After the end of the war, US troops controlled Tyrol for two months. The victorious French then took over the administration. The Tyroleans were spared the Soviet occupation that descended on eastern Austria. Hunger was the people's greatest enemy, especially in the first three years after the war. May 1945 brought not only the end of the war, but also snow. The winter of 1946/47 went down in Tyrolean climate history as particularly cold and long, the summer as particularly hot and dry. There were crop failures of up to 50%.

The supply situation was catastrophic, especially in the city in the immediate post-war period. The daily procurement of food became a life-threatening concern in the everyday lives of the people of Innsbruck. In addition to the city's own citizens, thousands of Displaced PersonsThe Tyrolean government had to feed a large number of people, freed forced labourers and occupying soldiers. To accomplish this task, the Tyrolean provincial government had to rely on outside help. The chairman of the UNRRA (Note: United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration), which supplied war zones with essentials, Fiorello La Guardia counted Austria "to those peoples of the world who are closest to starvation.“

Milk, bread, eggs, sugar, flour, fat - there was too little of everything. The French occupation was unable to meet the demand for the required kilocalories per capita, as the local population and the emergency services often lacked supplies. Until 1946, they even took goods from the Tyrolean economy.

Food was supplied via ration cards just a few weeks after the end of the war. Adults had to present a confirmation from the labour office in order to obtain these cards. The rations differed depending on the category of labourer. Heavy labourers, pregnant women and nursing mothers received food with a "value" of 2700 calories. Craftsmen with light occupations, civil servants and freelancers received 1850 kilocalories, white-collar workers 1450 calories. Housewives and other "normal consumers" could only receive 1200 calories.

There were also initiatives such as community kitchens and meals for schoolchildren, which were provided by foreign aid organisations. Care packages arrived from America from the charity organisation Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe. Many children were sent to foster homes in Switzerland in the summer to regain their strength and put a few extra kilos on their ribs.

However, all these measures were not enough for everyone. Housewives and other "normal consumers" in particular suffered from the low allocations. Despite the risk of being arrested, many Innsbruck residents travelled to the surrounding villages to hoard. Those who had money paid sometimes utopian prices to the farmers. Those who had none had to beg for food. In extreme cases, women whose husbands had been killed, captured or were missing saw no other way out than to prostitute themselves. These women, especially the unfortunate ones who became pregnant, had to endure the worst abuse for themselves and their offspring. Austria was still 30 years away from legalised abortion.

Politicians were largely powerless in the face of this. Even in normal times, it was impossible to pacify all interests. Many decisions between the parliament in Vienna, the Tyrolean provincial parliament and Innsbruck town hall were incomprehensible to the people. While children had to do without fruit and vitamins, some farmers legally distilled profitable schnapps. Official buildings and commercial enterprises were given free rein by the Innsbruck electricity company, while private households were restricted access to electricity at several times of the day from October 1945. The same disadvantage for households compared to businesses applied to the supply of coal.

The old rifts between town and country also grew wider and more hateful. Innsbruckers accused the surrounding population of deliberately withholding food for the black market. There were assaults, thefts and woodcutting. Transports at the railway station were guarded by armed units. The first Tyrolean governor Gruber, himself an illegal member of the resistance during the war, sympathised with the situation of the people who rebelled against the system, but was unable to do anything about it. The mayor of Innsbruck, Anton Melzer, also had his hands tied. Not only was it difficult to reconcile the needs of all interest groups, there were repeated cases of corruption and favours to relatives and acquaintances among the civil servants. Gruber's successor in the provincial governor's chair, Alfons Weißgatterer, had to survive several small riots when the people's anger was vented and stones flew towards the provincial parliament:

„Are the broken windows that clattered from the country house onto the street yesterday suitable arguments to prove our will to rebuild? Shouldn't we remember that economic difficulties have never been resolved by demonstrations and rallies in any country?“

Even though the situation eased after 1947, living conditions in Tyrol remained precarious. Food rationing was only stopped on 1 July 1953.

The housing situation was at least as bad. An estimated 30,000 Innsbruck residents were homeless, living in cramped conditions with relatives or in shanty towns such as the former labour camp in Reichenau, the shanty town for displaced persons from the former German territories of Europe, popularly known as the "Ausländerlager", or the "Ausländerlager". Bocksiedlung. There are few reminders of the disastrous state Innsbruck was in after the air raids of the last years of the war in the first years after the war. Tens of thousands of citizens helped to clear rubble and debris from the streets. Maria-Theresien-Straße, Museumstraße, the Bahnhofsviertel, Wilten and Pradlerstraße would probably have been much more attractive if the holes in the streetscape had not had to be quickly filled in order to create living space for the many homeless and returnees as quickly as possible.

However, aesthetics were a luxury that could not be afforded in this situation. The emaciated population needed new living space to escape the unhealthy living conditions in which large families were sometimes quartered in one-room flats. As after the First World War, when the Spanish flu claimed many victims, there was also an increase in dangerous infections in 1945. Vaccines against tuberculosis could not be supplied in the first winter. Hospital beds were also in short supply.

However, Innsbruck was lucky in misfortune. The French troops under Emile Bethouart behaved very mildly towards the former enemy and were friendly and open-minded towards the Tyrolean culture and population. Initially hostile towards the occupying power - yet another war had been lost - the scepticism of the people of Innsbruck gradually gave way. The soldiers were particularly popular with the children because of the chocolates and sweets they handed out. Many people were given jobs within the French administration. Many a Tyrolean saw dark-skinned people for the first time thanks to the uniformed members of the 4th Moroccan Mountain Division, who made up the majority of the soldiers until September 1945.

