It’s just before nine-thirty in the morning when a murmur goes through the crowd. “He’s coming!” calls someone, “stand at attention!” Then the Bavarian parade march begins and Prime Minister Markus Söder greets himself through the reception committee at the entrance to the Schafferhof. “June 3 will go down in history,” announced Konnersreuth’s Mayor Max Bindl a few minutes later. A Bavarian Prime Minister has never paid a visit to the market town in the northernmost tip of the Upper Palatinate.
A historic moment for Konnersreuth, comparable perhaps only to September 22, 1962, the day when thousands marched through the town to give the last escort to a world-famous woman. Four days earlier, Therese Neumann – better known as Resl von Konnersreuth – died at the age of 64. The woman who bled regularly from the wounds of the crucified Savior and is said to have eaten nothing but a host every day for more than 30 years.
There was a long argument about it, now the “Schafferhof Information and Meeting Center” including the “Theres Neumann Museum” could be inaugurated.
(Photo: Sebastian Beck)
Even on this sunny day, Resl Prime Minister Söder posthumously steals the show, because after many years of arguments and planning, Konnersreuth can finally inaugurate the “Schafferhof Information and Meeting Center” including the “Theres Neumann Museum”. In 2014, the majority of citizens voted for the demolition of the listed property. But on this day of celebration, at least the speakers agree that it was a wise decision by the municipal council to ignore the vote. The folk saint Resl is now commemorated very devoutly on a spacious 500 square meters in the Schafferhof, which has been renovated at a cost of millions. In addition to letters, shoes and socks, the many items from her private collection also include eerie pieces such as the “Embroidered cloth bag with a blood compress from Theres Neumann’s heart wound”https://www.sueddeutsche.de/bayern/.”A beautiful exhibition”, “A spiritual tour,” says Söder after being smuggled through the rooms in 15 minutes, expressing a rather moderate interest in artifacts such as Resl’s white hood.
Spirituality is also a thing, because the doubts about her good connection to the top are as old as the first reports about her Friday stigmata. In 1926, Therese Neumann’s body showed the stigmata of the Crucified for the first time. From then on she lived through the suffering of Christ almost every Friday – visibly in agony. After the first sensational reports, thousands often stood in front of their parents’ house on Fridays to see the stigmatized woman. The Nazis didn’t like this kind of worship very much, and the fact that from then on they never got a foot on the ground in Konnersreuth they attributed not least to the influence of the Neumann family, who also refused to give the Hitler salute. “We too have a leader,” exclaimed Pastor Joseph Naber from the pulpit, “but one who does not come to oppress us, but to love us.”
The publicist Fritz Gerlich (1883-1934), editor-in-chief of the Munich Latest News, initially thought it was a scam. In order to unmask Therese Neumann, he drove to her several times from 1927 onwards. He experienced the visions of the woman and saw the bleeding stigmata. Neumann and her supporters gathered in the Konnersreuth district encouraged Gerlich to resist the National Socialists. And Gerlich attacked the Nazis in his magazine The straight way actually getting sharper. He also converted to the Catholic faith in 1931.
After Hitler’s appointment as Reich Chancellor on March 9, 1933, Gerlich was attacked by SA troops in the editorial offices, mistreated and taken into “protective custody”. In connection with the so-called Röhm Putsch, he was sent to the Dachau concentration camp, where he was murdered on July 1, 1934. His example also shows how puzzling the biography of a Nazi opponent can be. He was a respected publicist, a courageous fighter, who is given a lot of space in the exhibition. Like many other uncompromising supporters of Therese Neumann, however, Gerlich’s behavior caused irritation among skeptics.
The Catholic pastor Josef Hanauer, who had dealt with the bizarre events in detail, came to the conclusion just ten years after her death that Resl had been a pious swindler, a “pseudomystic”: “Therese Neumann and her closest circle have the Untruth told. If not many people in Konnersreuth said this fact out loud, then that is only understandable.” This can be read in his book “Konnersreuth als Testfall”, which is also in the mini-library of the new museum. A statement that is still valid today – at least for those people who do not believe in metabolic miracles.
In Konnersreuth, everything to do with Therese Neumann has become a cult, including her garden house.
(Photo: Sebastian Beck)
But people in Konnersreuth are not receptive to rational explanations of stigmata and zero diets for decades. Such arguments are tantamount to mood killers, after all the cult surrounding the Resl has been a decisive economic factor in the community for almost a hundred years. But whatever the stigmata, the woman must have been heaven-sent. The whole place is now downright run-down. Her tomb in the Konnersreuth cemetery has long since become an international place of pilgrimage, as has her garden house. Since 1963, the Theresianum convent with an attached retirement home has stood on the outskirts of the village, which was founded at Resl’s instigation. The house where she was born on Therese-Neumann-Platz is currently being renovated and will then be made accessible to the public again, along with her deathbed. If that’s not enough for you, you can hike 13 stations on the “Forest Reflection Path Resl von Konnersreuth” – and now also visit the museum in the Schafferhof.
Prime Minister Markus Söder’s one-hour visit is another huge upgrade for Konnersreuth – and at least a small one for him. Because after his excursions to federal political heights, he has been trying to make contact with the Bavarian electorate in a conspicuous way for months, with whom he recently got off pretty badly in polls. He can suddenly be seen in places where you would never have expected him – recently he gave the seahorse to children in a Nuremberg outdoor pool. In Konnersreuth, Söder initially flatters his listeners with the remark that his visit is a “commitment to rural areas”. He is of the “deep conviction” that the “soul of Bavaria” lies here. That goes down well on a day like this, especially since he can also announce that he is “a bit jointly responsible” for the project.
However, there is still the matter of the Resl, which may not go down equally well everywhere in the country. “I don’t know if that’s all true,” says Söder as a precaution. In any case, the woman had enormous charisma and spread a “deep Christian” message. After admitting that faith also gives him a lot of strength, he draws a kind of summary: “Anyone who believes in it should believe in it. Those who don’t want to hear it should go somewhere else.”
Monsignor Georg Schwager from Regensburg, who also attended the opening of the museum, heads the department for beatification and canonization processes in the diocese. A very important man for Konnersreuth.
(Photo: Sebastian Beck)
After an hour, Söder is gone again for an appointment in Upper Franconia. The greetings drag on for another two hours, with a lot of funding being at stake. Finally, Monsignor Georg Schwager from Regensburg steps up to the microphone. One can call him an eminence grise, because he doesn’t boast much, although he is a very important one: Schwager heads the department for beatification and canonization processes in the diocese. And the supporters of Resl are waiting impatiently for things to progress in the cause since 2005 when the then Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller initiated the beatification process. On every 18th day of the month, Resl’s death anniversary, they pray in Konnersreuth for beatification. So far, however, with moderate success. Schwager speaks in a low, high voice, deepest appreciation, great event. He reveals only this much: “diocesan investigations and religious research” are in progress. He hopes to be able to hand over the result to the canonization authorities in the Vatican “in due course”. As you know the Catholic Church, that can take time. Five years, ten years, a hundred years.
That shouldn’t matter to the admirers of the Resl: they have long since canonized her.