Daily life in crisis mode

With few exceptions, all party and state offices were housed in the Landhaus complex. Such a centralised form of organisation facilitated close supervision of the various departments and their staff. The building housed more than just offices: Employees also had access to a canteen, a cinema screen, a shooting range and even a hairdresser. Employment in the Landhaus had its benefits and opportunities for advancement, but they came at a price.

Constant overwork, close surveillance and the threat of air raids made huge demands of the employees. Until the end of the war, the Nazi authorities used every means at their disposal to force the staff to do their duty. In addition, the Landhaus was the command and control centre of crimes. They were planned and organised at the desks of the Nazi officials and civilian staff. At the same time, the building served as a clearing house for slander and denunciation. To the last, far too many implemented the Nazi ideology with an unreflecting sense of duty and in a spirit of anticipatory obedience.

1. Directory of the Innsbruck municipality, 1940

2. Hofer on the balcony of the Landhaus extension, June 1940, “Innsbrucker Nachrichten”

3. First floor plan of the Landhaus complex, May 1939, TLA

4. Instructions for target practice in the air-raid shelter, April 1941

5. Staff hall with murals by Sepp Ringel

 
1. Space for power, room for force
All but one of the party offices were housed in the Landhaus extension. The German Labour Front occupied the most space. The civil government departments remained in the Old Landhaus and the Taxispalais. In no other Reichsgau was there a comparable centralisation of power in a single complex.

2. Work, not show
According to the records, the Gauleiter made only one appearance on the balcony of the Landhaus extension. In daily life, it was a purely functional building. Events and rallies were held in front of today’s Landestheater.

3./4./5. Everything under one roof
The Old Landhaus, the Taxispalais and the Landhaus extension constituted a self-contained administrative unit. The staff had their own shooting range in the air-raid shelter. To ensure “the most intensive possible use” of working hours, the Landhaus had its own canteen, and the staff were obliged to use it.

1. Entrance to the Old Landhaus with guards, StAI

2. Confidential political assessment of an employee by the Gau personnel office, January 1941, TLA

3. Caretaker’s report to Gauleiter Hofer, April 1942, TLA

4. Circular from the Gauleiter on working hours and the suspension of holiday entitlements, August 1944, TLA

5. Photo album kept by the employee Anna B., private

 
1./2./3. Discipline und surveillance
A tight surveillance network was a part of everyday life at the Landhaus. Employees arriving late for work were reported by the guards. The Gau personnel office vetted all employees, from the boilermen to the cleaners, for their political reliability. The caretaker reported any wrongdoing to the Gauleiter. His hand-written notes at the bottom of a report: “Dismiss (immediately!!)” and “disc. proceedings”.

4. Exploitation for “total war”
As the war continued, working conditions at the Landhaus increasingly deteriorated. Employees were forced to work longer and longer hours. For many positions, leave was cancelled in 1940 already. The large numbers of employees called up to serve in the Wehrmacht created further difficulties.

5. Indispensable on the home front
The photo album kept by the employee Anna B. illustrates the advantages of employment at the Landhaus: material security, career opportunities and distraction from the war-time realities. In her narratives, the Landhaus seems almost idyllic.

1. Bomb strike near the air-raid shelter on the east side of the building, December 1943, StAI

2. Coroners report on Luise Biasioli, December 1943, StAI

3. Luise Biasioli, Landhaus employee, TLA

4. Footage of life in Innsbruck under the bombs, TLM

5. Funeral ceremony on Landhausplatz for the victims of the bombing raid in December 1943, StAI

6. 1944 poster with propaganda exhorting the population to hold out, issued in the Gau Tirol-Vorarlberg, BA Berlin

 
1./2./3. Death in the Gauhaus
From mid-1943 onwards, bombing raids were a dominant feature of everyday life in the Landhaus, too. Structurally, the building was ill-equipped. The most serious attack on Innsbruck took place at midday on 15 December 1943. Several people were wounded in the Landhaus. At least six women employed there lost their lives.

4./5. Wail of sirens and death in the bombing
The film footage shows carefree everyday scenes, people fleeing following an air raid alert, destroyed buildings and the burial of the dead. The funeral ceremony was held on Landhausplatz. The laid-out coffins were all draped with a swastika flag and topped with a wreath.

6. Holding out for “final victory”
At the funeral ceremony on Landhausplatz, Gauleiter Hofer sought to motivate the people of Innsbruck for a fight to the last breath. He invoked a “community of hatred, struggle and the ultimate commitment”. The staff were filled with fear, which the Gauleiter countered with a harsh response. Guards at the exits prevented employees from leaving the building in the event of an air raid.

1. Structural chart of the Gauleitung in the NSDAP’s organisational structure manual

2. Letter concerning the compulsory retirement of Heinrich Giovanelli, October 1938, TLA

3. Delivery protocol for items looted from the Jesuit College in December 1939, TLA

4. Letter regarding the billing of a “patient transport” from Hall to Linz in January 1941 and its signatories: Hans Czermak, Gustav Linert and Herbert Grosch, TLA

 
1. Crime: top-down and bottom-up
Based in the Landhaus, a many-layered administrative apparatus had access to all spheres of life. The Nazi reign of terror extended to every last niche of society. With regard to the crimes committed, however, the organisational chart must also be read bottom-up. In many cases, the point of departure was denunciation from a member of the public.

2. Persecution in the Landhaus
In the Landhaus, the persecution of people who did not fit in with the Nazi ideology began immediately after the “Anschluss”. Several senior civil servants of the Ständestaat dictatorship lost their jobs and were imprisoned. Five officials in the political administration were persecuted as Jews and dismissed from their posts. Two of them worked in the Landhaus: Heinrich Giovanelli and Georg Heinsheimer.

3. Plunder
The Landhaus was the organisational hub for plundering Church institutions. Looted monastery and church property was stored in the Landhaus strong room. Anything that was not nailed down was taken away: religious objects, office material and private valuables.

4. Behind-the-desk criminals
Landhaus employees administered the murders committed in the context of the Nazi euthanasia programme. The main culprit was Hans Czermak, who initiated the murders as the head of Health and Welfare. Gustav Linert and his deputy Herbert Grosch were responsible for the psychiatric hospital in Hall. Their bureaucratic involvement is clear from the bookkeeping. For all the patients selected, the transport ended with their murder in the Hartheim Euthanasia Centre.