The monument to the French on Landhausplatz commemorates the French occupation. At the Emile Bethouart footbridgeThe memorial plaque on the river Inn, which connects St. Nikolaus and the city centre, is a good expression of the relationship between the occupation and the population:

"Arrived as a winner.

Remained as a protector.

Returned home as a friend."

Although many of the buildings erected from the 1950s onwards are not very attractive architecturally, they do house interesting works of art. From 1949 there was a project in Austria Art on the building. In the case of buildings realised by the state, 2% of the total expenditure was to flow into artistic design. The implementation of the building law and thus also the administration of the budgets was then, as now, the responsibility of the federal states. Artists were to be financially supported through these public commissions. The idea first emerged in 1919 during the Weimar Republic and was continued by the National Socialists from 1934.

Austria took up art in architecture after the war to design public spaces as part of the reconstruction programme. The public sector, which replaced the aristocracy and bourgeoisie as the property developers of past centuries, was under massive financial pressure. Despite this, the housing projects, which were primarily focussed on function, were not intended to be completely unadorned.

The Tyrolean artists entrusted with the design of the artworks were selected in competitions. The best known of these was Max Weiler, perhaps the most prominent artist in Tyrol in the post-war period, who was responsible for the frescoes in the Theresienkirche on the Hungerburg in Innsbruck, among other things. Other prominent names include Helmut Rehm (1911 - 1991), Walter Honeder (1906 - 2006), Fritz Berger (1916 - 2002) and Emmerich Kerle (1916 - 2010).

The biographies of the artists were not only compiled by the Gewerbeschule Innsbruck (Note: today's HTL Trenkwalderstraße) and the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna as a common denominator, but also characterised by the shared experience of National Socialism. Fritz Berger had lost his right arm and one eye during the war and had to learn to work with his left hand. Emmerich Kerle was taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna by Josef Müllner, among others, an artist who had made his mark on art history with busts of Adolf Hitler, Siegfried from the Nibelungen saga and the Karl Lueger monument in Vienna, which remains controversial to this day. Kerle served in Finland as a war painter.

Like a large part of the Tyrolean population, politicians, civil servants and artists also wanted peace and quiet after the hard and painful years of war, to let the events of the last few decades sink in.

The works created as part of Kunst am Bau reflect this attitude towards a new moral image. It was the first time that abstract, shapeless art found its way into Innsbruck's public space, albeit only in an uncritical context. Fairy tales, legends and religious symbols were popular motifs that were immortalised on sgraffiti, mosaics, murals and statues. One could speak of a kind of second wave of Biedermaier art, which symbolised the petty bourgeois lifestyle of people after the war.

Art was also intended to create a new awareness and image of what was considered typically Austrian. In 1955, one in two Austrians still considered themselves to be German. The various motifs depict leisure activities, clothing styles and ideas of the social order and social norms of the post-war period. Women were often depicted in traditional costumes and dirndls, men in lederhosen. The conservative ideal of gender roles was incorporated into the art. Hard-working fathers, well-behaved wives who looked after the home and hearth and children who were eager to learn at school were the ideal image until well into the 1970s. A life straight out of a film with Peter Alexander.

The reality, however, was different:

"The emergency situation jeopardises the comfort of the home. It eats away at the roots of joie de vivre. No one suffers more than the woman whose happiness is to see a contented, cosy family circle around her. What a strain on mental strength is required by the daily gruelling struggle for a little shopping, the hardship of queuing, the disappointment of rejections and refusals and the look of discouragement on the faces of loved ones tormented by deprivation."

What is in the Tiroler Tageszeitung was only part of everyday reality. In addition to material hardship, society was characterised by the collective trauma of war. The adults of the 1950s were products of the education of the interwar period and National Socialism. Men who had fought at the front could only talk about their horrific experiences in certain circles as war losers, while women usually had no forum at all to process their fears and worries. Domestic violence and alcoholism were widespread. Teachers, police officers, politicians and civil servants often came from National Socialist supporters, who did not simply disappear with the end of the war, but were merely hushed up in public.

The problem with this strategy of suppression was that no one took responsibility for what had happened, even if there was great enthusiasm and support for National Socialism, especially at the beginning. There was hardly a family that did not have at least one member with a less than glorious history between 1933 and 1945. Shame about what had happened since 1938 and in Austria's politics over the years was mixed with the fear of being treated as a war culprit by the occupying powers - the USA, Great Britain, France and the USSR - in a similar way to 1918. A climate arose in which no one, neither those involved nor the following generation, spoke about what had happened. For a long time, this attitude prevented people from coming to terms with what had happened since 1933.

The myth of Austria as the first victim of National Socialism, which only began to slowly crumble with the Waldheim affair in the 1980s, was born. Police officers, teachers, judges - they were all kept in their jobs despite their political views. Society needed them to keep going.

An example of the generously spread cloak of oblivion with a strong connection to Innsbruck is the life of the doctor Burghard Breitner (1884-1956). Breitner grew up in a well-to-do middle-class household. The Villa Breitner at Mattsee was home to a museum about the German nationalist poet Josef Viktor Scheffel, who was honoured by his father.

After leaving secondary school, Breitner decided against a career in literature in favour of studying medicine. He then decided to do his military service and began his career as a doctor. In 1912/13 he served as a military doctor in the Balkan War. In 1914, he was sent to the Eastern Front, where he was taken prisoner of war by the Russians. As a doctor, he sacrificially cared for his comrades in the prison camp. It was not until 1920 that he was recognised as a hero and "Angel of Siberia" return to Austria from the prison camp.

