Death Customs – The Last Companion – Bavaria

A quarter of a century ago, the dead woman Helene Kirchmaier from the Isental told the SZ that she once had to put a bucket and a rag in the coffin of a deceased cleaning lady. The good woman insisted on this shortly before her death. An elderly gentleman, on the other hand, asked for his tableware, a knife, a fork and a spoon to be buried with him. These two episodes alone – Kirchmaier had dozens ready – make it clear that the demands placed on a dead woman were complex, demanding and often delicate. For death rarely revealed itself to these women as an acceptable companion. Today there are only a few dead women, their task has been professionalized and transferred to funeral homes.

A story that has just been presented at Archive Day and on the Internet at the address is all the more revealing amuc.hypotheses.org is documented. Several files show that the institution of the woman who died 150 years ago was installed not only in the parishes, but also in larger companies. In any case, this is documented by documents from the cotton spinning mill in Kolbermoor. The construction of the company began in March 1861 as industrialization picked up speed. Operations began as early as January 2, 1863 in the six-storey main building, and rapid growth quickly set in.

In 1873 the Kolbermoor cotton mill hired the “Todtenfrau” Cäcilie Bertl. If a new company was set up out in the country, “then the founders had to take care of more than just the operational infrastructure,” says Harald Müller from the Bavarian Economic Archives, a joint institution of the Bavarian Chambers of Industry and Commerce. In the 19th century in particular, companies were often forced to create a social environment for the workforce. It was about the creation of apartments for employees and their families, shopping facilities, childcare and leisure activities, for which an inn was needed, if possible with a bowling alley. “In addition to work, life often had to be built as well,” says Müller. “And dying is also part of life, because only death is in vain and that in turn costs life.”

The Bayerische Wirtschaftsarchiv owes one of its oldest surviving employment contracts to this circumstance. The cotton spinning and weaving mill in Kolbermoor had brought its own “Sepulturgemeinde Kolbermoor” into being. In this way, she guaranteed a dignified burial for deceased employees or family members. And that’s why the spinning mill hired Cäcilie Bertl as a “dead woman” in December 1873. Their task consisted primarily in preparing the corpses for burial.

According to the employment contract, Cäcilie Bertl’s remuneration was based on the age of the deceased. For deceased “over 13 years” she received one gulden, for persons “under 13 years” she received 30 kreuzers and for “stillborn children” she was still entitled to 18 kreuzers. The fact that stillborn children appear as a separate remuneration heading in this employment contract gives an idea that this was still the case, as Müller suspects.

The archivist points out another peculiarity. Cäcilie Bertl signed the second page of the contract twice with her own hand. “Although her signature is much less graceful than the clerk’s practiced handwriting, she could at least read and write – and that was by no means a matter of course in the country at that time,” says Müller, summing up this unexpected fact.

Open detailed view

Washing and dressing the dead was one of the many tasks that the women of the dead, who were also called corpse women or mortuaries, usually performed on a part-time basis. “I use vinegar water for my face, then it stays fresher,” said Helene Kirchmaier. Dressing a dead person often required some skill. In the past, men were often placed in the coffin in their wedding suits. However, it usually didn’t fit anymore. Then the seams were unpicked in such a way that no one noticed right away.

The subject of dead women is almost inexhaustible. And so it is not surprising that it has also found expression in literature, particularly in Bavarian texts. The story “The Corpse Shop” by Wolfgang Asenhuber, which was published by Friedl Brehm Verlag in the 1980s, must definitely be mentioned. Based on realistic models, he tells the fate of a married couple who only know the world from the bottom: she is a corpse woman, he is a gravedigger. This results in funny, sad and sentimental episodes, but also an almost painful directness when it comes to the core themes of death and decay. It is a work that lingers on for a long time (“But that’s all true. That the hair keeps growing and the fingernails. And the skin becomes like plastic. And the eyes are eaten by the worms first…”).

Hans Göttler’s story “Eisong vorm Eigrom”, which can be found in the “Niederbayern” volume of Edition Lichtung, is about a bitter woman. Such a person sometimes acted as a dead woman, but sometimes she only had to announce (announce) that someone had died. The Kistlerin that Göttler talks about was a rabble-rouser, which is why it sometimes happened in the tavern, with good conversation and snacks, that she left again without having completed her assignment. If you called her back, she said: “Da thing is gschdorm … da Huawa, who lived in the Innstrasse, to Freida is d’Leich, um nah.” In short: Huber’s funeral is on Friday. Göttler’s writing colleague Hans Kumpfmüller tells in his book “Is the old death still alive?” also by women who had to inform neighbors and relatives of deaths and the date of the corpse (burial). Kumpfmüller portrays the bitter women with great frankness: “In addition, they were also willing to divulge lesser-known but spicy details from the life of the deceased bluntly, even relentlessly, with the discretion that is inherent in them.”