Jewish Soldiers of Fenner's Tyrolean Jäger Freikorps and the Tyrolean Jäger Regiment 'Kaiser' (1814-21)

Fenner’s Jäger Freikorps was formed in January 1814 is South Tirol under the titular command of Tyrolean general and Knight of the Maria Theresa Military Order, Phillip Fenner von Fennerberg. The new unit recruited well, with many of its men being veterans of the Tyrolean popular uprising of 1809, as well as former conscripts of the Bavarian and Italian armies. In 1815, the Fennerjäger, as they were colloquially known, fought in the War of the Seventh Coalition, first in the defeat of the Neapolitan invasion into Lombardy, and then in the subsequent Austrian offensive into south east France. As fighting was still ongoing, it was decided to turn this Freikorps into a regular light infantry regiment. On 1 January 1816, the Fenner Freikorps was formally re-designated as the Tiroler Kaiser-Jäger-Regiment, with Tyrol and Vorarlberg as its conscription district. The Tyrolean Imperial Rifle Regiment eventually evolved into the Kaiserjäger – the elite Austrian light infantry of the First World War. 

The current dataset covers all four Jewish soldiers who served in the founding cadre of Fenner’s Tyrolean Jäger Freikorps and Tyrolean Jäger Regiment Kaiser. Among them are the first documented Jewish soldiers from Innsbruck and Hohenems. 

For more information on the General Fenner’s Jäger Freikorps, see:

Alfons von Wrede, Geschichte der k. und k. Wehrmacht, 5 Vols., (Vienna: Seidel, 1898–1905), Vol. 2, p. 529.

For more information about the first Jewish soldiers of the Kaiserjäger, see:

Ilya Berkovich, ‘Wolf Bikard (1790-1878) and other Jewish Kaiserjäger at the End of the Napoleonic Period’, Die Habsburger Monarchie: Fragen, Quellen und Ergebnisse zur Geschichte der Neuzeit (Blog), (16 January 2023) https://habsmon.hypotheses.org/1184

Raphael Einetter, ‘Der wohl erste jüdische Soldat aus Hohenems’, Vorarlberger Nachrichten: Heimat Dornbirn (22 December 2022) B1

Jüdisches Museum Hohenems, Hohenems Genealogie: Jüdische Familiengeschichte in Vorarlberg und Tirol https://www.hohenemsgenealogie.at/ [Includes references to numerous Kaiserjägers]