Towards the end of war year 1944, the »bloody« judge Dr. Roland Freisler, President of the »People’s Court« in Berlin, passed three death sentences at the Salzburg Regional Court, which had a special address under the Nazi regime: 2 Georg-von-Schönerer-Platz.1
The death sentences imposed in Salzburg by the hanging judge from Berlin on three consecutive days of the war had the same justification: »undermining military morale« and »aiding and abetting the enemy« – meaning resistance, a term commonly used today, but one that does not appear in the files of the »People’s Court«.
It is still unclear why Freisler’s first Salzburg death sentence from December 14, 1944, was not carried out. It is said that Freisler’s file was misplaced, and therefore the execution order was not issued.
In any case, Alois UNTERWURZACHER (a train dispatcher in the alpine Gasteinertal/Gastein Valley south of Salzburg) from East Tyrol, who had been sentenced to death by Freisler in Salzburg, was released from his death cell in the Munich-Stadelheim prison – an astonishing and extremely gratifying outcome.
On the other hand, Fathers Edmund PONTILLER (OSB) and Johann SCHWINGSHACKL (SJ), whom Freisler sentenced to death in Salzburg on December 15 and 16, 1944 respectively, did not survive the years of terror. Both were priests who had originally come from Tyrol: Edmund PONTILLER had been born on November 4, 1889 in Dölsach, near the East Tyrol capital, Lienz; while Johann SCHWINGSHACKL had been born on May 4, 1887 in the Pustertal/Puster Vally town of Welsberg, in South Tyrol (which was annexed by Italy after WWI).
Both were arrested by the Gestapo in the spring of 1944: one at Szentegát Castle in Hungary, the other in Bad Schallerbach near Wels in Upper Austria, but both were brought to trial in Salzburg. Why Salzburg? Freisler’s files don’t say.
The motives and attitudes of the two priests, however, can be summed up in succinct terms: Christian resistance.
It has long been known that Dr. Roland Freisler, who loved to pass death sentences, was killed in an air raid on Berlin on 3 February 1945 – and since then he has often been considered a »victim of a terror attack«.
Records indicate that Father Edmund PONTILLER was beheaded at the age of 55 on February 9, 1945 in the Munich-Stadelheim prison and that 57 year-old Father Johann SCHWINGSHACKL died in the Munich-Stadelheim from a severe lung disease on February 27, 1945, a few days before his scheduled beheading.
After the liberation of Salzburg by the U.S. Army, the victims of the bloody justice were to be immortalized with their names on a memorial stone in front of the regional court at Georg-von-Schönerer-Platz (which had its name restored to Rudolfsplatz after the liberation – though anti-fascist local councilors wanted it to be renamed »Liberation Square«).
Things turned out differently than expected: instead of a clearly visible memorial on the Rudolfsplatz there is a measuring station for automobile exhaust gases decorated with flowers.
1 Georg von Schönerer, was a notorious Austrian German-Nationalist politician and landowner (1842-1921): »Germania’s cathedral will be built without Judah, without Rome!«
Sources
- German National Archives in Berlin: Volksgerichtshof Akten 5H 095/44, 06J 0110/44, 3 J 1870/44, 1J 404/44
- Arolsen Archives: death certificates registry office Munich
- Biographia Benedictina and Ökumenisches Heiligenlexikon (Wikipedia)
- Gisela Hormayr: Verfolgung, Entrechtung, Tod. Studierende der Universität Innsbruck als Opfer des Nationalsozialismus, (Innsbruck 2019), pp. 133-135, 142-146
Translation: Stan Nadel
Stumbling Stone
Laid 08.10.2025 at Salzburg, Kajetanerplatz 2
Father Johann SchwingshacklSource: Ecumenical Dictionary of Saints
Father Johann SchwingshacklRelief in the parish church in Welsberg, Puster Vally
Photo: Gert Kerschbaumer