Dr Josef Mair and Resistance to National Socialism

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Josef Mair (1909-1986) and Resistance to National Socialism

Introduction

Dr Josef Mair (1909–1986) served as the diocesan youth leader in Tyrol and repeatedly came into conflict with the Gestapo because of his work for the Church. After three arrests in 1940 and 1941, he faced imprisonment in Dachau concentration camp. His wife, Maria Mair, née Ghedina, and several helpers worked to secure his release. He later helped establish a resistance group in Landeck.
The family’s story brings together the defence of religious independence, personal assistance and organised resistance during the final years of the war.

Photograph Dr. Josef Mair (1933). in private archive Mag. Mair Hall in Tyrol.

Childhood, education and family

Josef Mair was born in Matrei am Brenner on 21 June 1909 and grew up at the Glasnhof farm in Schöfens. He attended the Franciscan secondary school in Hall in Tirol, completing his school-leaving examination in 1933. He began studying theology in Brixen, then changed to law in Innsbruck and earned a doctorate. He subsequently worked for the Innsbruck Chamber of Commerce.
He met Maria Ghedina in Hall. She had trained as a nurse specialising in infant care in Vienna and had also worked in Italy. They married on 20 September 1939 at the parish church of St Nicholas in Hall, with Bishop Paulus Rusch officiating. The couple later lived at the Glasnhof with their children. Maria’s professional experience and actions in her own right are an essential part of this family history.

Photo: School-leaving class at the Franciscan secondary school in Hall in Tyrol, 4 July 1933. Source: Archive of the Tyrolean Franciscan Province, Hall in Tyrol.

His further education took him to the Franciscan Gymnasium in Hall in Tirol. In the 1925/26 school year, he entered the 1st class but briefly interrupted his studies. After private tutoring and a qualification examination, he returned to his class. Josef Mair was a gifted student and graduated with distinction on July 4, 1933. During his school years in Hall, he initially lived in the St. Josef's Mission House, then on Straubstraße in Hall. In Hall, he was a paying guest with the Ghedina family at Waldaufstraße 8 – an encounter that would shape his life.

Photo: School-leaving class at the Franciscan secondary school in Hall in Tirol, 4 July 1933. Source: Archive of the Tyrolean Franciscan Province, Hall in Tirol.

Historical context

After the annexation of Austria in March 1938, the Nazi regime abolished independent youth organisations and restricted educational work by the churches. Clergy and laypeople who continued to engage young people outside Nazi organisations faced surveillance, denunciation and imprisonment. Catholic responses ranged from accommodation to open opposition.
Josef Mair’s actions represented resistance by an individual Catholic and his associates; they do not establish that the Church as an institution mounted a unified resistance.
Under these circumstances, even pilgrimages could acquire political significance. In 1941 the closed pilgrimage site of Maria Waldrast became a focus of conflict over religious practice and state authority. During the last months of the war, local resistance groups also sought to prevent violence and prepare for the handover of their towns.

Pilgrimage church and monastery of Maria Waldrast, 2006. Photograph: Leonhard Kurenz, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0; converted from the original to black and white. Wikimedia Commons

Conflict with the Gestapo

Mair lost his position at the Chamber of Commerce after 1938 and, at Bishop Rusch’s request, became diocesan youth leader. An Easter letter to Catholic young people led to his first arrest in 1940. A second arrest followed early in 1941 after a listener denounced a talk he had given in Jerzens. According to the family account, he already faced transfer to Dachau during this detention, prompting Maria Mair to approach the Gestapo.
Josef was released but remained under considerable pressure.
On 20 April 1941, young Catholics made a pilgrimage to Maria Waldrast. Discussions had also taken place at the Mair family home. Josef Mair was arrested again on 22 April. His brother Franz Mair and Hans Madersbacher had previously removed the revered statue of the Virgin Mary from the church for safekeeping; according to an earlier DBANT account, Josef knew about the action.
His specific role in planning and carrying out the pilgrimage should be distinguished from the actions of the young participants.

Maria Ghedina and Dr Josef Mair on their wedding day, 20 September 1939. Digitally enhanced family photograph. Source: Private archive of Mag. Thomas Mair, Hall in Tirol / DBANT.

First Arrest: The Easter Letter of 1940

Photograph Dr. Josef Mair (1941). In private archive Mag. Mair Hall in Tyrol. 

Soon after the wedding, Josef Mair came to the Gestapo’s attention. As diocesan youth leader, he wrote an Easter letter to Catholic young people. It included a quotation from the Book of Revelation: “Because you are lukewarm, I will spit you out of my mouth.” Monsignor Michael Weisskopf advised him to submit three copies of the letter to the Gestapo. Josef refused, a decision that proved well founded.
Weisskopf nevertheless sent copies to the authorities, who immediately confiscated the letter. The letters had already been posted, however.
The Gestapo interpreted the passage as a direct allusion to the Nazis. Mair’s first arrest took place in 1940, about six months after his wedding. He spent three weeks in the police prison. Dr Pfeifauf was detained alongside him, ostensibly because he had held singing rehearsals in the church in Hall—an implausible pretext, as Pfeifauf could not sing.
The Gestapo still refused to release him: “Now that you are here, you can stay.”

