Magarethe Leitner

Magarethe Leitner 1930 - 13.08.2028  and her husband Johann Leitner moved with their sons from Guggenthal (Guggenthal 62 - nowadays Georg Weicklweg 21 near Nockstein, Salzburg)  into a new own house with garden on the Saalach border in the Rechte Saalachzeile 10. Opposite Freilassing in the area of Salzburg. Here the couple spent their pension. The orphaned children grew up. None - except Peter Krug - of the former Projuventute children visited Ms. Leitner. Nobody wanted to be in contact with her after such a sad childhood. She had done great harm to the children. Peter Krug visited Ms. Leitner after more than 40 years. During the visit, however, it was impossible to talk to her about the body abuse. Ms. Leitner showed no insight into how her outbursts of anger combined with beating with objects such as chairs and belts caused psychological damage to the orphaned children and severely impaired their future lives. 2016 Magarethe Leitner became seriously ill with dementia, she and her husband, who had since become complete blind, were taken to the old people's home in Itzling, where she passed away on August 13, 2018. She was 88 years old.

Postscript: Her husband Johann Leitner died 4 years later, completely blind, on March 16, 2022, in a nursing home in Itzling. He lived to the age of 95.  Johann Leitner never harmed an orphan, although he himself was beaten as a child. He was a quiet and reserved person. By profession he was a trolleybus driver. In Guggenthal (Guggenthal 62, nowadays Georg Weicklweg 21) in rural Salzburg, Austria he also ran a beekeeping business.

The consequences of child abuse

Children suffer most from the mistreatment and mistakes of our society, because they cannot really cope with them and they have an impact on the rest of their lives. In adolescence and early adulthood the mistakes and abuse of parenting will have their effects.

   In Guggenthal, Peter Siegfried Krug met several orphaned children of the same age.

These children were called Adi Hillimaier (born 1966), Daniel Spitzl (born 1966) and Reinhard Tutschko (born 1965). In Peter's opinion, they should never be forgotten:

As an adult, Adi Hillimaier could not do a regular job and slept homeless and alone with his dog in a hidden watchtower between ash, beech and sycamore maple on the Kapuzinerberg for 10 years in summer and through the entire winter. Every day he cooked his food and coffee with his campfire in the forest. Adi said. that he wanted to forget his sad childhood through his hard life outdoors. Unprotected in the open air, he was attacked with a knife and stabbed in the stomach with a knife. Adi was taken to the accident hospital and survived. Because of the Internet, Adi Hillimaier was able to get to know his biological mother after more than 40 years. He lives on the social welfare office and currently (2021) lives in a community apartment in northern Salzburg. Adi is now father of several children.

Daniel Spitzl, half Turkish origin came to the Borromäum private high school Salzburg after primary school. A boys school in Parsch. According to other children, he was allegedly sexually abused there. Daniel Spitzl was later adopted. As an young adult, he died of a drug overdose. Daniel was a very calm, rather introverted person.

Reinhard Tutschko was very athletic and went to judo classes. As a young adult, he loved promoting children in sports. After Reinhard was caught by the police for stealing, he was taken into custody in Schanzelgasse, Salzburg. As a young man, he hanged himself in custody. He died very young, estimated to be 20 years old.

Peter Siegfried Krug in Guggenthal 62 (nowadays Georg Weicklweg 21) 

Guggenthal 62  (1973 - 1978)

The time of severe memory problems at school - Memories of Peter Siegfried Krug (born 1966)

