Georg Zimmermann was a priest from Regensburg. He was the diocese’s music director – and a convicted criminal who was in prison for child abuse. In his hometown of Eslarn in the Upper Palatinate Forest, however, he was still a man who was held in high esteem. He retired there in 1973. A street is named after him. At the initiative of the Advisory Board for Victims in the Diocese of Regensburg, the Eslarn municipal council decided to rename the street in May. There is now strong opposition to this.
Residents of Georg-Zimmermann-Straße have filed a petition against the renaming and collected around 650 signatures. A considerable number considering the 2,750 residents that the market town had at the end of 2023. On Monday, Mayor Reiner Gäbl informed the Advisory Board of those affected about the process.
“I am shocked and sad that so many citizens support the request,” writes Gäbl. And: “The application will probably have to be approved.” The decision will be made at the municipal council meeting on July 30.
The spokesperson for the Advisory Board for Victims, Josefa Schalk, also expressed her shock. “650 people signed to honor a child molester,” she told the Catholic News Agency (KNA) on Tuesday. A person abused by Zimmermann is a member of her board and still lives in Eslarn. She described her experiences in detail to the advisory board. “We presented this to the local council,” said Schalk. The board then voted nine to six in favor of renaming the building. Regensburg Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer also supported the cause.
The applicants of the citizens’ petition, however, argue that there were no complaints or police investigations against Zimmermann (1916-1984) after his release from prison until his death. “It was only long after his death that those allegedly affected spoke out. Legal proceedings were therefore no longer possible.” In addition, renaming the street would involve “immense organizational and financial effort” for every resident.
Next week’s council meeting could be turbulent again. Josefa Schalk is not sure whether she will travel to Eslarn again. The mood was already very heated in the spring, and she and the advisory board for those affected were treated with hostility. Now the fruits of one and a half years of research and persuasion by her committee are at stake.
In 1969, Zimmermann was sentenced to one year and eight months in prison by the Weiden District Court for several cases of, in some cases, serious “fornication with dependents”. When he died 15 years later in Eslarn, an obituary stated that he had “led almost eighty children and young people in the community to musical maturity and refined their talents”.
Josefa Schalk, however, continues to believe “that there are other victims of abuse in the town who are not yet brave enough to speak out.” This is why the Independent Investigation Commission of the Diocese of Regensburg and a lawyer commissioned to conduct a diocese-wide abuse investigation are likely to be interested in the events.