Franz KRANZINGER was born in Steindorf bei Straßwalchen (about 26 km north-east of Salzburg) on September 5, 1921. He was baptized as a Roman Catholic and was the older of Maria and Bartholomäus Kranzinger’s two sons.

Bartholomäus Kranzinger was a carpenter and after 1921 the Kranzinger family lived in Maxglan, which became part of the city of Salzburg in 1935.

Franz and his younger brother Johann learned their father’s trade, but they were both drafted into the wartime German army by the Nazi regime. The younger brother Johann was killed at age 19 when he was sent into the war of extermination against the Soviet Union.

His older brother Franz, on the other hand, who already had a partner with a common child, committed »desertion«. He was arrested and sentenced to death by a court martial of Division 177 in Vienna, then Wehrkreis XVII.

However, the 22-year-old deserter Franz KRANZINGER was not shot on the military firing range in Kagran, but was beheaded on 10 May 1944 in the Vienna Regional Court and buried in the Central Cemetery.

His mother was informed that her son died »calm and composed« and that no death notices would be allowed.

Sources

  • Widerstand und Verfolgung in Salzburg 1934-1945, Volume 1, Vienna 1991, p. 573
  • Salzburg city and state archives
Author: Gert Kerschbaumer
Translation: Stan Nadel

Stumbling Stone
Laid 24.09.2019 at Salzburg, Moserstraße 16

<p>HIER WOHNTE<br />
FRANZ KRANZINGER<br />
JG. 1921<br />
KRIEGSDIENST VERWEIGERT<br />
HINGERICHTET 10. 5. 1944<br />
LANDESGERICHT WIEN</p>
The symbol of Nazi Civil and Military Justice: the sword and scales of justice embedded with a swastika in the Nazi party eagle.

All stumbling stones at Moserstraße 16