Dachau to Dolomites. Tom Wall
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DACHAU TO THE DOLOMITES
Tom Wall is a retired official of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and is a master’s graduate of UCD. He is a regular contributor of essays and reviews on historical themes for Dublin Review of Books.
DACHAU TO THE DOLOMITES
The Untold Story of the Irishmen, Himmler’s Special Prisoners and the End of WWII
TOM WALL
First published in 2019 by
Merrion Press
An imprint of Irish Academic Press
10 George’s Street
Newbridge
Co. Kildare
Ireland
© Tom Wall, 2019
9781785372254 (Paper)
9781785372261 (Kindle)
9781785372278 (Epub)
9781785372285 (PDF)
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
An entry can be found on request
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
An entry can be found on request
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alone, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or
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without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the
above publisher of this book.
Cover front (above): Dachau Main Gate, 1945 (PhotoQuest/Getty Images).
Cover front (below): Group of Prominenten outside Pragser Wildsee Hotel, May 1945.
CONTENTS
I.Colonel John McGrath: Truth and Invention
II.Müller, Bonhoeffer and Niemöller
III.Alexander von Stauffenberg and Fey von Hassell: A Love Story
IV.The Strange Tale of Friedrich Engelke
V.Colonel Davide Ferrero and his Patriot Battalion
Appendix: List of Prominenten in Hotel Pragser Wildsee
For Berni
PREFACE AND
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
At the entrance to the exhibition in the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site, there is a large wall map listing the numbers of prisoners from each country held in that notorious place. A figure ‘1’ is superimposed on a map of Ireland. On a visit, intrigued by who this fellow Irishman might be, I began a journey of discovery. I soon learned that he was John McGrath, from Elphin in County Roscommon, who, prior to the war, had managed cinemas in Dublin and Cork before becoming the manager of the Theatre Royal in Dublin. It was a rare stroke of good fortune on my part, to establish contact with Tom Callan, who had met John McGrath. I am forever indebted to him and to his good friend John Kelly, for their assistance and for the research they undertook on my behalf. With their help, and with the