The small Bad Kohlgrub in the district of Garmisch-Partenkirchen can call itself the highest moor spa in Germany, the pulpy mountain pine high moor baths there are supposed to help against many ailments. If the left-wing politician Klaus Weber has his way, then there is still a lot of the old swamp in the mud bath, and his complaints have so far not helped. On Thursday, Weber and the action artist Wolfram Kastner set out to screw a pacifist wooden plaque to the summit cross of the Bad Kohlgrubern on their local mountain, Hörnle.
Because there on the summit cross, which consists of an honorable gray tree trunk, has been hanging a wooden plaque for a long time, which from Weber’s point of view is more of an old demon. Because it speaks of World War soldiers as “heroes”, whose “spirit and self-sacrifice among the people may never wither”. The local mountain costume preservation association Edelweiß put this plaque on the summit cross – for the first time during the Nazi era in 1934 and so far for the last time maybe two years ago because the previous plaque had meanwhile been weathered. Sometime in between the years “14-18” for the First World War were supplemented by “39-45” for the Second. Nevertheless, “Built by GTEV Edelweiß Bad Kohlgrub 1934” is still written at the bottom of the board.
How many people have bumped into each other at the blackboard over the years and decades is open. After all, the old double chairlift from the 1950s alone transports up to 1,500 guests a day to the Hörnle at peak times. Franz Degele, who has been Mayor of Bad Kohlgrub since 2018, remembers practically no complaints at all, in his own words, neither privately nor in the town hall or, for example, at the mountain station. Although in the recent past a history-sensitive Munich excursionist wrote a few inconclusive letters and then stuck laminated paper with critical text to the board himself. The paper was quickly gone, the blackboard stayed.
The Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen peace initiative did nothing to change that, sending letters to Kohlgrub and most recently unrolling a banner on the Hörnle together with Verdi senior citizens from Munich. Klaus Weber’s repeated letters of protest have so far also had no effect. The psychology professor Weber already worked as a specialist advisor on the historical-critical new edition of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” by the Institute for Contemporary History and has also published a number of other things about old and new Nazis. He sits for the Left in Upper Bavaria’s district assembly and, in his own words, has already had a lot to do with communities in which bad traditions were maintained in a questionable manner. Actually, it was always easy to get into conversation, only Degele, who is also honorary chairman of the Edelweiss Trachtler, refused to engage in any dialogue.
Degele himself points out that the summit cross belongs to the traditional costume association and the reason at the summit belongs to the local pasture lawyers, which is why he and the community as mayor have nothing to do with any of this. It is clear that the board would not “be put up like that nowadays,” says Degele. Nevertheless it is “a witness of the times”. Even the elders in town remembered that the board had “always hung” there, and for many decades no one was bothered by it. “We’re not going to let ourselves be beaten down there,” assures Degele.
According to his own words, the mayor did not even notice that Weber and Kastner put up their own board on Thursday morning. Weber and Kastner had announced their action, but publicly neither stated the date nor the time, so that there would not be any confrontations up there. If you risk a fat lip first and then get scared “with a bit of headwind”, then that is a bit cowardly, says Mayor Degele. In addition, the Trachtler are “a working people” and have no time during the week to watch anyone at the Hörnle.
Weber and Kastner, who, according to Weber, were accompanied by a number of peace activists and anti-fascists, remained undisturbed. The reactions of the surrounding tourists were friendly and those of a group of soldiers from the German Armed Forces were not unfriendly. He wants to wait and see how the reactions in Kohlgrub will be. “Let’s see how long our board hangs there.” Unlike possibly the new board, the whole subject will not be so easy to get rid of. Kastner in particular has pursued projects like this with great perseverance in many places.