Austreibung3

Austreibung - 3 / The Atrocities of Ethnic Cleansing!!!

Expulsion - 3

    (Continued from Austreibung 2)

THE DAY I WILL NEVER FORGET
      MAY 17, 1945
             By Hermine Hausner

One of the first victims was Karl Piffl, a master joiner. After he had been selected, driven into
the water and dragged out of it again half dead, he was beaten to death and trampled to pulp.
He was followed by the overseer of the firm of Pam at Landskron, a man by the name of
Reichstaedter, who had already been so badly beatn up that he was unrecognizable.
Nevertheless, he was placed against the wall of the town hall and shot to death by the Czechs
with their automatic pistols. Joseph Neugebauer, an engineer from Landsksron, came running
out of the little street which led to the prison, covered with blood. He too, had to stand against
the wall with his hands raised and fell without a word before the bullets of his executioners.
Another engineer, Otto Dietrich from Landskron, met his death in a similar manner. Viktor
Benesch, a farmer, ended his life at the same place with the top of his head shot off.

The outcries of the bleeding victims soon drowned out all of te other sounds; many of the living
sat or lay with the indifference of despair beside the bodies of the dead. At 7 o'clock in the
evening, the majority of the men, who had been rounded-up, were taken into custody; only a
few were sent home. On May 18th, the victims were again driven together in the market-place
and the tortures and the brutal mistreatment were continued. Josef Jurenka fram
Angerstrasse, Landskron, a plumber, was sentenced to death by hanging. He was strung up on
a streetlamp, after he himself had placed the noose around his neck.

Rober Schwab from Ober-Johnsdorf, an employee of the District Administration, died in the
same maner. The Germans were forced to keep the bodies of the hanged men constantly
swinging. One, Koehler, from Landskron, an engineer of Reichs German origin, was dragged
in, dressed only in his leather shorts; these acted like a red rag on the howling mob, who
impaled him on their metal-pointed sticks.

On the same day, dreadful scenes, even worst than on the day before, took place. A number of
Germans were ordered to undress, to put on a showof price-fighting and beat each other up.
Terrible screams sounded all day long across the usually quiet market-place. About 5 o'clock in
the afternoon, the excesses suddently came to an end as a result of the sacrifice of Mrs.
Auguste Heider. Her place of business was immediately behind the "People's Court" which had
been set up, and probably she had been watching from her attic the atrocities taking place close
by. She decided to make a desperate end of it all by setting her house on fire and hanging
herself in the flames. The conflagration caused a sudden panic and set an unespected early
term to the amusements of the Czechs. In front of the town hall, at the place where the
exections ordered by the People's Court had taken place, the Germans lay in a great pool of
blood, some shot down, some felled and literally trampled out of recognition. The victims (in
part) included the following.

1.   Victor Benesch. farmer and deputy-Ortsbauernftiehrer (Chairman of the Local Farmers'
Association), leader of the Association of Veterans of the First World War.

2.   Josef Neugebauer, engineer and architect,

3.   Otto Dietrich, engineer and architect,

4.   Koehler, engineer and works-manager,

5.   Leo Janisch, director of the employment office,

6.   Karl Langer, clerk of the employment office,

7.   Josef Langer, clerk of the employment office,

8.   Karl Kowarsch, butcher, shot by his assistant,

9.   Theodor Benesch, Director of the Forestry Administration, retired,

10. Rudolf Gerth, Sergeant,

11. Herbert Lug, farmer from Lukau,

12. Johann Klement, electrician,

13. Reinhard Schwab, manufacturer of articles in cement,

14. Karl Schmidt, tinsmith,

15. Josef Jurenka, locksmith,

16. Robert Schwab, official of the District Administration,

17. Richard Antl, farmer from Rudelsdorf,

18. Marek, railway man,

19. Josef Koblischke, teacher, retired,

20. Karl Piffl, master joiner,

21. Leopold Hafler, workman,

22. Julius Reichstaetter, clerk,

23. Josef Linhard, farmer from Lukau,

24. Zandler, farmer from Rudelsdorf.

The bodies of these murdered victims of mob-justice, remained lying there until May 19th. On
the late afternoon of that day, Eduard Neugebauer, a farmer from Anger Strasse, Landskron,
was order to take them to the cemetery. The doctor who inspected the corpses - a German, but
whose behavior placed him outside the pale - reported that he had been unable to identify the
men tortured to death. They were buried without ceremony in a mass grave.

