Transport of concentration camp inmates to Tyrol

The Transport of Inmates of German Concentration Camps to Tyrol happened in late April 1945 and led to the only time such prisoners were liberated by German troops.

Transfer and liberation

On April 24, 1945 139 prisoners from Dachau Concentration Camp were transferred to Niederdorf/Hochpustertal 70 km northeast of Bozen. The transport, which was composed of trucks and old buses, was guarded by several dozen troops from the SS and SD. On board were the camp's most important and prominent prisoners as well as family members of the 20 July plotters. The officers in charge, Obersturmführer Edgar Stiller and Untersturmführer Bader, had orders to kill all the prisoners if in any fear of capture.

But on arrival at “Arbeitserziehungslager Reichenau”, Innsbruck, camp authorities told the guards that they were not prepared to accept the prisoners. Instead the prisoners were sent to the village hotel at Niederdorf, where they arrived on April 28.

Contrary to expectations, the building was unavailable as it was being used by three German Wehrmacht generals. A delegation from the prisoners' committee—that included Colonel Bogislaw von Bonin who had been imprisoned for allowing a retreat on the Eastern Front—made contact with the senior army officers and made known the identity of the high-status prisoners and the fear that they were to be executed before liberation by US troops.

A message was sent to Wehrmacht troops at Bozen commanded by Captain Wichard von Alvensleben, who decided to come and protect the prisoners with his soldiers.

On April 30 against the background of advancing US troops and Alvensleben’s unit, which had now surrounded the village, the SS guards decided to escape.

The free prisoners were then accommodated at the Pragser Wildsee Hotel until US troops marched into Niederdorf on May 5.

List of the Prisoners

(by country)^[1][2]

Next to these prominent prisoners two inmates of the Dachau concentration camp, the cook Wilhelm Visintainer and the barber Paul Wauer were within the transport.

Vera Schuschnigg, wife of Kurt von Schuschnigg, and their daughter Maria Dolores Elisabeth had joined the transport voluntarily and were not officially imprisoned.^[3][4]

References

1. ^ [1] (German)
2. ^ 'Endgame 1945 The Missing Final Chapter of World War II'
3. ^ georg-elser-arbeitskreis.de (German)
4. ^ Austrian Requiem

• georg-elser-arbeitskreis.de/texts/niederdorf.htm
• ECHO Tirol November 10, 2005 (German)
• georg-elser-arbeitskreis.de (German)
• Pragser Wildsee.com (German)
• Hans-Günter Richardi, SS-Geiseln in der Alpenfestung, ISBN 978-88-7283-229-5 http://www.raetia.com/index.php?id=338
• Fey von Hassel, Hostage of the Third Reich: The Story of My Imprisonment and Rescue from the SS, ISBN 978-06-8419-080-8
• Endgame 1945 The Missing Final Chapter of World War II ISBN 978-0316109802
• Klaus-Dietmar Henke, Die amerikanische Besetzung Deutschlands (German), ISBN 3486561758
• Kurt von Schuschnigg: Austrian Requiem,Victor Gollancz 1946, London.