Franz WÖRNDL was born in Grödig (just south of Salzburg, at the foot of the Untersberg mountain) on May 20, 1906 and was baptized in the Roman Catholic Church. He was one of the three children of Maria and Franz Wörndl (a factory worker).
The mother of the three children died in the Salzburg State Hospital in 1929: Since 1926 her son Franz had been a patient in the St. Anna-hospital1 in Gnigl (an adjacent town that was annexed to the city of Salzburg in 1935).
Under the Nazi regime, at the beginning of November 1939, Franz WÖRNDL was transferred to the Salzburg State Asylum and he was one of the 82 patients deported from there to the Hartheim Castle killing center near Linz Austria on April 17, 1941, where they were murdered.
As with all the other victims of the Nazis’ secret »T4«2 extermination program the death of 34 year old Franz WÖRNDL was not recorded in Salzburg’s police registration records.
His twin brother Martin and sister Hedwig survived the years of terror.
1 St. Anna-hospital or nursing home in Gnigl is now the St. Anna health center located at 6 Grazer Bundesstraße.
2 It was called »T4« because the »Euthanasie«-Central Office in Berlin was located at Tiergartenstraße 4.
Those primarily responsible for the murders of the sick in Salzburg were: Dr. Friedrich Rainer as Reich governor, Dr. Oskar Hausner as head of the district welfare office, Dr. Leo Wolfer as head of the state sanatorium and Dr. Heinrich Wolfer as head of the hereditary biology department of the state sanatorium (today the Christian Doppler Clinic).
Sources
Sources
- War Crimes Records of the U.S. Judge Advocate Division Headquarters (The National Archives Washington DC)
- Salzburg city and state archives
- Salzburg Archbishopric archives (register books)
Research: Stan Nadel
Stumbling Stone
Laid 13.09.2023 at Salzburg, Grazer Bundesstraße 6
