The tiny village of Döllersheim in the Austrian state of Lower Austria, some 68 miles northwest of Vienna, has stood for over 820 years. It was first mentioned in a deed dating all the way back to 1143.
However, during the Nazi regime, residents were forced to evacuate to make way for a military training area. It was among several other neighbouring villages to be cleared. Döllersheim has sat abandoned ever since but has become a top dark tourism destination for many.
Interestingly, the municipal area included the nearby hamlet of Strones, where in 1837, Alois Hitler, the father of Adolf Hitler, was born the illegitimate son of the local peasant woman, Maria Schicklgrube.
After the 1938 “Anschluss”, in which Austria was annexed to Nazi Germany, Hitler ordered Döllersheim, Zwettl, Allentsteig, and several other smaller neighbouring villages to be evacuated in favour of a large military training area, despite the fact that (or perhaps even because) it contained the grave of his paternal grandmother.
According to testimony given during the Nuremberg Trials, Hitler feared further clarification of the unconfirmed rumour that his paternal grandfather was a member of the Graz Jewish community.
“People must not know who I am,” he is believed to have said, wrote Far Out magazine. “They must not know where I come from.”
However, no evidence has ever supported this claim.
By October 1941, all 2,000 villagers were forcibly resettled, before Wehrmacht troops bombed their houses as part of training exercises. The Romanesque buildings that had stood since the 12th century were replaced by enormous prisoner-of-war camps, including Oflag XVII-A.
Upon implementation of the German unconditional surrender in 1945 and the Allied occupation of Austria, the training ground was seized by the Soviet Army.
The expelled inhabitants were not compensated until 1955.
Despite raised claims for restitution, Döllersheim has remained a military exclusion zone (renamed Truppenübungsplatz Allentsteig) to this day, now operated by the Austrian Armed Forces.
While its residents have never been able to return to their homes, visitors can now tour the church, square and graveyard. The military training area is still in use to this day and live ammunition is occasionally used.
