Memorial Dr. Frans Mair

Franz Mair was the third of four children of the district inspector Johann Mair and Berta Kollmann. He attended the Academic Gymnasium Innsbruck, where he graduated in 1930. After studying English and German at the University of Innsbruck, he worked as a teacher at this school. He was very popular with his students and was called "English Mair" by them; to them he also expressed his distaste for the National Socialists.

During the Nazi regime he was involved in the resistance. He spoke out publicly against National Socialism and narrowly escaped a death sentence. Mair made contact with various resistance groups, including the White Rose, and the Allies. Towards the end of the Second World War he founded the resistance association "Gruppe Franz Mair" with former students (including Bert Breit). He supported deserters and hid a French agent and his radio system with a farmer in Elbögen.
On May 3, 1945, he was wounded in a firefight while defending the Innsbruck Landhaus and succumbed to these injuries on May 6. On May 8, 1946, the first anniversary of the end of the war, the then governor Alfons Weißgatterer unveiled a plaque at the old manor, commemorating the Austrian and Tyrolean resistance and Franz Mair.

The inscription;
"In the first days of May of 1945, the Tyrolean resistance succeeded in overcoming the National Socialist domination in Innsbruck in collaboration with the US secret service.
The regional capital could therefore be handed over to the advancing American troops without fighting and already liberated. Thus the city was spared further destruction and bloodshed.
During the last exchange of fire with retreating units of the SS, the resistance fighter Dr. Franz Mair mortally wounded on 3 May."

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