As of: March 27, 2024, 5:13 p.m
By: Gerti Reichl
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Wolfgang Koch, here in his garden in Rottach-Egern, is firmly convinced that the experience with the French soldiers at the Gufferthütte in 1945 had an influence on the rest of his life.
© THOMAS PLETTENBERG
The fact that some people's lives can take strange turns is particularly true for Wolfgang Koch from Rottach.
He turned 90 these days - it's high time to tell about his fateful experience in 1945, the year the war ended.
Rottach-Egern – Almost everyone in Rottach-Egern knows Wolfgang Koch, known to many as “da Kochä”.
Extremely sprightly and cheerful, well-spoken and neatly dressed, his scarf casually tied around his neck - that's how you meet him when he walks around his parents' house.
He is particularly known to those who are involved with the Rottach-Egern Tennis Club, where Koch is a founding and honorary member and was the first club president.
He is also known in the local ski club, where he made a name for himself with good performances.
Above all, Koch is still quite active in the Lions Club at Tegernsee - as a jumelage representative.
The partnership with the Lions Club Hohensalzburg, which was sealed in October 2023, is also thanks to him.
A picture of Wolfgang Koch from his childhood.
© Private
“Jumelage” comes from French and means partnership.
Above all, this means the partnership between two cities.
It is precisely here, in French, that Wolfgang Koch's life path finds a curious, even fateful development.
“It was shortly after the end of the war, probably in 1945,” remembers Wolfgang Koch, “I was a boy of eleven at the time.” Not only Germany, but also Austria was divided into zones at the time.
The American occupation zone on the Tegernsee side extended as far as the Blaubergen. “The Tyrolean side of the Blauberge was French, which only a few people know today,” says Koch and tells what happened back then: “One afternoon I climbed with my stepfather, my mother and a clique of people from Rottacher and Gmunder go up to the Blauberge to collect blueberries.
Of all places, the most beautiful berries were available around the Gufferthütte, which is located just below the mountain ridge.
When we arrived at the hut, which was on French territory, we saw an armed patrol coming from the direction of Achenkirch.
Everyone ran back, leaving only me at the top.
I should say that I wanted to bring fresh milk.
I should also find out when the French are leaving again.”
In fact, Wolfi, the boy from Tegernsee, had to stay overnight as a “prisoner” in the Gufferthütte.
He can no longer remember how scared he was back then, “only that I was taken for breakfast in the morning and saw a baguette for the first time.” The story didn’t just end well – Wolfgang ran back across the street Hill and safely down to Tegernsee.
Many years later, after school, technical and commercial apprenticeships and studying technical ceramics for environmental technology and filtration, he ended up working for a well-known French ceramics company and finally in Lyon, where he also acquired his French skills.
After completing a management academy in Lausanne, he returned to Munich, where he remained with a company as a sales manager until he retired.
Everything French not only shaped his life, it also captured his heart.
“When I was sent to a Rotarian evening in Lyon, I met the Frenchwoman Françoise.
She became my wife and was the love of my life,” says Wolfgang Koch.
The fact that she died early was a stroke of fate in Koch's life, but today a son and a daughter share enthusiasm for both countries thanks to their German and French genes.
Today, at 90, Wolfgang Koch looks back on many fulfilling decades and the experience in 1945.
“I am firmly convinced that my fateful love and connection to France began with the blueberries in the Blue Mountains and the encounter with the French soldiers,” says the Rottacher, who also firmly believes in the unity of the two countries politically.
“Without Germany and France,” Koch is convinced, “we could forget Europe.”
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