Memorial Plaque for the Reconstruction in the Inner Courtyard of Pfeifergasse 3

The memorial plaque in Pfeifergasse 3 was installed around 1964 on the façade of the rebuilt building. Among the initiators was Walter Mösenbacher, who had already joined the NSDAP long before 1938 and was able to advance his career within the party during the NS period. After the end of NS terror rule, he was arrested twice; once for theft, and a second time because he had violated the prohibition law. The memorial plaque, which has Christian references, remains silent to this day about this fact. For a long time, it was believed that the festival city of Salzburg would not be a target of Allied air raids. And indeed, the danger was relatively low until 1943, primarily because the bombers still did not have such great range. This changed in 1944, after the US Air Force had taken control of southern Italian territories and the airplanes could now reach Austrian territory. Between October 1944 and May 1945, 15 air raids on Salzburg took place. During these raids, around 7000 buildings in the city were damaged and over 400 were completely destroyed. So-called "clean-up crews", consisting of prisoners of war, forced laborers, and concentration camp prisoners, were compelled to remove rubble and damage after each attack as well as to defuse unexploded bombs; these tasks led to countless casualties even in the final weeks of the war. Although in the post-war years countless memorial plaques dedicated to remembering the air raids and the rebuilding efforts were installed on numerous buildings, they nevertheless gradually fall into oblivion.