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Main Street by the soldier. As this was happening, a man identified as District President Franz
Hofmann appeared. Without hesitation, he shot the Appleyard. At that time, the district president
was the leader of a district or county. The position had much more authority then, than it does
now and district presidents controlled the schools as well as the police. As well, district presidents
controlled the municipal administration and were responsible for implementing executive
government orders.
After shooting Appleyard, Hofmann then drove to nearby Schlossvippach, a small village in what
is now known as the District of Sömmerda. lt has about 1,500 inhabitants and is located in the
middle of Germany. Upon arrival, Hofmann met with local police who were planning to take a
downed airman - Thomas Maynard Draper - to the County seat of Weimar, Thuringia.
Without leaving his car Hofmann immediately shot Draper. The murder was witnessed by a
classroom of young girls and boys who had just walked by the site of the shooting. The airmen
were temporarily buried – the bodies only wrapped in tent square - in Schlossvippach,
Vippachedelhausen and Buttstadt. They were later exhumed and buried at the British Military
Cemetery at Heerstrasse in Berlin.
Hofmann and his wife died just before the U.S. army arrived in the area. The war had been lost
and some of the men in the village had formed a private police force to maintain order erecting a
road block to control traffic through the village. Hofmann and his wife tried to leave but were
stopped at the road block. They tried to escape but Germans at the road block fired at their vehicle
forcing it to overturn. Hofmann and his wife were killed in the accident.
lt‘s hard for Colby or anyone for that matter to know what Draper would have been thinking just
before his death. "I can only imagine what he must have been thinking just before he was shot",
Colby said. "lt would be shock….disbelief".
Just last year, a commemorative stone was erected at the spot where Draper was shot by a young
citizen of Schlossvippach who wants to remain anonymous, Wachholz and Weber said in an
e-mail to The Expositor.
The inscription reads:
" In memory of the Canadian airman Thomas M. Draper.
At this place he has been insidiously murdered
March 8, 1945 by the District Administrator"
"The commemorative stone ensures the truth of Draper‘s death has finally been revealed and will
be remembers for years to come", Colby said.
She will be donating her uncle‘s wartime memorabilia to the Canadian Military Heritage Museum
to ensure future generations know how her uncle lived and died.
"These are the stories that need to be told", Colby said. "These are the stories that we must never
forget".
„Nun wissen wir, daß er ermordet
wurde….."
Nach 60 Jahren erfährt die Familie die Wahrheit über den Tod des Soldaten
(Übersetzung des Textes von Herbert Weber aus THE EXPOSITOR 21. Febr.2009 / Bericht von Vincent Ball)
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