Fleeting from the Battlefront
In the heart of the Austrian Alps, a remarkable tale of courage and survival unfolds, a story that was brought to light in a 2005 documentary film by the Hart Video Club in Zillertal. This article delves into the lives of a group of deserters who hid in the Haselbachgraben during World War II, and the people who helped them evade capture.
Alois Huber, a diligent and very respectable man according to his superiors, deserted the Mountain Hunter Regiment 136 in December 1938. He vanished from the Jenbach station, climbing out of a window of the toilet, and was not found until the end of the war. Investigations revealed that he might have harmed himself, starved to death, or gone to Switzerland, but his fate remains unknown.
Alois's sister, Anna, bravely protected her brothers from persecution. She suffered from anxiety dreams due to the numerous search actions at their farm in Fügen. Another farmhand, Peter Hotter, a son of a nearby mountain farmer, also deserted in 1943, and his brother Georg followed suit in 1944.
The deserters set up hiding places in several caves in Haselbachgraben around 1943. They remained strictly passive until the end and had no known connections to the resistance group in Fügen and Schlitters. Their capture came on May 5th, 1945, when they were found by the US Army in their tattered clothes, appearing relieved.
The village of Hart, where the Huber farm was located, was not always welcoming to these deserters. After the war, they faced negative comments about their escape from the Wehrmacht. However, the story of their courage and resilience was later celebrated in the documentary film "The Hiding Place."
The film, which featured interviews with still-living deserters, relatives, and other initiates, was awarded the silver medal at the Austrian Amateur Filmmakers Championships. The priest of Hart, Dean Alois Leitner, made himself available as a speaker for the film. Performances of the documentary in Stumm and Hart received positive feedback.
In addition to Alois Huber and the Hotter brothers, the deserters in Haselbachgraben belonged to the family of the Knechts. August Jakomet, a gendarme in Fügen, showed little enthusiasm for searching the Huber farm for deserters and even helped with farming tasks instead.
Johann Huber, the patriarch of the family, ran a large farm that engaged in running cattle, alpine farming, and a second farm in Fügen. In 2005, the story of these deserters and their supporters was brought to a wider audience through the documentary film "The Hiding Place," a testament to their resilience and the power of human compassion during times of war.
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