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Gustav Mahr RIP
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07-02-2012 9:57am#1
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(Hitler Youth rally in Balbriggan, 1936. Mahr is 2nd from right.)
(Gustav Mahr is on the left foreground in this picture.)
Wesley-educated Austrian became prominent in Irish Nazi youth group
GUSTAV MAHR, a Wesley College-educated boy who went on to serve in German forces during the second World War, has died aged 89.
Although born in Vienna, he came to Dublin aged five, and was educated at Tullamaine School, which was where the Burlington Hotel is now, and Wesley College which at the time was on St Stephen’s Green.
He was the eldest child of Adolf Mahr, the Austrian archaeologist who was hired by the National Museum of Ireland in 1927, and became its director in 1934.
Adolf Mahr became head of the Nazi party in Ireland in 1933. A Hitler Youth group was also formed in which young Gustav was prominent.
Its first meeting took place in a shed at the back of the Mahr home on Upper Leeson Street. Later, it organised week-long camps at Hampton Hall in Balbriggan (later used as a Gaeltacht summer school) and at Kilmacurragh, Co Wicklow (now an arboretum operated by the National Botanic Gardens).
The younger Mahr intended following in his father’s archaeological footsteps, and took part in the dig at Drimnagh Castle in Dublin.
Mahr senior seems to have been consulted on aspects of Robert Flaherty’s landmark film Man of Aran , and in 1933 Gustav joined his father on the set for the filming. He struck up a friendship with the child star of the film Mike Dillane, and was present when the film premiered in Dublin in 1934.
The Mahrs enjoyed family holidays in Skerries and Malahide during the 1930s. The parents become friendly with the Talbots of Malahide Castle and the children played among the precious heirlooms half a decade before the property was opened to the public.
Gustav Mahr’s most cherished memory was of his sojourn at Monksgrange, a stately house in Co Wexford, where he was sent to recuperate following the removal of his appendix. He worked with the animals on the farm and learned how to weed and pick strawberries, before taking them to the market in Enniscorthy. The 11-year-old developed an unrequited crush on one of the family’s teenage daughters. She became well-known in later life as Charmian Hill, trainer of the dual Cheltenham champion hurdle and Gold Cup winner Dawn Run.
The Mahrs left Ireland on a family holiday to Austria (already subsumed into Germany) shortly before Gustav’s 18th birthday during the summer of 1939. The war started soon after, and the family was unable to return to Ireland. Gustav completed his education there, before joining the Labour Force, and was then drafted into the German army.
He was among the three-million-strong force that took part in Operation Barbarossa; the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Not yet trained for combat, he built embankments that allowed tanks to climb on to railway tracks in order to cross the river Memel into Lithuania. Apart from guarding captured Russian soldiers, he spent most of that summer building roads. He didn’t fire a shot, nor was fired upon.
That winter, he was drafted into an infantry regiment and would have been sent to the eastern front but for the intervention of Ulrich Tanne, son of the Rev Wilhelm Tanne, in whose Malahide home the Mahrs spent several summers.
Because he was an English speaker, he was sent to the relative safety of Tunisia, where his work included deciphering British codes from the North African conflict.
During the summer of 1942, he was one of 130,000 German and Italian troops who were captured by Allied forces. He was careful to avoid a British POW camp because they were likely to ask awkward questions about his nationality. Gustav’s accent suggested that he was Irish, and because Ireland was then still part of the British Commonwealth, he could have been shot as a traitor. Instead, he was taken by the Americans and sat out the war in a POW camp in North Carolina.
Following the war, he became an archaeologist; first in Bonn, and later in Charlottenburg, Berlin. He returned to Ireland several times, most notably in 1976 when he spent six weeks digging in Falcarragh, Co Donegal.
He is survived by his son and daughter, and his three sisters, two of whom were born in Dublin.
Gustav Mahr: born August 3rd, 1922; died February 1st, 20120 -
(Hitler Youth rally in Balbriggan, 1936. Mahr is 2nd from right.)
