On January 27, 2024, this
Zeitpunkt was installed near the address Schullernstrasse 12. The initiative for this came from erinnern:at.
Born 27.10.1888 in Laatsch (South Tyrol)
Died 10.3.1945 in Bruchsal prison (Baden-Württemberg)
Nikolaus Federspiel, a pensioner with the Reichsbahn railway, was a committed communist, as was his wife Elisabeth, whom he married in 1921. Since the 1920s the family had been subjected to political persecution.
During the Nazi period, they were regularly reported to and questioned by the Gestapo. In May 1942, Nikolaus and Elisabeth Federspiel were arrested together with their daughter Elisabeth, son Ernst and grandson Richard on suspicion of communist activities, but they were released three weeks later. On 6 August 1943, the Gestapo again arrested Nikolaus Federspiel and his wife; they had supported their deserter son Ernst and other comrades. Nikolaus was held in the prison of the regional court. On 24 January 1944, the Sondergericht Innsbruck (Innsbruck Special Court) sentenced Federspiel to two and a half years in prison and Elisabeth to one and a half years for subversion of the war effort and aiding and abetting desertion.
On 25 February 1944, the 56-year-old arrived at Bruchsal prison near Karlsruhe. A year later he was dead. He had been so severely beaten by his guards that he died on 10 March 1945 from the injuries inflicted on him.
Elisabeth Federspiel was granted early release on 29 April 1945 due to illness. A few days earlier, her son Ernst had been shot as a deserter at Paschberg in Innsbruck, and her father had been killed in a bombing raid on 20 April. But these were not the only losses of the Federspiel worker’s family. Elisabeth had also lost her mother, who died in detention in 1944. Grandson Richard survived his internment but afterwards suffered from double tuberculosis.
Sources:
Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes (DÖW) 5300
Tiroler Landesarchiv, victim welfare files of Genovefa Flatscher and Hannelore Flatscher-Ecker
Widerstand und Verfolgung in Tirol 1934-1945. Eine Dokumentation, Band 2, hg. v. Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes, Wien-München, pp. 507, 516. http://biografia.sabiado.at/federspiel-elisabeth/