A "Tiroler Stube" for the Gauleiter
Gauleiter Franz Hofer’s office was designed to resemble a “Tiroler Stube” (Tyrolean parlour). The ceiling has 21 solid oak beams decorated on three sides with intricate carvings in the style of medieval ornamental bands. The ornamentation includes bands of flowers, leaves and geometric shapes as well as traditional craft symbols. On the seventh beam there are three swastikas and on the 14th beam there are five Nazi party eagles between a band of SS symbols. The “neutral” ornamentation is combined with a versatile repertoire of Nazi symbols, from cogwheels to triskeles in the form of three-armed swastikas, and from the world tree motif as an Irminsul symbol to the othala rune as code for the blood and soil ideology.
The Gauleiter's office
1. Telfs Town Hall as a model: interior design by architect Richard Dagostin, cabinetmaker Oskar Spechtenhauser and sculptor Hans Obleitner, Archiv Marktgemeinde Telfs
2. Inscription on the beams of the marriage ceremony room in the Telfs Town Hall, Archiv Marktgemeinde Telfs
3. Reworking of the swastika carvings in the Gauleiter’s office
1. Telfs Town Hall as a model
On the 18th beam are the names of the contributing designers and craftsmen: architect Richard Dagostin, sculptor Hans Obleitner, cabinetmaker Oskar Spechtenhauser and locksmith Peter Zanier. In Telfs they were all involved in the conversion of a former brewery into the new town hall, which was inaugurated in the spring of 1939. Gauleiter Hofer was familiar with the new town hall in Telfs when he gave instructions for the design of his office in the Gauhaus.
2. Hitler quotations
Restoration work carried out in the Landhaus in January 2023 revealed areas where wood had been cut out of the beams and the voids concealed with veneered panels. It can be assumed that, immediately after the war, the Americans ordered the obliteration of an inscription. There are no records of the text removed. It is likely that it was inspired by the ceiling beams in the marriage ceremony room in the Telfs Town Hall. The beams there are decorated with Hitler quotations such as “If you want to live, fight. If you don’t want to fight in this world of eternal strife, you don’t deserve to live” or “You are nothing – your people are everything”.
3. “Swastika-free”
The swastikas on the ceiling beams were not obliterated in the post-war period; only the ends of the arms set at right angles were removed, leaving simple crosses in relief. Reports differ with regard to the year in which the swastikas were reworked. According to a 1996 publication, it was done in 1993. Since then, the government conference room has been “guaranteed swastika-free”. One swastika is said to have gone unnoticed and only had its wings clipped in 2002.