Is there anything cozier than ending a trip to the Mangfall Valley with a stop at the Gotzingertrommel tavern? In the past, guests were enveloped in clouds of sound from the most cheerful opera arias as soon as they entered. Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, it was a blare and jubilation that there was only one kind. Certainly it will not be so easy to find any other inn where the roast pork in the Reindl is allowed to mumble away for hours to the sounds of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni”.
“I grew up with classical music,” says Hans Triebel, who has been the innkeeper of the Gotzinger drum for 20 years. His father, he tells us in the warm dining room, played in a string quartet, and his grandfather was even an opera singer. And himself? Yes, he says, “I also sang for 30 years in the church choir of the parish of Weyarn!” Anyway.
Triebel’s regulars were less enthusiastic about the music. “The shitty operas,” they scolded so bluntly. “You can’t do anything,” says Triebel, who has accepted his fate of not being able to please everyone. He cloaks his frustration in customary sayings, which he varies like a litany. “A so eat! Konst nothing macha! That is unfavorable!”
One foot bothers him, he finds it difficult to walk, he has to have an operation. Triebel is in his 70th year and his health is declining. In mid-February, he is expected to close his inn, after which he will have to go to the hospital. The Gotzinger drum, owned by the city of Munich, faces an uncertain future. It needs a lot of renovation, maybe too much.
The “Gotzingertrommel” inn is said to have existed as early as the 17th century. Today it is owned by the city of Munich. The building needs extensive renovation. It remains to be seen whether a tenant will be found again afterwards.
(Photo: Hans scratches)
The traditional inn in the hamlet of Gotzing, located between Weyarn and Miesbach, has seen many bad times. From here, peasant boys are said to have marched out to battle the Austrian occupiers in 1705, where they were miserably butchered near Sendling. The inn got its name from a drum from the Turkish wars, which can be admired in the Miesbach local history museum.
It’s a dull afternoon, in the living room the fire crackles in the tiled stove, it’s warm as a bachelor. What can not be said of the other rooms in the house. On the upper floor, where Triebel lives, there is neither heating nor running water. In winter it is freezing cold there. “My,” says Triebel, “you just have to cover yourself up.”
The innkeeper is sitting alone at the table by the front door, and the other three men who are squatting in the room with the wood-panelled walls each take up a table, but they are still squatting close together. Many photographs can be seen on the back wall, otherwise accessories such as deer, shooting targets and jugs are emblazoned everywhere. The word abortion is still written on the toilet sign. Triebel wears his obligatory hunting hat with a Stesser feather on his head, he still looks like a parade Bavarian from the picture book. The old tables and chairs are still of the highest quality, and the Munich Kindl is carved into the backrests. “You normally never get something like that, that’s what Zaaches is,” he says.
About Erkan & Stefan he said: “It will pass again!”
Triebel was also a tough fellow. The episode that happened during a recording of the BR program “Quer” proves that he never let himself be disturbed. The moderator Christoph Süss talked to him at a bar table, while the comedians Erkan & Stefan, who were very popular at the time, whizzed around them with their bonanza bikes and shouted “Hey Triebel”. He just said: “It’ll pass again! We used to be like that too.”
When Triebel took over the Gotzinger drum in 2003, the rebellion moved back into the inn, a reporter recently wrote Munich Mercury. That sounds martial. If anything, Triebel was a very gentle revolutionary who would have at most chanted: “Never again war, only beer mugs!”
Before he started as an innkeeper, Triebel worked as a freelance mechanic and repaired English cars (“the best ever!”). But he, who is down-to-earth with the Miesbach region, was also worried about how quickly the world around him was changing.
In 1989 Triebel was one of the founders of what was then the Association for the Promotion of the Bavarian Language and Dialects. Since 1994 he has made national headlines as chairman. “Our children aren’t so clever because the CSU governs here, but because they learn two languages from the ground up, the dialect as their mother tongue and written German as the standard language,” said Triebel. This thesis is now also represented by modern science. In 2000, he presented the then Minister of Education, Monika Hohlmeier (CSU), with more than 100,000 signatures, demanding that the state support the preservation of dialects.
In 2006, Hans Triebel declared the village of Gotzing a “bye-free zone” for fun. The action was misunderstood, especially by the locals. She met with great approval from the guests from the north.
(Photo: Hans scratches)
Worlds always collided in the Gotzinger drum. Encouraged by this, Triebel declared Gotzing a “bye-free zone” in 2006 with a wink, triggering a nationwide echo. Such a sign still stands in a window of the economy today. Whereby the Gaudi action was often misunderstood. Triebel was attacked by compatriots (“Think of tourism!”), and a great deal of approval was heard from the north.
If he had to, Triebel warned the General Manager of the State Theaters, August Everding, that the Prince Regent Theater should be stressed on the first syllable, which Everding carefully heeded. Triebel appeared in radio and television programs, which brought him not only friends, but also envy. “If there’s something about you in the newspaper and someone else says something…then you know it’s unfavorable.”
After Triebel was voted out, a group of the language association split off and founded the Bavarian Language Association. In turn, Triebel’s performance leaves nothing to be desired. “It is largely due to his commitment that Bairisch has a much greater reputation today than it did 30 years ago,” the club said. Triebel is still involved in the development of the language, but he only considers the actions of the dialect associations to be “alibi things”.
The men in the room are now discussing the preparation of a roast pork “with ana guatn Natursoss” and why some things used to be better. Back then, when Triebel was still in the theater or the opera every week, when he saw Frank Sinatra and Liza Minelli live.
He tells the reporter that he should definitely write that he is looking for a rich or poor widow who will take him in when he leaves the drum. He doesn’t have big claims, he says, “a so iss hoid!”