He began his career at the University of Innsbruck in 1932. In 1938, Breitner was faced with the problem that, due to his paternal grandmother's Jewish background, he had to take the "Great Aryan proof" could not provide. However, thanks to his good relationship with the Rector of Innsbruck University and important National Socialists, he was ultimately able to continue working at the university hospital. During the Nazi regime, Breitner was responsible for forced sterilisations and "Voluntary emasculation", even though he probably did not carry out any of the operations personally.

After the war, the "Angel of Siberia" managed to wriggle through the denazification process with some difficulty. In 1951, he was nominated as a candidate for the federal presidential election as a member of the VDU, a political organisation for former National Socialists. Breitner became Rector of the University of Innsbruck in 1952. After his death, the city of Innsbruck dedicated a grave of honour to him at Innsbruck West Cemetery. In Reichenau, a street is dedicated to him in the immediate vicinity of the site of the former concentration camp.

If you walk through the city carefully, you will find many of the works of art still visible today on houses in Pradl and Wilten. The mixture of unattractive architecture and contemporary works of art from the often suppressed post-war period, long idealised and glorified in films and stories, is well worth seeing. Particularly beautiful examples can be found on the façades in Pacherstraße, Hunoldstraße, Ing.-Thommenstraße, Innrain, the Mandelsbergerstraße vocational school or in the inner courtyard between Landhausplatz and Maria-Theresienstraße.

After smaller battles in the Außerfern and at the Porta Claudia in Scharnitz near Seefeld, the Cactus Division of the US armed forces stood in Zirl at the gates of the Gau capital Innsbruck on 3 May 1945. A handful of resistance fighters led by Fritz Molden and the later Tyrolean governor Karl Gruber had occupied barracks and official facilities in Innsbruck after the Gau leadership, Gestapo and SS had fled the scene. Nevertheless, the GI's did not know what to expect in Innsbruck, as Adolf Hitler had declared Tyrol to be part of the Alpine fortress, the retreat that was to be defended to the last man. If Innsbruck were to become a battlefield, as had been the case in many cities, this would result in the destruction of the city. The fact that it did not come to that and Innsbruck was surrendered without a fight is due to a group of young people who were involved in the US espionage operation Operation Greenup laid the foundations for peaceful capitulation.

The male protagonists of this cinematic coup were Friedrich "Fred" Mayer, Hans Wijnberg, Franz Weber and Anna Niederkircher. The two Jews Mayer and Wijnberg had landed in New York while fleeing National Socialism. They had volunteered for service in Europe and were deployed with the OSS, the US military intelligence service. Weber had been stranded in a prison camp in southern Italy as a deserter from the Wehrmacht. After his war experiences, the staunch Catholic wanted to help overthrow the Nazi regime in his Tyrolean homeland. Together, they were to spy on the supply line over the Brenner Pass from Innsbruck as well as war-relevant infrastructure and industry such as the Messeschmitt factories in Kematen.

On 26 February, the three men and their equipment were dropped by plane over the Ötztal Alps in the wintery high mountains. Using sledges and public transport, they made their way to Oberperfuß, Franz Weber's home village, in the middle of enemy territory with all their equipment. Here they did not encounter Hitler's feared Alpine fortress, but rather support from the community of Oberperfuß, which had always been strictly Catholic, conservative and critical of the regime. Above all, those close to Weber, his sisters Eva, Margarete and Luise, his neighbour Maria Hörtnagl, but above all his fiancée Anni Niederkircher and her mother Anna, the landlady of the Gasthof zur Krone, played invaluable roles in providing supplies, camouflage and accommodation.

Franz Weber was the group's local guide. Fred Mayer mingled with the population in Oberperfuß, Innsbruck and Kematen under various identities, as a Wehrmacht soldier in the officers' mess, as a worker at the Messerschmitt factories or as a French forced labourer. He forged links with other resistance groups and gathered information. Weber's sisters harboured him and provided him with all sorts of things, such as forged papers or a stolen Wehrmacht uniform. Anni Niederkircher was the link between Oberperfuß and Innsbruck. Hans Wijnberg, as a radio operator, maintained communication with the US army base in Bari.

Everyone knew that if their risky operation was discovered, they and their families would be condemned to death. This happened at the end of April. Robert Moser, the radio dealer and resister who had employed Fred Mayer in his shop, was exposed. He was interrogated, tortured and finally beaten and whipped to death at the Gestapo headquarters in Innsbruck's Herrengasse. On 20 April, Fred Mayer was also arrested and tortured in Herrengasse. But he held out, and even more: after revealing himself to be a member of the US secret service, he was able to negotiate with Gauleiter Hofer to have Innsbruck handed over as a free city without a fight. In return for Mayer's assurance that he would be treated as a prisoner of war, Hofer issued an order to the population in a radio address on 2 May to refrain from any fighting.

At 2 pm on 3 May, Fred Mayer, still scarred from his treatment by the Gestapo, reached the US troops near Zirl with this message. A few hours later, the ceasefire came into effect. The vehicles and soldiers were able to enter the town without further bloodshed and destruction.

