Father Joachim Haspinger
Joachim Haspinger was born on 28 October 1776 at the Haspingerhof. He was a Capuchin priest and a leader of the Tyrolean freedom fighter .
He studied in Bozen and Innsbruck and fought against the French during his studies in the Austrian army.1802 he entered the Capuchin order.1805 he was ordained priest and received the office of preacher in the monastery of Schlanders in the Vinschgau Valley. Here he was mainly politically active.
Haspinger called for religious reasons for resistance against the smallpox vaccination ordered by the Bavarian administration. He joined the secret society of Tyrolean patriots and participated in the Tyrolean national uprising in 1809. Haspinger took part in the two battles of 29 May and 13 August, where the Tyrolean riflemen of Hofer defeated the French and Bavarian troops on the Bergisel. From the comrades-in-arms he received the nickname "Father Redbeard".
In the same year Haspinger also prepared the uprising in the state of Salzburg, which was crushed by French troops until November 3, 1809. After another uprising of the Tyroleans under Andreas Hofer he had to leave Tyrol. At first he hid for nine months in the Vinschgau Valley on the Tschenglsburg, then he fled to Vienna on October 31, 1810, where he was pastor in the Maria Loretto Church in Jedlesee from 1810 to 1812.
In 1848 he accompanied a company of Tyrolean military police to Italy as a field preacher again and in 1854 he settled in the imperial castle of Mirabell in Salzburg, where he died in 1858. His body was taken to the Hofkirche in Innsbruck and buried there next to Andreas Hofer.
