Ambros TRAGBAUER, born on November 27, 1902 in Gösel near St. Gertraud in Lavanttal and baptized a Catholic, was a child of the unmarried housemaid Daphrose Tragbauer.
Her son Ambros also had no learned profession. Among other things, he was a gardener’s assistant and a railroad worker. He had an accident at work and was unemployed for a time in the 1930s.
During his precarious living conditions, he came into conflict with the law several times: officially registered criminal record and, on top of that, a bad reputation for life.
Ambros TRAGBAUER had been married since 1933 and was a municipal servant in St. Andrä in Lavanttal, which obviously gave him support. It is also significant that he did not allow himself to be politically mobilized by any side – neither before nor during the National Socialist rule.
Ambros TRAGBAUER was no hero when he obeyed his call-up to the German Wehrmacht on July 26, 1943. He was to be made fit for war in the Anton Wallner Barracks, the location of the Mountain Medics in the municipality of Saalfelden am Steinernen Meer.
Because of his poor constitution, he was allowed to spend a 14-day recuperation leave with his family in Lavanttal. On November 10, 1943, he was to rejoin his barracks.
There is no doubt that Ambros TRAGBAUER tried to evade military service in the following months by calling in sick, staying in hospital, going on the run and falsifying documents. On April 23, 1944, he ran into the arms of the gendarmerie.
On May 11, 1944, two and a half weeks after his arrest, Ambros TRAGBAUER was ostracized by the court-martial of Division 418 in the Salzburg courthouse as »asocial« because of his previous convictions and sentenced to death for »desertion«.
At the court-martial of Division 418, Dr. Ferdinand Voggenberger served as prosecutor and Dr. Julius Poth as judge. Both were Austrian jurists – blood judges in Salzburg.
On June 8, 1944, Ambros TRAGBAUER was beheaded at the age of 41 in Munich-Stadelheim and his body was anonymously buried in the nearby Perlacher Forst cemetery.
It is still unknown how his violent end in the war year 1944 was perceived by his family in Lavanttal.
Finally, it should be noted that Ambros TRAGBAUER is one of many victims of wartime justice who do not appear in the documentation Resistance and Persecution in Salzburg 1934-1945 published in 1991.
After the liberation of Austria, it took decades until the deserters of the German Wehrmacht were rehabilitated: with the Repeal and Rehabilitation Act of the Austrian National Council, which came into force on December 1, 2009.
Sources
- Austrian State Archives and Documentation Center of the Austrian Resistance (death sentence St. P. L. I 249/44 Ambros Tragbauer)
- Archive of the Diocese of Gurk (matric books)
- Main State Archives Munich
Translation: DeepL
Stumbling Stone
Laid 27.09.2022 at Salzburg, Kajetanerplatz 2
