Jakob MAIER, born on August 14, 1911 in Au im Bregenzerwald, province of Vorarlberg, was a child of the married couple Maria, née Kuen, and Josef Maier, who was an unskilled laborer and day laborer.
The death of Jakob MAIER in the war year 1942 is also recorded in the birth book of the Catholic parish office in Au:
+ 7. 7. 1942 in Glanegg near Salzburg. War mortality.
In Glanegg near Salzburg (municipality of Grödig) there is a military shooting range where deserters of the German Wehrmacht were shot during World War II.
It is therefore strange that Jakob MAIER does not appear in the victims database of the Documentation Center of Austrian Resistance (DÖW) nor in the published documentations on resistance and persecution in Vorarlberg and Salzburg.
However, a hitherto unnoticed document from the German Wehrmacht in Salzburg provides information about the violent death of the Vorarlberger in the war year 1942: Jakob MAIER was a soldier in the Mountain Pioneer Replacement Battalion 82, stationed in Salzburg, when he apparently committed »desertion«.
In any case, it is documented that the death sentence imposed on 30-year-old Jakob MAIER by a court-martial of Division 188 in Salzburg was executed on July 7, 1942, at the military firing range in Glanegg near Salzburg.
Research also shows that his body was buried anonymously in the municipal cemetery of the city of Salzburg.
The blood judge who passed the death sentence »in the name of the German people« remains nameless because the courts martial were able to destroy a large part of their files in Salzburg.
For lack of court martial and victim welfare files, the personal circumstances of the terror victims also lie in the dark. At least we know that Jakob MAIER was married in Bludenz and that his widow, as the survivor of a deserter from the German Wehrmacht, was not entitled to victim welfare in liberated Austria.
Sources
- Provincial archives of Vorarlberg and Tyrol: military registers
- Archives of the Archdiocese of Salzburg: Military Matrices
- Court Martial of Division 188: Report to the Wehrmacht Information Center
Translation: DeepL
Stumbling Stone
Laid 27.09.2022 at Salzburg, Kajetanerplatz 2
Photo: Gert Kerschbaumer
Memorial to the victims of the Salzburg courts martial in Glanegg (erected on 30 September 2011 on the initiative of Governor Gabi Burgstaller)Photo: Gert Kerschbaumer