The memory of the Operation Greenup and the heroic actions of all those involved under extreme danger were not remembered for a long time in favour of the story of self-liberation by the brave Tyrolean people. It was not until 2010 that Fred Mayer, who was honoured with the Purple Heart who had received the US military's highest medal for valour, was honoured by the state of Tyrol late but still at the age of almost 90. Hans Wijnberg received a Medal of Merit from the City of Innsbruck ten years after his death. Franz Weber, who served as a member of the provincial and national councils after the war, was honoured with the Decoration of honour of the province of Tyrol und das Decoration of Honour in Gold of the Republic of Austria. A hard-to-find bronze plaque at the former Gestapo headquarters in Herrengasse commemorates Robert Moser, who was tortured to death. There is a small information plaque at the house at Anichstraße 19, where Mayer was housed during his stay in Innsbruck. This perhaps most impressive episode in Innsbruck's city history only became known to a wider audience with the publication of the gripping book "Codename Brooklyn" by Peter Pirker, which received a great deal of international attention. However, Innsbruck perhaps owes its most enduring legacy to Wijnberg's radio messages: the code name for the city was after the New York neighbourhood where Mayer and he spent a long time, Brooklyn. Innsbruck was reborn after National Socialism as Innsbrooklyn.

Under National Socialism, many political posts and positions in the civil service were reallocated. The Führer cult and the ideas of the National Socialist Party were structurally cemented at all levels. Innsbruck's mayor Franz Fischer was replaced by Egon Denz on 12 March 1938. Governor Josef Schumacher (1894 - 1971) was briefly replaced by Edmund Christoph before Franz Hofer (1902 - 1975) was appointed Gauleiter in May 1938 and Reich Governor from 1940.

Franz Hofer was born into a family of hoteliers in Bad Hofgastein, Salzburg. After attending school in Innsbruck, he ran a radio business. He became a member of the NSDAP in Austria as early as 1931. When the National Socialist Party was banned in Austria, Hofer was imprisoned as its Gauleiter in 1933, but was freed by members of the SA. He was shot during this escape, but was able to flee to Italy. He then travelled to Germany, where he became a German citizen and had a stellar career within the party.

Shortly after the annexation of Austria, Hofer was appointed Gauleiter of Tyrol and Vorarlberg at Hitler's behest on 24 May 1938. In 1940, he was appointed Reich Governor of Tyrol-Vorarlberg. The plans of the leader-loyal Hofer were ambitious and Tyrol was a good breeding ground. Nowhere else in the Austrian districts were there more party members in relation to the population than here. Hofer was already very close to his goal of having the first completely Jew-free Gau in 1939. One year later, only one Jew was still registered in Tyrol. Hofer also generously enriched himself personally with aryanised assets. This is how the Villa Schindler of the operator of the Cafe Schindler at Rennweg 10 into his possession, as well as the Lachhof in Kleinvolderberg near Innsbruck, where he set up a kind of command centre outside the city.

Hofer also cracked down on church organisations. Socialist and communist organisations played no role in Tyrolean society and there was less need to be wary of them than of stubborn Catholics. All religious orders were closed and Catholic youth groups and associations were incorporated into the National Socialist system. 119 out of 570 priests were taken into custody at least once between 1938 and 1945, eleven were executed or did not survive the prison conditions.

When Italy finally came under German control in 1943, Hofer was appointed Supreme Commissioner of the Operational zone Alpine foothills appointed. This zone consisted of Tyrol-Vorarlberg and the Upper Italian provinces. It was also Franz Hofer who came up with the idea of the so-called Alpine fortress, the last bastion of the German people against the enemy. On 12 April 1945, less than a month before the end of the war, he personally submitted this proposal to Adolf Hitler, who then appointed him Reich Defence Commissioner of the Alpine fortress made.

made. After negotiations with the approaching Allied forces, Innsbruck was handed over as an open city without a fight on 3 May 1945 and thus spared the devastating fighting at the end of the war. Despite this sensible measure, Hofer remained a fanatical National Socialist even in defeat, as his speech on the radio on 30 April shows:

"However, should the enemy, despite heroic fighting, be at the gates of Innsbruck, a defence of the Gau capital under the given circumstances would by no means save the worst, but rather destroy the last.... But we want to claw our way into our mountains all the more tenaciously..."

Hofer was arrested a few days later. In October 1948, he escaped from the Dachau internment camp and fled to Germany, where he went into hiding in Mühlheim an der Ruhr under a false name. It is not certain, but quite possible, that the American and British secret services helped his former adversary to escape in order to protect their methods against National Socialism on Tyrolean soil, which were now in use against the Soviet Union, had they been openly discussed at a trial. In 1949, a court in Munich sentenced him in absentia to 10 years in prison. In July 1953, this judgement was confirmed in Munich, but the sentence was reduced to three years. However, Hofer remained at large due to the crediting of previous prison terms. A court in Austria sentenced him to death in 1949. However, he was not prosecuted. His advocates included the Bishop of Brixen, Johannes Baptist Geisler, and the Tyrolean governor Alfons Weißgatterer. His assets were confiscated by the Republic of Austria in proceedings in Innsbruck in 1950.

From 1954, Hofer lived in Germany under his real name. He ran the Ruhr Armatur GmbHa company specialising in sanitary equipment. Its participation in the Action T4 in Tyrol, the "Destruction of life unworthy of life"Although proceedings were initiated in court, they were discontinued in 1963.