(Gustav Mahr is on the left foreground in this picture.)
Wesley-educated Austrian became prominent in Irish Nazi youth group
GUSTAV MAHR, a Wesley College-educated boy who went on to serve in German forces during the second World War, has died aged 89.
Although born in Vienna, he came to Dublin aged five, and was educated at Tullamaine School, which was where the Burlington Hotel is now, and Wesley College which at the time was on St Stephen’s Green.
He was the eldest child of Adolf Mahr, the Austrian archaeologist who was hired by the National Museum of Ireland in 1927, and became its director in 1934.
Adolf Mahr became head of the Nazi party in Ireland in 1933. A Hitler Youth group was also formed in which young Gustav was prominent.
Its first meeting took place in a shed at the back of the Mahr home on Upper Leeson Street. Later, it organised week-long camps at Hampton Hall in Balbriggan (later used as a Gaeltacht summer school) and at Kilmacurragh, Co Wicklow (now an arboretum operated by the National Botanic Gardens).
The younger Mahr intended following in his father’s archaeological footsteps, and took part in the dig at Drimnagh Castle in Dublin.
Mahr senior seems to have been consulted on aspects of Robert Flaherty’s landmark film Man of Aran , and in 1933 Gustav joined his father on the set for the filming. He struck up a friendship with the child star of the film Mike Dillane, and was present when the film premiered in Dublin in 1934.
The Mahrs enjoyed family holidays in Skerries and Malahide during the 1930s. The parents become friendly with the Talbots of Malahide Castle and the children played among the precious heirlooms half a decade before the property was opened to the public.
Gustav Mahr’s most cherished memory was of his sojourn at Monksgrange, a stately house in Co Wexford, where he was sent to recuperate following the removal of his appendix. He worked with the animals on the farm and learned how to weed and pick strawberries, before taking them to the market in Enniscorthy. The 11-year-old developed an unrequited crush on one of the family’s teenage daughters. She became well-known in later life as Charmian Hill, trainer of the dual Cheltenham champion hurdle and Gold Cup winner Dawn Run.
The Mahrs left Ireland on a family holiday to Austria (already subsumed into Germany) shortly before Gustav’s 18th birthday during the summer of 1939. The war started soon after, and the family was unable to return to Ireland. Gustav completed his education there, before joining the Labour Force, and was then drafted into the German army.
He was among the three-million-strong force that took part in Operation Barbarossa; the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Not yet trained for combat, he built embankments that allowed tanks to climb on to railway tracks in order to cross the river Memel into Lithuania. Apart from guarding captured Russian soldiers, he spent most of that summer building roads. He didn’t fire a shot, nor was fired upon.
That winter, he was drafted into an infantry regiment and would have been sent to the eastern front but for the intervention of Ulrich Tanne, son of the Rev Wilhelm Tanne, in whose Malahide home the Mahrs spent several summers.
Because he was an English speaker, he was sent to the relative safety of Tunisia, where his work included deciphering British codes from the North African conflict.
During the summer of 1942, he was one of 130,000 German and Italian troops who were captured by Allied forces. He was careful to avoid a British POW camp because they were likely to ask awkward questions about his nationality. Gustav’s accent suggested that he was Irish, and because Ireland was then still part of the British Commonwealth, he could have been shot as a traitor. Instead, he was taken by the Americans and sat out the war in a POW camp in North Carolina.
Following the war, he became an archaeologist; first in Bonn, and later in Charlottenburg, Berlin. He returned to Ireland several times, most notably in 1976 when he spent six weeks digging in Falcarragh, Co Donegal.
He is survived by his son and daughter, and his three sisters, two of whom were born in Dublin.
Gustav Mahr: born August 3rd, 1922; died February 1st, 2012
I find the comment in the above obituary that he could have been shot as a traitor somewhat far fetched.0 -
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