When the Americans marched into Wolfratshausen, she was just eight years old. In the hand of her grandmother, who, like many other citizens, hung a white sheet out of the window on April 30, 1945, Inge Michlbauer expected liberation from Nazi rule. The 82-year-old told our newspaper how she experienced the end of the Second World War.
Wolfratshausen - "Here", says Inge Michlbauer and points to a yellowed photo from back then, "we hung the sheets out there." Then she begins to tell: "How the day went exactly, I no longer know today. I was always with my grandma. I grew up with her. You heard the house. There was something like a suggestion to do that. And my grandma was an absolute opponent of the Nazis, so she did the same thing and hung the white flag.
April 30, 1945: Americans marched into Wolfratshausen
The Americans came from the market, past the Schwankl there. We were happy that they were there, because then there is peace. They hung flags all over the street because we were glad that the browns were gone. But there have also been many people who have had to work with them through their professions. But my grandma was always a free person. Grandpa died in 1933 and said to her on his deathbed: Oide, don't go to a party, because nothing is coming now. They all saw it coming. "
"They saw everyone coming"
Even today, 75 years later, the now very old entrepreneur is struggling with the images of that time, which are returning with unusual intensity. “I often can't sleep at night right now because it's all in my head. It upsets me so much. But there will be more than one, ”she says. The negative memories seemed to be overcome.
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For decades, there had been little talk of war in the family. “My husband was from Altötting. They had the absolutely perfect world. Through her Madonna - and the monasteries were all military hospitals. So he didn't notice anything. And when I started it, it was dismissed, it wasn't talked about for long. ”
Terrible scenarios alternate with beautiful memories
Her husband Rudolf Michlbauer died at the end of August last year at the age of 87. Since then, the past has been massively raising awareness, especially in those days when the war ends for the 75th time. In the conversation, thoughts come and go like pieces of a puzzle. Terrible scenarios alternate with beautiful memories. There was also that. Especially to the grandmother. "It was bearable for me in time, in the tow of my grandmother, who was very resolute. And we didn't have to go hungry either. ”
"I was always afraid for my grandma"
Grandma glazed the farmers everywhere. The farmers did not pay with money, but always gave something to grandma. She was mostly there, by bike, to Ambach, Ammerland, Degerndorf. Where the grandma was was the little granddaughter. "I have witnessed the whole Nazi period here in the house and was always afraid for my grandma. It almost got into the concentration camp.
There was a woman there to collect for the winter aid organization. Grandma told her: there is nothing, it is only to prolong the war. The woman had nothing more to do than go to Mayor Jost and hang Grandma. Then she almost came to Dachau.
Grandmother almost came to Dachau
Back then there was a butcher's dairy, two houses down, the butcher, I think, was the second mayor. He stood up for her. Grandma was the only one who could still drink. We had a glass shop and the boys were at war, every two of them. And so Grandma took the thing away. "
Inge Michlbauer (right) spent her whole life in her grandmother's house at Obermarkt 37. Today she runs the household goods business with the support of her daughter Susanne Drechsel.
© Rudi Stallein
Again and again Inge Michlbauer seems overwhelmed by memories. And the fact that the thoughts in the meantime "were no longer in the head", as if locked away, carelessly kept in a forgotten drawer that has now been opened again after a long, long time.
Contemporary witness repeatedly overwhelmed by memories in conversation
"Now of course I have it fully in mind again. The death march, for example. We're out at night because it's shuffled. With their wooden shoes. The noise didn't stop, then we got up and looked down and saw the misery that didn't stop. I think they went through Wolfratshausen for a day and a half. With us they are up towards Beuerberg.
"Now of course I have it fully in mind again"
But there were also some who took other paths. They split them up. The pictures of the Jews from the train who leaned against the prison wall because they could no longer stand with exhaustion are very bad. I always see that in front of me. ”Actually, at 82, she can now look back calmly. “But it literally upsets me today - the time was terrible and incredible. And we in the middle ... ".
Encounters with American soldiers
After a long moment of silence, the narrator suddenly laughs out loud as a beautiful scene flits through her mind. “Many American soldiers were dark-skinned. And as a child I was brown, browner, brownest. Then they all came to me and said: 'You are my daughter.' Then they drove me across the Loisach in a boat. The bridge was blown up, but on the other side was the baker, so I had to go there. They gave me bananas, which I threw away behind the bush because I didn't know what to do with them. Madness."
The fear that something like this could happen again
Inge Michlbauer can laugh heartily about such anecdotes today. But at the moment the sad memories, the horror pictures, predominate. And the fear that something like this could happen again. As a person, she was “always straight ahead”. But she always had in mind what could be. "It was so threatening, you don't believe it. And it is very important to me that you remember it. "
"Hopefully something like this never comes back"
As she talks, she is again the little girl from 1945 for a moment. “I'm getting cold. It’s terrible. And you go through all of this at the age of eight and are afraid. It is so depressing. I can only say: Hopefully something like this will never come back, ”says the 82-year-old and emphasizes emphatically:“ It doesn't have anything to do with a fly-shit, as Alexander Gauland from the AfD said. You can clean up a fly shit. "
To person:
Inge Michlbauer was born on December 13, 1937 in Wolfratshausen. She spent her whole life in the house of her grandmother Susanna Breitsamer at Obermarkt 37, where she also witnessed the Second World War.
After school, she learned the trade of a retail clerk. She then worked in her grandma's shop, which continued to run her husband Thomas Breitsamer's glazier's shop alone after his early death (he died in 1933 at the age of 49).
In 1959 the granddaughter met her future husband Rudolf Michlbauer, a master glazier from Altötting. Two years later, after Grandma's death in July 1961, the two married and took over the business.
From the mid-1980s, Inge Michlbauer was chair of the Wolfratshauser advertising group founded in 1976 for many years. She was active among the free voters when the CSU was still headed by Franz Josef Strauß. In addition, she was involved with the "Soroptimists", a socially committed association of working women, and with the Barbezieux partnership association.
To this day Inge Michlbauer works every day (except on Sundays and public holidays) with the support of her daughter Susanne Drechsel in her household goods store on the Obermarkt.
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