Hofer was a lover of Tyrolean tradition. During his time in Tyrol, he promoted folk music, traditional costumes and Tyrolean marksmen. These associations were officially dissolved in 1938, but under him they were reorganised in the Regular shooters' association transferred. The leader of the Stadtmusikkapelle Wilten-Innsbruck, Sepp Tanzer, whom he appointed leader of the Department of Folk Music in the Reich Chamber of Music composed the "Stammschützenmarsch" for him. A delegation of Tyrolean marksmen was present at Hofer's funeral in Mühlhausen in 1975 to pay their last respects to Hofer, who remained a staunch National Socialist until his death. The construction of the Tiroler Landhaus, which is still the seat of the Tyrolean provincial government today, was begun under Hofer and is still a reminder in stone in the centre of the city.

In the 1920s and 30s, the NSDAP also grew and prospered in Tyrol. The first local branch of the NSDAP in Innsbruck was founded in 1923. With "Der Nationalsozialist - Combat Gazette for Tyrol and Vorarlberg" published its own weekly newspaper. In 1933, the NSDAP also experienced a meteoric rise in Innsbruck. The general dissatisfaction and disenchantment with politics among the citizens and theatrically staged torchlight processions through the city, including swastika-shaped bonfires on the Nordkette mountain range during the election campaign, helped the party to make huge gains. Over 1800 Innsbruck residents were members of the SA, which had its headquarters at Bürgerstraße 10. While the National Socialists were only able to win 2.8% of the vote in their first municipal council election in 1921, this figure had already risen to 41% by the 1933 elections. Nine mandataries, including the later mayor Egon Denz and the Gauleiter of Tyrol Franz Hofer, were elected to the municipal council. It was not only Hitler's election as Reich Chancellor in Germany, but also campaigns and manifestations in Innsbruck that helped the party, which had been banned in Austria since 1934, to achieve this result. As everywhere else, it was mainly young people in Innsbruck who were enthusiastic about National Socialism. They were attracted by the new, the clearing away of old hierarchies and structures such as the Catholic Church, the upheaval and the unprecedented style. National Socialism was particularly popular among the big German-minded lads in the student fraternities and often also among professors.

When the annexation of Austria to Germany took place in March 1938, civil war-like scenes ensued. Already in the run-up to the invasion, there had been repeated marches and rallies by the National Socialists after the ban on the party had been lifted. Even before Federal Chancellor Schuschnigg gave his last speech to the people before handing over power to the National Socialists with the words "God bless Austria" had closed on 11 March 1938, the National Socialists were already gathering in the city centre to celebrate the invasion of the German troops. The police of the corporative state were partly sympathetic to the riots of the organised manifestations and partly powerless in the face of the goings-on. Although the Landhaus and Maria-Theresien-Straße were cordoned off and secured with machine-gun posts, there was no question of any crackdown by the executive. "One people - one empire - one leader" echoed through the city. The threat of the German military and the deployment of SA troops dispelled the last doubts. More and more of the enthusiastic population joined in. At the Tiroler Landhaus, then still in Maria-Theresienstraße, and at the provisional headquarters of the National Socialists in the Gasthaus Old Innspruggthe swastika flag was hoisted.

On 12 March, the people of Innsbruck gave the German military a frenetic welcome. On 5 April, Adolf Hitler visited Innsbruck in person to be celebrated by the crowd. Archive photos show a euphoric crowd awaiting the Führer, the promise of salvation. Mountain fires in the shape of swastikas were lit on the Nordkette. The referendum on 10 April resulted in a vote of over 99% in favour of Austria's annexation to Germany. After the economic hardship of the interwar period, the economic crisis and the governments under Dollfuß and Schuschnigg, people were tired and wanted change. What kind of change was initially less important than the change itself. "Showing them up there", that was Hitler's promise. The Wehrmacht and industry offered young people a perspective, even those who had little to do with the ideology of National Socialism in and of itself. The fact that there were repeated outbreaks of violence was not unusual for the interwar period in Austria anyway. Unlike today, democracy was not something that anyone could have got used to in the short period between the monarchy in 1918 and the elimination of parliament under Dollfuß in 1933, which was characterised by political extremes. There is no need to abolish something that does not actually exist in the minds of the population.

Tyrol and Vorarlberg were combined into a Reichsgau with Innsbruck as its capital. There was no armed resistance, as the left in Tyrol was not strong enough. There were isolated instances of unorganised subversive behaviour by the Catholic population, especially in some rural communities around Innsbruck. Even though National Socialism was viewed sceptically by a large part of the population, there was hardly any organised resistance. The apparatus of power dominated people's everyday lives too comprehensively. Many jobs and other comforts of life were tied to an at least outwardly loyal attitude to the party. The majority of the population was spared imprisonment, but the fear of it was omnipresent.

The regime under Hofer and Gestapo chief Werner Hilliges also did a great job of suppression. In Tyrol, the church was the biggest obstacle. During National Socialism, the Catholic Church was systematically combated. Catholic schools were converted, youth organisations and associations were banned, monasteries were closed, religious education was abolished and a church tax was introduced. Particularly stubborn priests such as Otto Neururer were sent to concentration camps. Local politicians such as the later Innsbruck mayors Anton Melzer and Franz Greiter also had to flee or were arrested. To summarise the violence and crimes committed against the Jewish population, the clergy, political suspects, civilians and prisoners of war would go beyond the scope of this book.

The Gestapo headquarters were located at Herrengasse 1, where suspects were severely abused and sometimes beaten to death with fists. In 1941, the Reichenau labour camp was set up in Rossau near the Innsbruck building yard. Suspects of all kinds were kept here for forced labour in shabby barracks. Over 130 people died in this camp consisting of 20 barracks due to illness, the poor conditions, labour accidents or executions.