Second arrest: a talk in Jerzens

Symbolic depiction of a witness statement being taken during an interrogation by the Gestapo. AI-generated black-and-white reconstruction for the article on Heinrich Andergassen. Source: DBANT.

The second arrest followed in February or March 1941, only five weeks before the birth of the couple’s first child. It was prompted by a talk Josef Mair had given in the local church at the invitation of the parish priest of Jerzens. He described the difference between political and Catholic community. In a political community, he said, “everything belongs to it, including animals, trees, cows and calves.”
A smallholder took offence and denounced Mair to the district Nazi Party leader, alleging that he had ridiculed the Nazis. A gendarme first took Mair to the court prison in Ried. On the way, Mair was allowed to burn incriminating papers beneath a bridge. His cell in Ried was in a deplorable state: the waste bin was overflowing, and he had to empty it himself.
The next morning he was transferred to the Gestapo prison known as the “Innsbrucker Sonne”, where he remained for another three weeks.

Threat of imprisonment in Dachau

Illustrative depiction of a prisoner transport to Dachau concentration camp. AI-generated black-and-white image, not a historical photograph. Source: DBANT.

During this detention, the danger intensified. Josef told Dean Staud of Navis, a fellow prisoner: “If I do not return from the interrogation, inform my wife. That will mean they are sending me to the concentration camp.”
According to the account, an order was indeed issued to send him to Dachau. Maria Mair, heavily pregnant, appealed in person to the local Gestapo chief, Hilliges, and the order was withdrawn. An official named Anders later told her that the chief had personally revoked it at midday. At his release, however, Josef had to sign a declaration warning that a third arrest would lead to imprisonment in a concentration camp.
Five weeks later, on 22 April 1941, he was arrested for a third time.

Third arrest on 22 April 1941

Pilgrims approaching the Maria Waldrast pilgrimage church in Tyrol. AI-generated black-and-white illustration based on a 2006 photograph of the pilgrimage site; the people were added. Source photograph: DBANT.

Five weeks after his second release, the Gestapo came for Dr Josef Mair for the third and final time. This arrest concerned the pilgrimage to the closed shrine of Maria Waldrast on White Sunday, 20 April 1941, which was also Hitler’s birthday. What began as a spontaneous idea in the sitting room at the Glasnhof was seen by the Nazi regime as a deliberate provocation.
Josef had not actively organised the pilgrimage, but his home had been a meeting place. Young theology students, including Reinhold Stecher, had discussed it there. Mair warned them: “Someone who does nothing now is no coward. But someone who acts and then gives names is.”
During the night of 17–18 April 1941, his brother Franz and Hans Madersbacher secretly removed the statue of the Virgin Mary from the church, keeping it beyond the Nazis’ reach. Josef knew about their action. The Gestapo did not establish who had removed it before the regime collapsed, and the two young men escaped punishment.
On 22 April, Maria saw the Gestapo officers approaching the house. She sent her sister-in-law Paula to warn Josef, but the officers spotted him in the field.
During an interrogation at the town hall in Matrei, the Gestapo confronted him with statements by theology student Anton Hilber. Under pressure, Hilber had disclosed details, including Josef’s request that clergy in Steinach not be informed. Mair did not deny it. He knew that he had already signed two undertakings warning of transfer to a concentration camp if he was arrested again.
That evening he was taken to a prison at the Brenner Pass. Maria remained behind holding little Michael, believing she might have seen her husband for the last time.

Maria Mair and the threat of deportation

Collage of Maria Mair, née Ghedina, and her family: Maria at her First Communion, with two sisters, at her wedding to Josef Mair and with their first three children in 1945. Also shown are a portrait of Josef, Maria’s memorial card and the Ghedina family grave inscription. Black-and-white collage based on photographs from the private archive of Mag. Thomas Mair, Hall in Tirol.

During Josef’s third detention, Maria worked to save him. The account passed down by the family describes information from people connected with the police, medical examinations and helpers who worked to have him classified as unfit for a concentration camp.
The account of an altered ECG result comes from family testimony and should be identified as such unless a contemporary medical file is found. Josef Mair avoided imprisonment in Dachau and was released from custody in October 1941. According to the family account, Maria’s initiative was crucial.

