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Austria (1920)
Sources:
Anna Schütz † (sister) / Austria
Christine Hopfer (niece) / Austria
Maria Schütz (niece) / Austria
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Alois Bacher was born on July 10, 1920 in the small town of Gersdorf in the Austrian state of Styria. He was the first child of Pauline Bacher, who had celebrated her eighteenth birthday just two days earlier while heavily pregnant. She earned her money as a day laborer. His father was a farmer from the region. However, Alois Bacher was born out of wedlock and never met his father. His mother later married another man and took the name Weixler, while Alois kept his maiden name Bacher. The stepfather became a surrogate father for the little boy. In 1923, the family had another child when half-sister Anna was born on July 6. The following year, another half-sister, Maria, followed a few days before Christmas.
Alois Bacher started primary school in the market town of Frauental, five kilometres south of his home village. He was a good student. In addition to school, he had to work as a farmhand for a neighbouring farmer to supplement the family income. In the summer months, when the harvest was due, he was even excused from school to work in the fields. Then he slept in the farm's hayloft, which had neither light nor a window. He did not particularly enjoy this work. He preferred to devote himself to music and played the violin or accordion. He was also a talented draftsman. He was a cheerful, friendly and lovable person and in later years he liked to dance Schuhplattler at festivals, remembers his sister Anna.
After eight years at elementary school, his schooling ended. Soon after, Alois Bacher went to Germany. There, his uncle worked on a manor near Altenburg, where he had also found him a job. His sister Anna also worked in the town. She was employed by a doctor. Alois Bacher soon fell in love with the manor's cook. Nevertheless, he wanted to leave life as a farmhand behind him. By applying to the navy, he finally found a way to escape his existence as a farmhand, and he also saw it as an opportunity for training. The choice to join the navy probably had its origins in the exoticism that seafaring had for the young Austrian. "It was just something special," remembers his sister. So Alois Bacher volunteered and was accepted.
On April 1, 1940, he started his service in the 1st Company of the 11th Schiffsstammdivision in Stralsund. He underwent basic training in Stralsund over the next two months. In a postcard dated May 18, 1940, he told his family that he would be leaving Stralsund at the end of the month, and that's exactly what happened: on June 1, Alois Bacher and most of his comrades were assigned to the barge New York in Gotenhafen, where part of the crew of the battleship Bismarck, which was still under construction, was gathering.
He later came to Hamburg, where the Bismarck was commissioned. Alois Bacher was assigned to the ship's anti-aircraft crew. He continued to write cards to his family, including during a stay on the Bismarck in Kiel. In the winter of 1940 he was able to go on holiday to his Austrian homeland for the first time. He spent his free time with his mother and two sisters. He enjoyed the holiday very much. Shortly before his departure he and his two sisters were on their way to visit neighbours whom he wanted to visit before he left. "He was in a great mood and joked with us both," remembers his sister Anna: "then he cheered, threw up his arms and, to our surprise, burst into tears." Was it the imminent departure or a premonition, as his sister Anna retrospectively said, that suddenly made Alois Bacher sad? Unfortunately, this question can no longer be answered today.
Another event, which at first seems insignificant, accompanied the visit home. Shortly before his departure, Alois Bacher lost a button on his uniform. All searching was in vain, the button remained missing and Alois Bacher was inconsolable. Without the button, he then returned to his ship and set sail on the Bismarck a few months later. Alois Bacher did not survive the sinking of the Bismarck. He died on May 27, 1941 at the age of 20. When his mother heard of the death of her only son, she was completely distraught and his sisters, who loved him more than anything, were also hit hard by the loss. Maria had a photo of him on her bedside table until her own death in 2011 and Anna, who initially tried to distract herself with work, still cries today when she looks at a photo of him. Alois Bacher's girlfriend wrote a letter from Germany and asked if she could keep her friend's camera as a memento of him. The local community also took part and immortalized Alois Bacher's name on a plaque together with all the other fallen soldiers from the town. Weeks after the sinking of the Bismarck, Anna saw something flash in the grass in a meadow, bent down and found the lost button, which she kept like a precious treasure for decades.
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