Felix WOLF, born on September 11, 1913 in Vetrinj-Zakamen (Viktring-Stein) near Klagenfurt and baptized Catholic, was a son of the unskilled worker Marija Wolf.
In the birth book of the Catholic parish office Vetrinj-Zakamen the entries are still written in Slovenian, but the note about the death of Felix WOLF in the war year 1940 is in German:
According to notification of the Salzburg registry office no. 492/41 on 27. 6. 1940.
From this it is difficult to conclude that the young Carinthian met a violent end in Salzburg under the National Socialist dictatorship.
Moreover, his name can be found neither in the documentation Resistance and Persecution in Salzburg 1934-1945, published in 1991, nor in the victims database of the Documentation Center of the Austrian Resistance.
However, a hitherto unnoticed document of the German Wehrmacht in Salzburg provides information about the violent death of the Carinthian in the war year 1940: Felix WOLF was a recruit in the Mountain Pioneer Replacement Battalion 82 in order to be made fit for war, which obviously failed – »desertion«, desertion or refusal of military service.
His motives are obscure due to the lack of court martial and victim welfare records.
In any case, it is documented that a court-martial of Division 188 in Salzburg on May 8, 1940, imposed the death penalty on 26-year-old Felix WOLF. He was shot at 5 a.m. on June 27, 1940 at the military firing range in Glanegg.
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.
Finally, it should be noted that Felix WOLF’s mother survived the terror years in the Slovene-speaking area of Carinthia and died in 1954.
Sources
- Archive of the diocese Gurk: military registers
- Archive of the Archdiocese of Salzburg: Military Matrices
- Court Martial of Division 188: Report to the Wehrmacht Information Center
- City Archive Salzburg (Information from 7. 2. 2022)
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