Andreas Hofer (1929)

This is the classic freedom drama of the upright Andreas Hofer, innkeeper of the Sandwirt in Passeier, standing against the overwhelming power of Napoleon’s occupying forces in his homeland. After the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte defeated the Austrians and Russians at the Battle of the Three Emperors at Austerlitz in December 1805, Elector Max Joseph of Bavaria was made king and received all of Tyrol, including the cities of Brixen and Trient, under the Treaty of Pressburg. The new ruler wanted to be a good king to everyone and therefore promised his new subjects that all their existing rights would be preserved and respected. But his officials did not follow the king’s orders and oppressed the people with new customs duties, tax increases, and regulations. They behaved arrogantly and despotically, and the people of Tyrol soon began to grumble. The grumbling in the Tyrolean spirit of the people quickly grew into a rebellious mood that eventually boiled over into popular anger. They agreed that the foreign rulers had to be driven out of the country as quickly as possible. The people of the Passeier Valley in particular were fiercely determined to free themselves and their homeland. Their leader was the rugged Andreas Hofer, a giant of a man. With the Austrians’ help, the Tyroleans gradually drove the French and Bavarians out of the country, though they suffered severe setbacks time and again. At last Hofer became the uncrowned ruler of his liberated land. But things took a turn for the worse when Austria made a separate peace with France, entirely at the Tyroleans’ expense. The emperor in Vienna advised Hofer to give up resisting Napoleon, as the struggle was too hopeless. But, encouraged by his supporters, Hofer did not abandon the resistance. The offer of 1,500 gulden for his capture, followed by his betrayal by the farmer Raffl, led to his falling into French hands. They eventually executed him in Mantua in 1810.