Prisoners were also forced to work at the Messerschmitt factory in the village of Kematen, 10 kilometres from Innsbruck. These included political prisoners, Russian prisoners of war and Jews. The forced labour included, among other things, the construction of the South Tyrolean settlements in the final phase or the tunnels to protect against air raids in the south of Innsbruck. In the Innsbruck clinic, disabled people and those deemed unacceptable by the system, such as homosexuals, were forcibly sterilised.

The memorials to the National Socialist era are few and far between. The Tiroler Landhaus with the Liberation Monument and the building of the Old University are the two most striking memorials. The forecourt of the university and a small column at the southern entrance to the hospital were also designed to commemorate what was probably the darkest chapter in Austria's history.

Like the course of the city's history, its appearance is also subject to constant change. The years around 1500 and between 1850 and 1900, when political, economic and social changes took place at a particularly rapid pace, produced particularly visible changes in the cityscape. However, the most drastic event with the greatest impact on the cityscape was probably the air raids on the city during the Second World War.

In addition to the food shortage, people suffered from what the National Socialists called the "Heimatfront" in the city were particularly affected by the Allied air raids. Innsbruck was an important supply station for supplies on the Italian front.

The first Allied air raid on the ill-prepared city took place on the night of 15-16 December 1943. 269 people fell victim to the bombs, 500 were injured and more than 1500 were left homeless. Over 300 buildings, mainly in Wilten and the city centre, were destroyed and damaged. On Monday 18 December, the following were found in the Innsbrucker Nachrichten, dem Vorgänger der Tiroler Tageszeitung, auf der Titelseite allerhand propagandistische Meldungen vom erfolgreichen und heroischen Abwehrkampf der Deutschen Wehrmacht an allen Fronten gegenüber dem Bündnis aus Anglo-Amerikanern und dem Russen, nicht aber vom Bombenangriff auf Innsbruck.

Bombenterror über Innsbruck

Innsbruck, 17. Dez. Der 16. Dezember wird in der Geschichte Innsbrucks als der Tag vermerkt bleiben, an dem der Luftterror der Anglo-Amerikaner die Gauhauptstadt mit der ganzen Schwere dieser gemeinen und brutalen Kampfweise, die man nicht mehr Kriegführung nennen kann, getroffen hat. In mehreren Wellen flogen feindliche Kampfverbände die Stadt an und richteten ihre Angriffe mit zahlreichen Spreng- und Brandbomben gegen die Wohngebiete. Schwerste Schäden an Wohngebäuden, an Krankenhäusern und anderen Gemeinschaftseinrichtungen waren das traurige, alle bisherigen Schäden übersteigende Ergebnis dieses verbrecherischen Überfalles, der über zahlreiche Familien unserer Stadt schwerste Leiden und empfindliche Belastung der Lebensführung, das bittere Los der Vernichtung liebgewordenen Besitzes, der Zerstörung von Heim und Herd und der Heimatlosigkeit gebracht hat. Grenzenloser Haß und das glühende Verlangen diese unmenschliche Untat mit schonungsloser Schärfe zu vergelten, sind die einzige Empfindung, die außer der Auseinandersetzung mit den eigenen und den Gemeinschaftssorgen alle Gemüter bewegt. Wir alle blicken voll Vertrauen auf unsere Soldaten und erwarten mit Zuversicht den Tag, an dem der Führer den Befehl geben wird, ihre geballte Kraft mit neuen Waffen gegen den Feind im Westen einzusetzen, der durch seinen Mord- und Brandterror gegen Wehrlose neuerdings bewiesen hat, daß er sich von den asiatischen Bestien im Osten durch nichts unterscheidet – es wäre denn durch größere Feigheit. Die Luftschutzeinrichtungen der Stadt haben sich ebenso bewährt, wie die Luftschutzdisziplin der Bevölkerung. Bis zur Stunde sind 26 Gefallene gemeldet, deren Zahl sich aller Voraussicht nach nicht wesentlich erhöhen dürfte. Die Hilfsmaßnahmen haben unter Führung der Partei und tatkräftigen Mitarbeit der Wehrmacht sofort und wirkungsvoll eingesetzt.

This news item, which was imaginatively designed by censorship and media synchronisation, barely made it onto page 3. There was probably no more prominent way of presenting the city's poor preparation for the foreseeable bombardment to the public. The enthusiasm for National Socialism was no longer quite as great as in 1938 after the Anschluss, when Hitler was enthusiastically welcomed by 100,000 people in Innsbruck on 5 April. The damage to the city and the personal, tragic losses among the population were too great. In January 1944, the construction of air-raid tunnels and other protective measures began. The work was largely carried out by prisoners from the Reichenau concentration camp.

Innsbruck was attacked a total of twenty-two times between 1943 and 1945. Almost 3833, i.e. almost 50%, of the city's buildings were damaged and 504 people died. In the final months of the war, normality was out of the question. The population lived in constant fear. Schools were closed in the mornings. A regular everyday life was no longer conceivable.

Fortunately, the city was only the victim of targeted attacks. German cities such as Hamburg and Dresden were completely razed to the ground by the Allies with firestorms that claimed tens of thousands of lives within a few hours. Many buildings such as the Jesuit Church, Wilten Abbey, the Servite Church, the cathedral and the indoor swimming pool in Amraserstraße were hit.

Historic buildings and monuments received special treatment during the attacks. The Goldene Dachl was protected with a special construction, as was Maximilian's sarcophagus in the Hofkirche. The figures in the Hofkirche, the Schwarzen Mannderwere brought to Kundl. The Mother of Mercy, the famous picture from Innsbruck Cathedral, was transferred to Ötztal during the war.