Resistance in Landeck

After his detention, Josef Mair was first assigned to border protection duties and later worked in connection with the military registration office in Landeck. An earlier DBANT account identifies 22 August 1942 as the date of an initial meeting with Ambros Mayr to establish a resistance group. It describes contacts with other participants in February and April 1945, measures to protect the hospital, and the disabling of machine guns at Landeck railway station.
The precise impact of these individual actions cannot be quantified without further evidence. They do, however, show that Mair’s opposition to the regime extended beyond the defence of space for Church activities.

Maria and Dr Josef Mair in five family photographs: their wedding portrait of 20 September 1939; Maria with their son Michael and a portrait of Josef from 1941; and two family photographs from 1945 and around 1945–46. Bishop Paulus Rusch officiated at their wedding in St Nicholas parish church in Hall in Tirol. Source: Private archive of Mag. Thomas Mair, Hall in Tirol / DBANT.

Actions during the final days of the war

The resistance group around Josef Mair took action. On 17 February 1945, Dr Mair and Dr Brugger were able to report initial successes to the courier Kirchmair, sent by Dr Carl Gruber from Innsbruck: they had obtained weapons to guard the hospital.
The situation worsened on 25 February. Mair, Dellemann and Bucher reported increasing reprisals against prisoners of war. Further discussions of the situation took place with Bucher and Dr Brugger on 8 April.
The decisive days came at the end of April 1945:
·       On 26 April, prisoners of war were sent towards Switzerland.
·       On 27 April, the group disabled the machine guns at Landeck railway station.
The German article argues that the resistance group probably helped avert a bloody end to the war locally and saved lives. The precise effect of its actions remains difficult to establish. Mair had broken the undertaking forced upon him by the Gestapo through his continued opposition to the regime.

Life after 1945

After the war, Josef Mair worked in diocesan education and directed the St Michael education centre in Matrei am Brenner. Josef and Maria raised seven children. Their family memories and photographs preserve both the years of persecution and the new beginning that followed.

Maria and Josef Mair with their family, from 1941 to around 1980. At upper left, Maria holds their son Michael in April 1941; other photographs show her with the children and the family at gatherings in later years. Photographs: Mair family archive; black-and-white collage: DBANT.

Seven Children in Ten Years

Seven children were born between March 1941 and October 1952:
·       Michael, March 1941
·       Margreth, September 1942
·       Klaus, October 1943
·       Gottfried, April 1945, born in Zams during the final days of the war
·       Franz, 1947, named after his uncle
·       Peter, 1949
·       Thomas, October 1952
Each birth took place amid the hardships of those years and offered the family hope for the future. Gottfried’s birth in April 1945 coincided with the approach of the front and the collapse of the Nazi regime.

Conclusion

What did “resistance” mean in this family’s history? Their story includes loyalty to the Catholic Church when its work was being restricted, refusal to align themselves with the Nazi regime, and efforts to uphold their values and professional integrity. Josef Mair’s involvement in the Landeck group later became a form of organised resistance.
After the war, Dr Josef Mair was able to resume work in the Church. Bishop Paul Rusch, who had officiated at the couple’s wedding, remained a central figure in his professional circle.
Maria Mair followed a path of her own. Trained as an infant nurse, she had worked in Austria and Italy. Her actions during Josef’s imprisonment were essential to his story, while she also helped raise their large family.
At the Glasnhof in Matrei, family life continued after the war. Josef and Maria’s experiences connected this Tyrolean household to Vienna, Italy, the Church’s networks and the local resistance in Landeck.

Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

Who was Dr Josef Mair?

Josef Mair (1909–1986) was a lawyer, diocesan youth leader and participant in the resistance in Landeck.

Why did the Gestapo arrest him?

The DBANT account identifies an Easter letter to Catholic young people, a talk in Jerzens and the pilgrimage to Maria Waldrast as the occasions for his three arrests.

What role did Maria Mair play?

Maria appealed to the authorities during her husband’s detention and, according to the family account, organised assistance when he faced transfer to Dachau concentration camp.

Was Josef Mair imprisoned in Dachau?

No. According to the account passed down by the family, he faced transfer there but was classified as unfit for a concentration camp and was later released from detention.

What did Josef Mair do in Landeck in 1945?

He was part of a local resistance network. The DBANT article describes contacts and specific actions during the final months of the war.

Memorial and related DBANT articles:

Photograph of the gravestone of Dr. Josef Mair and Maria Mair, née Ghedina, at the municipal cemetery in Hall in Tyrol. In the private archive of Mag. Mair, Hall in Tyrol. DBANT

Further reading on DBANT:

Bishop Dr Reinhold Stecher

Monsignor Dr Michael Weisskopf

Monsignor Dr Franz Kolb

Maria Waldrast 1941

Pilgrimage in Tyrol

Maria Mair

Dr Nikolaus Pfeifauf and Dr Hermann Blassnig

Gestapo officer Heinrich Andergassen Part 1 

Gestapo officer Heinrich Andergassen Part 2