The world is changing at an unprecedented rate. Much of what is called home, which was deeply familiar to people two generations ago and seemed untouchable, has now disappeared. A new world has replaced old conditions and habits, but this change has already happened before – albeit less rapidly. At the easternmost tip of the Bavarian Forest there is a stretch of land called the “New World”. It is the region around Wegscheid, Breitenberg and the Dreisessel, located directly on the border with Bohemia and the Austrian Mühlviertel. It was not until the 18th century that this country was systematically settled.
The photographer and author Wolfgang Sréter, who comes from Passau and was born in 1946, has recently devoted himself intensively to winter in the “New World” on his tours. In recent years it has produced only thin blankets of snow instead of meter-high snow walls. Only this December will everything be as lush as it used to be in terms of snow. Sréter documents this change in climate, winter time and landscape in his current illustrated book with short texts. His pictures show panoramas, forests, granite stones and the tourism infrastructure, i.e. snow cannons and the last ski lifts, along which white bands of artificial snow run through the green. The photographs also document the beauty that winter still radiates despite everything with its variable moods.
In addition to the photo series, Sréter tells short stories about graves, war, mysticism and the wintry gray shades of this area. They are reminiscences of a time that seems almost unreal today. Where could children now find streets where there are hardly any cars so that they can ride their sleighs undisturbed? Or the former joy of skiing on the Dreisessel, where the conductor at the lift used a pair of pliers to stamp the ten-ticket card and sometimes turned a blind eye to a free ride.
The “New World” actually meant the longed-for country of America. Many people emigrated there from this area in the 19th century. There was always a lot of hope associated with it. A hope that the young Sréter already felt when he looked far into the Czech Republic from the peaks. And in fact, after the border was opened, a new world was to be added: the Czech Šumava National Park. It lay at the end of the world for decades, the Iron Curtain separated the Bavarian and Bohemian Forests and their inhabitants until 1990 (book launch on December 16th in the coach house of Villa Breitenberg. Ticket reservation: [email protected] and Tel. 08584/ 989 45 21 ).
Two attractive illustrated books have recently been published about the Bohemian Forest, which is now freely accessible again, and are also dedicated to saying goodbye to the country and its people. Significantly, the volumes bear the title “Disappeared Bohemian Forest”. As remote as the area once was, it is astonishing how many great photographers and photographers have emerged from the Bavarian Forest and the Bohemian Forest. The need to document this striking area and its inhabitants has always been strong there. Since the beginning of photography, the border region has been considered an extremely fertile terrain for many great masters of photography and storytelling.
Skiing was far from being a men’s privilege, as the courageous female athletes on the slopes of Mount Schwarzkopf demonstrate.
(Photo: Ohetal Verlag)
Zosum was one of the poorer settlements and making a living here was never easy. The picture shows a team of oxen with a load of manure fertilizing the field.
(Photo: Ohetal Verlag)
The two volumes contain great historical photographs, but also 41 stories that describe the charm and also the depths of this area. The books are about places that can usually no longer be found on today’s maps of the Bohemian Forest. All of this was collected by Emil Kintzl, who died in 2022 and who not only knew the Bohemian Forest inside and out, but was also a gifted storyteller. His co-author Jan Fischer has made several documentaries about the old Bohemian Forest. The books bring to life long-forgotten stories about smugglers, accidents, war events, treasure discoveries, murders and the beginnings of skiing. There are no euphemisms added to the descriptions of the hard and primitive life. This is precisely why they invite you to visit the places and landscapes where miraculous things have happened and thus protect them from final oblivion.
Both books impressively show, with a few reservations, that the course of history can be better understood through the combination of one’s own experience and the genius loci of the specific place, which is what prompted the German-Czech Future Fund to support these book projects.
Wolfgang Sréter: The New World in the Snow. On the passing of winter in the Bavarian Forest, Lichtung Verlag.
Emil Kintzl/Jan Fischer: Disappeared Bohemian Forest, two volumes (volume 1 only available from the publisher), Ohetaler Verlag.