Andreas Hofer - 1809
A fighter for Tyrol freedom, an innkeeper and cattle merchant, Andreas Hofer was born in 1767 at Sandwirt a St. Leonhard in Passeier. When the Tyrol was annexed to Bavaria, an ally of the French, after the treaty of Presburg (1805) Hofer led the Tyrolese in their struggle for freedom against Bavarian domination. He organized a people’s militia and defeated the Bavarian army in May 1809 on Mt. Isel, near Innsbruck. Despite promises made to him by the emperor Franz II, the Tyrol was ceded to France after the Znaim armistice, and an army of 40,000 French and Bavarian soldiers invaded the area. In August, the Tyrolese, led by Hofer, defeated the occupying army on the Berg Isel and he became the Tyrolese leader. In October, after the treaty of Schönbrunn, the Tyrol was again assigned to Bavaria and occupied by French troops. Hofer continued his resistence, but was defeated and had to flee. He was finally betrayed and consigned to the French, arraigned before a war tribunal and, on the explicit order of Napoleon, executed on February 20 1810 at Mantova.
After the second battle on the Berg Isel, Andreas went into hiding at Schneeberg: ‘Hofer stayed here for a short time (August 2-5) in a gorge near Schneeberg, hidden at the top of the Passeiertal. It was from this spot that, through a trusted person, he sent out his orders.’ (Stampfer, 1874) After the fourth battle on the Berg Isel and the final defeat of the Tyrolese, Hofer sent his wife and five children to Schneeberg, while he himself took refuge in the Pfandler pasture at Prantach, where he was betrayed by Franz Raffl and taken prisoner by the French.
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