Location: Am Schloßberg 11, 8551 Wies
At the castle, there is a memorial plaque for Ing. Alfred Neumann, a Jewish glass factory owner, who was driven to his death by the National Socialists in 1938.
Alfred Neumann was born on May 23, 1882, as the seventh child of Netti and Moritz Neumann in Graz. In 1910, at the age of 28, he came to Wies, where he leased the glass factory of the late Josef Mayer von Heldenfeld. During World War I, he served as a subaltern officer in the Traindivision No. 3 of the III Corps Command. After the war, Neumann returned to Wies and bought the glass factory in 1918, renaming it the “Alfredhütte.” A year later, he also acquired the dilapidated Burgstall Castle in Wies and invested heavily in its restoration. Since August 1928, Neumann lived in the castle with his wife, Anny, born Kaiser, a native of Wies. The couple married on March 28, 1919, and Anny converted to Judaism on the same day.
In 1928, Neumann leased the “Alfredhütte” for ten years to Gustav Suchy and his nephew Franz Naprstek, although Neumann remained actively involved in the factory. On November 11, 1932, Suchy and Naprstek ceased production at the factory, leaving 120 workers unemployed.
On March 12, 1938, two SA men and a gendarme forced Neumann to hand over his Steyr Cabriolet, which was never returned. On April 18, 1938, several former “Austrian Legionnaires” from Germany returned to Wies and, with local sympathizers, broke into the castle and demanded Neumann’s revolver. They dragged him outside, where he was beaten severely, suffering a deep wound to his upper lip and multiple injuries to his head and body. His wife later found him lying bloodied on the ground.
In August 1938, the process of “Aryanization” of Neumann’s factory began. On August 16, Wies town secretary Hans Baumgartner, accompanied by Gestapo officers, visited Burgstall Castle, where Neumann was insulted and physically threatened. His wife later testified that he was “completely broken” by the humiliation.
On August 19, 1938, at around 3:00 PM, Alfred Neumann tragically took his own life in his castle room with a hunting rifle. A memorial plaque at Burgstall Castle today commemorates his fate.
Literature: Markus Roschitz, Ing. Alfred Neumann und die Glasfabrik in Wies. Aspekte eines „Arisierungsfalls“, in: Jahrbuch für Mitteleuropäische Studien 2019/2020. Wien/Hamburg 2020, 219–251. Markus Roschitz, Die NSDAP in der Region Schwanberg 1930–1938 (= Forschungen zur geschichtlichen Landeskunde der Steiermark; 85). Innsbruck/Wien 2020, 367 und 383–386. Gerfried Schmidt, Gemeindegeschichte von Limberg bei Wies. 3. Teil: Limberg in schweren Stunden. 1914–1955. Wies 2002, 92–93.
Text: Markus Rieger-Roschitz / Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Research on War Consequences