When Peter Siegfried Krug reached the age of 6, he was too old for the children's home in Itzling and was taken to a Projuventute children's village in Guggenthal 62 (nowadays it was renamed Georg Weickl Weg 21) at the foot of the Nockstein (alpine-looking rock spikes 1042 m). It was 1972 that Peter Krug was put in a completely different environment in Koppl. He didn't own anything at that time. His biological father, of whom he did not even have a photo or knew his name, did not pay the alimony. Throughout childhood and adolescence, the mother never spoke a word about the biological father. Fortunately, the forest was immediately outside the house. Peter was allowed to play outside, hide and discover nature. There was a fixed limit to how far the orphans were allowed to go into the forest. On trees like beeches, Peter learned how to climb trees barefoot and tests of courage like jumping over almost meter high rocks. Very often the orphans also stayed on the stream and tried to catch trout. On other days they collected dead wood and made a simple forest hut out of it. Peter also learned how to make perfect paper airplanes, and the orphans had little contests in particularly windy autumn weather to see whose paper airplane would fly especially far. The orphans were out a lot in the summer without shoes and with leather pants. This forest became an escape for the orphans from the perceived joyless school and the tantrums of "mom" (educator mother Magarethe Leitner ) who watched over the children. On rainy days, the orphans sat in front of the TV in the evening before going to bed and watched "Maya Bee", "Kung fu" (TV series with David Carradine), or the US - American science fiction series Star Trek, "Raumschiff Enterprise" with Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock. Before the orphans went to sleep at 7 o'clock in the evening, or at the latest at 8 o'clock, they had to form a circle on the first floor, where the bedrooms were, all facing the center of the circle. With their hands folded, the children had to recite the "Our Father in Heaven"and then the apostolic creed  every evenig. Peter felt really sick every time and developed irrational fears. But he was not allowed to escape this daily religious torture. He had a great aversion to this ritual and the horrible, Catholic beliefs made it difficult for Peter to fall asleep. - There was also a dog named Ajax, a Collie in the  Projuventute children's house. This dog did not want any physical contact with the children and would only vocalize when he was hungry or when people came to visit. Every Sunday the children had to attend Sunday service, which began at 8:30 in the morning. For this, all the orphans had to put on ceremonial clothes that they had in their closet during the week and walk about 300 meters to the Filial Church “Heilige Kreuz-Kirche” in deliberate slow steps. The orphans dressed up in stooped pants, shirts and cloth ties, passed by the elementary school  of the Georg Weickl Way and passed the old abandoned brewery ("Am Professorfeld") and the empty Valentin Ceconi villa until they reached the neo gothic church, whose buildings were all commissioned by Georg Weickl at that time. - At this time the priest Hans (Johann) Paarhammer (1947 - 2020) gave this sermon. Paarhammer was a prelate and honorary citizen of the municipality of Koppl. He later became a full university professor in Salzburg. The orphans had to take a special place in the front row of the church. It was scrupulously watched that the children absolutely got the host shoved into their mouths. For Peter, to whom all Catholic liturgy seemed incomprehensible and strange, even threatening, these religious ceremonies were torture. It irritated Peter every time when the priest talks about the devil and hell in church. Peter also did not understand why only the priest was allowed to speak in church and the visitors were only allowed to say "Amen" or "Praise be to the Lord." Peter did not understand why he suddenly had to stand up during mass, why he then had to sit down again, and why he had to kneel down. Therefore he never paid attention for a minute in church to what the priest was saying, but thought about what he was going to do in the forest after church. He had a deep aversion to all Christian customs and that Jesus should be the Savior from all sins only confused Peter. As soon as the mass was over, he was happy to step out of the church again and was allowed to talk and pursue his urge to move. After church, the children went with quick steps the way back home, where the dog Ajax greeted each time from far the children with loud barking. The orphans were already looking forward to Sunday dinner.  Every Sunday they had baked chicken from the oven with rice and ketchup which the "mom" already prepared on a large table in the living room. The leftover bones got the dog Ajax. Because he received no intellectual stimuli and was not encouraged to read, he was far behind in terms of general knowledge and German language skills compared to other children of his age. For example his grammar was lousy. Here, only 100 meters from home he completed elementary school with Adi Hillimaier and Daniel Spitzl.

Structure at that time 1973 to 1977 in the Voksschule Guggenthal

All four classes of the school were taught by only two teachers.

While the first two classes at the same time were led by Anna Karl,  Hugo Müller was in charge of the third and fourth classes.

Each teacher had to teach two grades at the same time.

There were 6 units of hours each day. At 7:40 in the morning the lessons began.

After about 1 p.m. the lessons were over.

