Of
Hans Kratzer, Passau
Ultimately, a visit to an inn was fatal for the pastor Ludwig Mitterer. He forfeited his life there, of all places, where sociability and joie de vivre normally prevail. But humanity counts for nothing in a dictatorship. At the end of July 1943, Mitterer interfered in a conversation between two sisters from the National Socialist People’s Welfare Organization (NSV) in an inn in the district of Passau. They talked about the imminent accommodation of Hamburg bomb victims. Mitterer said that the Germans had started the bombing campaign, that it was total war, which Berliners had been clamoring for. One of the sisters immediately made a complaint to the police. Mitterer had previously said: “It is better that we lose the war than that we lose faith.”