The air-raid shelter tunnel south of Innsbruck on Brennerstrasse and the markings of houses with air-raid shelters with their black squares and white circles and arrows can still be seen today. In Pradl, where next to Wilten most of the buildings were damaged, bronze plaques on the affected houses indicate that they were hit by a bomb.

Many tyroleans see themselves as an own nation. With „Tirol isch lei oans“, „Zu Mantua in Banden“ and „Dem Land Tirol die Treue", the federal state has three more or less official anthems. As in other federal states, there are historical reasons for this pronounced local patriotism. Tyrolean freedom and independence are often invoked as a local shrine to underpin this. It is often referred to as the first democracy in mainland Europe, which is probably an exaggeration considering the feudal and hierarchical history of the country up until the 20th century. However, the country cannot be denied a certain peculiarity in its development, even if it was less about the participation of broad sections of the population and more about the local elites curtailing the power of the sovereign.

The first act was what the Innsbruck historian Otto Stolz (1881 - 1957) in the 1950s exuberantly described, in reference to English history, as the Magna Charta Libertatum celebrated. After the marriage of the Bavarian Ludwig von Wittelsbach to the Tyrolean princess Margarete von Tirol-Görz, the Bavarian Wittelsbachs were rulers of Tyrol for a short time. In order to win over the Tyrolean population to his side, Ludwig decided to offer the provincial estates a treat in the 14th century. In the Großen Freiheitsbrief of 1342, Louis promised the Tyroleans that he would not enact any laws or tax increases without first consulting the provincial estates. However, there can be no question of a democratic constitution as understood in the 21st century, as these provincial estates were primarily the aristocratic, landowning classes, who represented their interests accordingly. Although one copy of the document mentioned the inclusion of peasants as a class in the Diet, this version never became official.

As the towns and bourgeoisie gained more political clout in the 15th century due to their economic importance, a counterweight to the nobility developed within the estates. At the Diet of 1423 under Frederick IV, 18 members of the nobility met 18 members of the towns and peasantry for the first time. Gradually, a fixed composition developed in the provincial diets of the 15th and 16th centuries. The Tyrolean bishops of Brixen and Trento, the abbots of the Tyrolean monasteries, the nobility, representatives of the towns and the peasantry were all represented. The provincial governor presided over the meeting. Of course, the resolutions and wishes of the provincial parliament were not binding for the prince, but it was probably a reassuring feeling for the ruler to know that the representatives of the population were on his side or that difficult decisions were supported. 

Another important document for the country was the Tiroler Landlibell. In 1511, Maximilian stipulated, among other things, that Tyrolean soldiers should only be called up for military service in defence of their own country. The reason for Maximilian's generosity was less his love for the Tyroleans than the need to keep the Tyrolean mines running instead of burning out the precious labourers and the peasantry that supplied them on the battlefields of Europe. The fact that in Landlibell At the same time, massive restrictions on the population and higher costs are often forgotten. The Landlibell regulated not only the strength of the troop contingents but also the special taxes that were levied. The nobility and clergy had to use the capital gains from their estates as a tax base, which often amounted to a rough estimate. Towns, on the other hand, were taxed according to the number of fireplaces in the houses, which could be calculated quite accurately. Coveted miners were exempt from these taxes and only had to serve in the army in extreme emergencies.

This special regulation for national defence, as laid down in the Landlibell, was one of the reasons for the uprising of 1809, when young Tyroleans were conscripted for the mobilisation of the armed forces as part of general conscription. To this day, the Napoleonic Wars, when the Catholic crown land was threatened by the "godless French" and the revolutionary social order, characterise the Tyrolean self-image. During this defensive struggle, an alliance was formed between Catholicism and Tyrol. The Tyrolean marksmen entrusted their fate to the heart of Jesus before a decisive battle against Napoleon's armies in June 1796 and entered into a covenant with God personally, which would protect their Heiliges Land Tirol was supposed to protect her. Another identity-forming legend from 1796 centres around a young woman from the village of Spinges. Katharina Lanz, who was known as the Jungfrau von Spinges went down in the history of the country as an identity-forming national heroine, is said to have motivated the almost defeated Tyrolean troops with her imperious demeanour in battle to such an extent that they were ultimately able to achieve victory over the French superiority. Depending on the account, she is said to have taught Napoleon's troops to fear with a pitchfork, a flail or a scythe similar to the French Maid Joan of Arc. Legends and traditions surrounding the marksmen and the feeling of being an independent nation chosen by God, which happened to be attached to the Republic of Austria, go back to these legends.

The particular identities of the individual crown lands did not correspond to what enlightened politicians imagined a modern state to be. Under Maria Theresa, the central state was strengthened vis-à-vis the crown lands and the local nobility. The subjects' sense of belonging should not be to the province of Tyrol, but to the House of Habsburg. In the 19th century, the aim was to strengthen identification with the monarchy and develop a national consciousness. The press, visits by the ruling family, monuments such as the Rudolfsbrunnen or the opening of Mount Isel with Hofer as a Tyrolean loyal to the emperor were intended to help turn the population into subjects loyal to the emperor.

When the Habsburg Empire collapsed after the First World War, the crown land of Tyrol also broke up. What had been known as South Tyrol until 1918, the Italian-speaking part of the province between Riva on Lake Garda and Salurn in the Adige Valley, became Trentino with Trento as its capital. The German-speaking part of the province between Neumarkt and the Brenner Pass is now South Tyrol / Alto Adige, an autonomous region of the Republic of Italy with the capital Bolzano.

