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After his defeat in the fourth battle of Bergisel, Andreas Hofer was forced to
flee, a reward of 1500 guilders on his head. He and Kajetan Sweth, the last of
his faithful followers, went into exile in a hut high up on the Pfandler Alm, a
mountain pasture in his native Passeier Valley. They stayed there from late
November until Hofer, betrayed by Raffl, was taken prisoner and transported to
Mantua. In the meantime, Napoleon had given the order for Hofer to be put before
a firing squad immediately after a formal war crimes tribunal. Just hours before
his death, Hofer wrote to a friend, "Goodbye cruel world. Death comes so easily
to me that there will be no tears in my eyes." Hofer was executed in Mantua on February 20, 1810.
Excerpts from Tirol: Texts and Pictures from the History of the Province, by
Harb, Hoelzl and Stoeger, Innsbruck 1985.
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