Small wonder that man y Germans committed suicide in consequence of these outrageous
horrors.

Among the suicides the following can be named with certainty:

Auguste Heider, widow of a salesman, market-place, Landskron,

Eduard Maresch, draper, together with his wife, Magdalenen Str., Landskron,

Hubert Richter, shoemaker, together with his wife, Magdalenen Str., Landskron,

Wenzel Riedel, retired gendarmerie-sergeant, Magdalenen Str., Landskron,

Hans Waschitschek, popular lecturer, together with his wife, Badgasse, Landskron,

Killer, farmer, Anger Strasse, Landsdron,

Karl Janisch, gardener, Friedhof-Str., Landskron,

Josef Jandejsek, tax-collector, retired, together with his wife, H. Knirsch-Str., Landskron,

Otto Portele, shoemaker, Stadtlatz, Landskron,

Wenzel Kusebauch, retired major, together with his wife, Anger Str., Landskron,

Gerlinde Knapek, nee Ringl, market-place, Landskron,

Anna Piffl, nee Schreiber, widow together with her daughter, Ingunde Llgner and her little
baby, Knirsch-Str., Landskron.

Dr. Franz Pelzl and his wife, Matilde Pelzl, nee Nagl, Johannesgasse, Landskron

Richard Rotter and one of his children, Landskron,

Karl Langer, official of the Municipal Council, Schulplatz, Landskron,

Viktor Schromm, road-surveyor, Landskron,

In most of the villages these days passed in the same way.
Further cases of suicide are known from the following villages:

Hilbetten: more than 60 persons, among them the doctor of the village in whose house many
sought death;

Tuerpes: the wife of the mayor,

One Mrs. Schmidt, shot her children and then herself;

Ziegenfuss: the hereditary judge by the name of Franz Huebl shot his family of eight persons,
only his father, who was 60 years of age, remained alive;

Rudelsdorf: a considerable number of people committed suicide;

Abtsdorf: the owner of an estate, Heinz Peschke, committed suicide together with his wife and
his son,

Max Wilder, the Mayor, together with his wife and their three children.

A number of murders took place: In the village of Triebitz Julius Klaschka, a farmer, and at
Sichelsdorf Franz Kaupe, another farmer, were both shot down and at Tschenkowitz there were
also several persons shot.

Dr. Franz Nagl, who had been Mayor successively of Landskron and Leitmertz, was murdered at
Koeniggraetz.

The Czech shoemaker, by the name of Janecek, from Hermanitz showed special brutality.
Later, when in jail, he boasted of having killed 18 German soldiers, who were walking through
the woods unarmed, by shooting them from ambush.

At the same time, Germans who were capable of working, were formed into grops and handed
over to Russians, who shipped them off to the Soviet Union. Many of them, after months or
even years of hardship, never lived to return home.

The names of other Czechs of the Administration, who took part in the outrages against
Germans, in robberies and looting, criminals responsible for everthing that took place, are the
following: the two Mayors of the town, Losser and Hejl, as well as Zidlik, Vagner, Dr. Rehak,
Wanitschek, Kullacek and Pfitzner, who were town-councillors, and Dr. Skala, the Chairman
and a certain Vodicka.

I should like to stress especially the names of Hrabacek, the owner of the saw-mill, and Polak,
an officer of the gendarmerie. Hrabacek later fled from Gootwald's Czechoslovakia via
Germany to France, where he is today working as an agricultural laborer. Polak's destiny was
also not a glorious one.

I, Hermine Hausner, affirm that the statements above are in correspondence with truth.

Other References:

1.   Death Certificate of Robert Schwab by Perish, Priest of Landskron, May 19, 1945.

2. "Landskroner Not und Tod", Franz J. C. Gauglitz 97353, Wiesentheid, Bavaria, 1997.

3. "Documentation, Sudetendeutsches Archiv, Munich.

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