the First World War in the Salzburg Museum , Neue Residenz, May 9, 2014 to September 27, 2015, article , salzburgmuseum.at).
9. ↑ cf. Viktoria Savs, the "hero girl of the three peaks" , newspaper clipping collection II (SAVS, Viktoria), main state archive Stuttgart - M 737 Bü 25 ( archival unit , state archives-bw.de ).
10. ^ Viktoria Savs, namesake of the 9th non-commissioned officer course and 29th staff non-commissioned officer course . From: Christoph Hatschek: Women in Austrian Military History ( Memento from May 3, 2012 in the Internet Archive ). In: bmlv.gv.at , accessed on September 12, 2015.