A Mammendorfer gendarme proved his humanity at the end of World War II and saved a US pilot from the Nazis.
Mammendorf - When the US Army marched into Mammendorf at the end of the war, Lorenz Knoll was arrested. Just a few hours later, the police chief is released and is immediately returned to his post. The Americans had discovered that the gendarme had saved the lives of one of yours.
The incident occurred in the confusion of the last days of the war. On April 29, 1945, an American plane crashed near Pfaffenhofen. The pilot was able to save himself with a parachute, but was captured by soldiers of an air force unit stationed on site and initially arrested at the mayor of Adelshofen. "At that time there were still SS units in Mammendorf and the surrounding area," says the second volume of the home book "Die Ortschronik von Mammendorf". The official order was that prisoners should be shot.
Mayor turns to the gendarme
The mayor of Adelshofen sent a messenger to the gendarmerie post in Mammendorf for help. Knoll then cycled to Pfaffenhofen, took over the prisoner and walked back to Mammendorf. Knoll gave the US lieutenant a civilian coat for camouflage as they feared meeting SS men on the way. He wanted to save the American, but also wanted to save the village from inconvenience when the American troops marched in. It was later written down by the first post-war Mayor of Mammendorf, Kastulus Gantner. "After the appearance of American chariots, Knoll handed the prisoner over to the commander - and was then arrested, disarmed and even robbed of his watch," reports the local chronicle.
Because the rescued US pilot immediately clarified the matter, Knoll was quickly released. He even got a piece of paper to keep him from further inconvenience.
Lorenz Knoll received this paper. It should protect him from inconvenience.
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Knoll hardly spoke of his war experiences
Hannes Mayer is the grandson of Lorenz Knoll.
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"And of course he got his watch back," added Hannes Mayer. The Adelshofener is the grandson of Lorenz Knoll and has known the story of the rescue of the American aviation lieutenant since childhood. "In the family, we always said: there was something there." The 57-year-old was 18 when his grandfather died and can therefore still remember him well. Knoll himself did not speak much about his experiences during and after the war. "He was rather the silent one," says the grandson. The family knows from written records that the gendarme, who always looks strictly at photos, defused hundreds of explosive devices around Mammendorf. "He kept records of the unexploded ordnance." As a police officer, Knoll was obviously a meticulous forensic. His grandson still keeps a collection of old cameras with which he took accident photos and documented operations.
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