Throughout the centuries, Innsbruckers have felt themselves to be Tyroleans, Germans, Catholics and subjects of the emperor. Before 1945, however, hardly anyone felt Austrian. It was only after the Second World War that a sense of belonging to Austria slowly began to develop in Tyrol. To this day, however, many Tyroleans are proud of their local identity and like to distinguish themselves from the inhabitants of other federal states and countries. For many Tyroleans, after more than 100 years, the Brenner Pass still represents a Injustice limit even if the Europa der Regionen cooperates politically across borders at EU level.

The legend of the Holy Landthe independent Tyrolean nation and the first mainland democracy has survived to this day. The bon mot "bisch a Tiroler bisch a Mensch, bisch koana, bisch a Oasch" summarises Tyrolean nationalism succinctly. The fact that the historic crown land of Tyrol was a multi-ethnic construct with Italians, Ladins, Cimbrians and Rhaeto-Romans is often overlooked in right-wing circles. Laws from the federal capital of Vienna or even the EU in Brussels are still viewed with scepticism today. Nationalists on both sides of the Brenner Pass still make use of the Jungfrau von Spingesthe heart of Jesus and Andreas Hofer, to publicise their concerns. The Säcularfeier des Bundes Tirols mit dem göttlichen Herzen Jesu was still celebrated in the 20th century with great participation from the political elite.

Like many other German and Austrian cities, Innsbruck was also the scene of the events that took place on the night of 9 to 10 November 1938 and was known as the Reichskristallnacht and November pogroms form one of the saddest parts of recent history. The Nazi regime took the assassination attempt by a Polish-Jewish student on the German ambassador in Paris as an opportunity to organise pogroms. Starting from the party leadership around Adolf Hitler, orders were given to the local representatives in the cities of the German Reich to accelerate the de-Jewification of Germany and the Aryanisation, the expropriation of the Jewish population.

In contrast to the Jewish population and culture, anti-Semitism was a common tradition in Tyrol. Innsbruck was the centre of Jewish life in western Austria, but there was never a significant number of Jewish citizens. The first immigrants of the Jewish faith came to the city in the Middle Ages. At the beginning of the 16th century, the Jewish cemetery at the Judenbühel first mentioned in St Nicholas. In 1864, the burial place had to be moved to the western cemetery after it had been damaged several times. In 1880, there were only 109 Jews registered in Innsbruck. In the days before the First World War, in which Jewish soldiers served regularly as subjects of the Habsburg Monarchy, Innsbruck had 500 Jewish citizens.

Political groups based their programmes on anti-Semitism long before the rise of the National Socialists. The Christian Mittelstand party warned its voters of the "harmful Jews" in a leaflet ahead of the 1889 elections. In the churches, anti-Semitic sermons and the legend of the ritual murder in Tyrolean garb of the Anderle von Rinn the order of the day. Josef Seeber, a popular theologian in Tyrol, wrote his version of the Eternal Jews an epic, anti-Semitic ballad.

What was new in 1938 was the open violence. On 9 November, a celebration was held in the city theatre to commemorate the National Socialist coup attempt of 1923 in Munich. The audience was entertained with performances by the Hitler Youth and Richard Wagner's Lohengrin to the swearing-in of the SS members on Adolf Hitler Square in front of the theatre.

After midnight, Gauleiter Hofer and high-ranking members of the SS gathered to discuss the details of the "spontaneous uprising of the German people against the Jews" to go through. Jewish homes and businesses were destroyed. Jewish citizens were abused and beaten up. Richard Berger, Wilhelm Bauer and Richard Graubart were killed. More or less the entire Jewish population was murdered in the days following the Reichspogromnacht forcibly relocated to Vienna.

Considering the ratio of the small Jewish population to the number of victims, Innsbruck was one of the most brutal cities in the German Reich during the November pogroms. The murder of Richard Graubart is well documented. He ran a shoe shop in Museumstraße. He lived with his family in a villa in Gänsbacherstraße in the Saggen district. Under the direction of SS-Hauptsturmführer Hans Aichinger, his murderers, some of whom he knew personally, forced their way into the family home. Graubart was stabbed to death, and the doctor who arrived an hour later could only confirm his death. The villa had already been given to a Nazi party functionary before the crime, as had the rest of the Graubart family's property. In the Newest newspaper of 10 November:

"Synagogue in Innsbruck is destroyed... Similar to all cities in Germany, such protests also took place in Innsbruck.... With their anger, the crowd demonstrated their outrage at the cruel bloodshed and called for action against Jews.... To avoid further unrest, many Jews were arrested... Incidentally, the city of Innsbruck and our Gau are looking forward to being freed from the Jewish burden fairly soon, as a process of Aryanisation is being set in motion en masse."

When the riots were brought to trial before the People's Court at Innsbruck Provincial Court after the war, none of the defendants were convicted of murder. Rudolf Schwarz and Robert Huttig, two of the men who had murdered Richard Graubart, were sentenced to 11 and 10 years' imprisonment respectively in 1947, but were pardoned and released from prison in 1951.

It was not until 1981 that the city of Innsbruck erected a memorial plaque at the site of the synagogue destroyed in 1938. In 1993, the new synagogue was opened on the same site in Sillgasse in the presence of Innsbruck's Bishop Reinhold Stecher (1921 - 2013). The small Jewish community of Tyrol and Vorarlberg received a special gift for the inauguration. In November 1938, the neighbours at the time had removed and kept the key to the destroyed door of the old synagogue, which was returned on this day.