Wilfried HAHN was born in Salzburg on August 5, 1920 and was baptized in the Roman Catholic Church. He was the oldest child of Josefa Hahn, née Wildner, and Julius-Josef (Freiherr von) Hahn, a Vienna bank director.
Wilfried HAHN was born in Salzburg’s St. Johanns State Hospital and Salzburg’s Archbishop Dr. Ignaz Rieder performed his baptismal ceremony, but that seems to be his only known connection to Salzburg before 1942.
Wilfried HAHN lived in Vienna’s 8th district until he was drafted into the German army. In 1942, he was a soldier in the German Wehrmacht with the rank of »gunner« and served in the Army Anti-Aircraft Artillery Replacement Division 277 of Military District XVII (Vienna),
A previously unnoticed document from the Nazi’s military justice system in Salzburg sheds some light on his violent end: The 21-year-old »gunner« Wilfried HAHN was murdered or driven to suicide on August 3, 1942 in the prison of the Salzburg Regional Court. But there is no indication of why he was there.
Did he leave any farewell words?
As in other cases like this, the criminal police who were supposed to investigate these deaths remained silent.
His violent death was, however, certified by the Vienna Inner City registry office, and his body was buried in Vienna’s Central Cemetery. His parents and siblings survived the war years in Vienna.
Wilfried HAHN is one of a number of victims of the Nazi terror who were not recorded in either the documentation Widerstand und Verfolgung in Salzburg 1934-1945 (published in 1991) nor in the online databank of the Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance.
Sources
- Archive of the Salzburg Archdiocese: Register books
- Court Martial of Division 188: Report to the Wehrmacht Information Office
Translation: Stan Nadel
Stumbling Stone
Laid 09.09.2024 at Salzburg, Kajetanerplatz 2
Report to Wehrmacht information center