Johann FRIEMBICHLER was born in Henndorf am Wallersee (19m north-west of Salzburg) on June 23, 1916.
He was baptized in the Roman Catholic Church and was the only child of Anna Friembichler, née Mayr, and Andreas Friembichler, a farmer at hops-garden farm.
The Henndorf parish birth and death register recorded the death of Johann FRIEMBICHLER as: »shot by a court martial« in Glanegg near Salzburg on December 10, 1942.
Johann FRIEMBICHLER is one of the many victims of the Nazi’s Military Justice who do not appear in either the 1991volume on resistance in Salzburg (Widerstand und Verfolgung in Salzburg 1934-1945) nor in the Victim Databank of the Documentation-archive of the Austrian Resistance.
But, a previously unnoticed document from the German Wehrmacht provides information about the violent death of the young man in the war year 1942:
Johann FRIEMBICHLER was a soldier in a tank destroyer unit stationed in occupied Slovenia, which was subordinate to military district XVIII with its headquarters in the city of Salzburg.
This explains why a court martial in Salzburg imposed the death penalty on 26-year-old Johann FRIEMBICHLER for »desertion«.
He was shot to death on December 10, 1942 at the military firing range in Glanegg and buried anonymously in the municipal cemetery in Salzburg.
The bloody handed judge who issued the death sentence »in the name of the German people« remains unknown, because the Court Martial managed to destroy most of its files in Salzburg at the end of the war.
Finally, it should be remembered that Johann FRIEMBICHLER – his name is not on any war – had a mother who survived the war and missed her son.
Sources
- Archive of the Salzburg Archdiocese: Register books and military registers
- Division 188 Court Martial: Report to the Wehrmacht Information Office
Translation: Stan Nadel
Stumbling Stone
Laid 27.09.2022 at Salzburg, Kajetanerplatz 2
Memorial tablet at the Salzburg State CourtPhoto: Gert Kerschbaumer
