Beneath the Veils of Vomperloch
In the tumultuous years of World War II, stories of resistance and defiance against the Nazi regime emerged across Europe. One such tale unfolded in the remote Vomperloch valley in Austria, where a group of deserters and regime opponents found shelter, thanks in part to the efforts of criminal police officer Josef Heiss from Schwaz.
Friedrich Steinlechner, a 19-year-old farmer's son from Gnadenwald, was the first to seek refuge in the Vomperloch valley in April 1943, having escaped from the Mountain Pioneer Training Battalion 83 in Schwaz. He was soon followed by others, including Josef Innerebner, a 29-year-old farmhand from Gnadenwald, who joined the deserters in October 1944.
Josef Ronczay, a non-commissioned officer in the military registration office in Kufstein, also found his way to the Vomperloch valley. Ronczay had been arrested in August 1944 on suspicion of aiding and abetting desertion, high treason, and undermining military strength, and was handed over to the Gestapo in Innsbruck. However, he managed to escape from the military prison in the Innsbruck Conrad barracks during a bombing raid on April 10, 1945.
The deserters in the Vomperloch were equipped with military weapons and pistols, according to reports by Heiss. He served as a pivot point for smuggling deserters and threatened regime opponents into the Vomperloch, temporarily hiding them in his apartment in Schwaz. Konrad Platzer, a farmer and anti-Nazi, also provided the deserters with food.
Josef Heiss, it seems, began to distance himself from the Nazi regime in 1944, shaping investigations to a certain extent. He and his colleagues formed a resistance cell within the Kripo and cooperated with an agent of the American secret service OSS, Fred Mayer.
However, the search for precise information about Josef Heiss’s actions in the Vomperloch valley is not without its challenges. While it is known that some police officers in Austria and other parts of the German Reich covertly helped deserters and opponents of the Nazi regime, specific details about Heiss’s role in these activities are not readily available from existing sources.
To uncover the full story of Josef Heiss and his role in aiding deserters in the Vomperloch valley, it may be necessary to consult specialized historical records, local archives in Austria, or scholarly works focusing on resistance activities and police conduct during that period in the Vomperloch area.
The rehabilitation laws in 2005 and 2009 ended the long phase of blanket whitewashing of the Nazi military justice and devaluation of the decision to no longer participate in the war effort of the Nazi regime. These laws, in part, acknowledge the courage and resilience of individuals like Josef Heiss, who, in their own ways, fought against the oppressive Nazi regime.
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