Superintendent of Schools Hugo Müller (1914 - 2008) was the director at that time. In this school,  he learned basic math and reading. Because he got the worst grades in mathematics in the field of elementary set theory, it spoiled Peter the joy in school. For him, the school grades were a psychological torture that brought him sleepless nights and permanent fears of existence. After all, the elementary school teacher Anna Karl had an idea why he had such bad grades. She discovered very late that he was partially color blind (red - green weakness) and therefore could not classify the colored geometric triangles. However, the unsuccessful mathematics was a trauma that was never dealt with, never discussed, and which accompanied Peter through the further years of school. Even in those early school days, Peter no longer enjoyed school and felt that school was a place of punishment and embarrassment. Bad grades were followed by a ban on playing, grounding and domestic physical beatings. Peter was punished in the home. He spent therefore a lot of time writing fine, instead of spending time in the forest in fair weather. This stupid occupation made no sense to Peter. At that time the children were punished also with cone arithmetic (e.g. 796 x (times)  2= , the sum x 3= , the sum x 4= …until the sum x 9= and then the sum : (divided by ) 2 …until the sum :9 should result in the same number at the end. In cone arithmetic, continuous multiplication and subsequent division produces a structure that actually resembles a pine cone in shape), or with writing the same sentence 100 times. These punishments were repeated many times and apparently served Ms. Leitner to control the children in their absence. In this rural region, Peter suffered severe physical abuse from this unpredictable woman in the advanced age (42 years) who had sudden outbursts of anger even hit defenseless children with chairs, brooms, belt and the unpredictable force of the hand. This woman named Mrs. Magarethe Leitner (1930 - 13.08.2018) was generally referred to as "mom" by the orphaned children. She was feared by the children because she had unpredictable temper tantrums.  From the experience of powerlessness he made and the experience of not being noticed by anyone, Peter Krug reacted with silence and grief. He had to endure grief, lack of understanding and physical violence without exchanging these experiences with other caregivers and verbally processing them. The transition from the elementary school, which was less than 100 meters away, and the secondary school Hof was hard for Peter to bear. From now on he had to go to school with the bus full of children and every time Peter felt sick during the ride and almost threw up. In the secondary school itself he could not find any friends. He felt alone among the strange children and teachers. The additional bad experience of alienation became an insurmountable obstacle for Peter Krug. Peter could no longer fall asleep, or sleep through the night. In order to deal with the overwhelming fear of being beaten, Peter and the child of the same age named Adi Hillimaier (born 1966 in Salzburg) went outside school hours into the forest with the aim of being able to cope better with the physical pain. They looked for sticks and larger branches and hit each other on the back of the body and tried to endure the pain. Unfortunataly the physical resilience training that was practiced was unsuccessful. Peter was forcibly dragged into the cellar by his furious and impulsive "Foster mother". He fought back with all his might and screamed and was able to prevent him from being locked up in the basement again. She gave up just before the cellar door.  At school in Hof he couldn't pay attention. In German class, the foreign teachers read a story that touched Peter so emotionally that he started crying in the middle of the reading. It was the famous fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen: "The little girl with the sulfur woods".

The story hit Peter so hard because he thought he recognized similarities with his own life. The teacher had only read half of the story when Peter sank into the school chair, crying and oblivious to the rest of the story. Then the students had to retell the story in writing from memory.

This overstrained Peter emotionally. After the first sentences were written, Peter remained motionless and could not continue writing. Overwhelmed by his feelings, he could not put anything down on paper for the rest of the time until the exercise books were collected.

Instead of asking Peter why he did not write the story, the German teacher gave Peter the worst grade. Peter hid this at home and was terrified of further school exams. It was a chain reaction. It was impossible for Peter to remember what he had learned. He experienced a state of unstoppable uncertainty, the likes of which he had never known before. He could not pay attention at school at all and was "punished" for this with more bad grades.

  Due to poor grades in the school, Peter Krug completely lost the ground under his feet. He got fits of suffocation. These attacks of suffocation repeated themselves in the evening and got worse and worse. At night, when everyone was asleep and he was lying in the dark in his bed, he was at the mercy of his fear. That drained Peter of the security. At first, he could not fall asleep at night because of tinnitus, hyperventilation, and tingling on the skin of his face. At school it had such an effect that he could only be present, but could no longer pay attention, learn or write. The great insecurity he had never experienced before paralyzed Peter to the point that he had considerable memory problems in school. The teacher didn't ask what's going on. Peter Krug got the worst grades in school. Peter found his impotence beyond words. Then came one of the worst nights of his life. He had another attack of suffocation at night that was so bad that Peter thought he was going to die soon. In fear of death he got up from bed and went to Adi Hillimaier´s bed and wanted to scream for help. But he couldn't scream. He couldn't get a sound out. He felt his helplessness and fell unconscious on Adi's bed. With the rescue, he was taken to the hospital at night. But there was not asked what the cause was, but Peter was wrongly diagnosed by Dr. Christian Gross with epilepsy. In the hospital he was given the pills that Peter secretly threw away. The attacks of suffocation stopped, thank God. Peter no longer needed to be afraid of being hit in the hospital. The suffocation attacks never repeated themselves later in Peter Krug's life. The caregivers could not understand the reason and so Peter Krug was brought to another Children's home. Peter Krug felt torn out and could not adapt to the new environment. His nocturnal shortness of breath (hyperventilation) shortly before falling asleep, caused by panic, was not known after the Salzburg regional hospital.

Sources: https://www.sn.at/trauer/margarethe-leitner-tra-22800/

                 https://peoplepill.com/i/peter-siegfried-krug/