"It is great that the farmers in the area successfully campaigned against the planned demolition of the Wieskirche during the secularization": Frank-Georg and Michael Joseph Heinrich Zimmermann, descendants of the builder Johann Baptist Zimmermann in the tenth and ninth generation, respectively, were pleased to attend your visit to the Wies.
The theological concept of master builder Dominikus Zimmermann and Father Magnus Straub is already impressive: "Steinhausen was already well thought out with the need for redemption of people entangled in suffering and guilt and gives us all hope."
Wies
- The two carpenters have often attended church services in the Wieskirche at sporadic intervals.
"When Aunt Anneliese Draht raved about the newly furnished 'Zimmermannstube' last year, we now wanted to pay an official visit," explains Frank-Georg Zimmermann, who has a doctorate in civil engineering from Stuttgart.
His uncle Michael - who has a doctorate in classical philology and historian - has therefore contacted the museum curator and district administrator Helmut Schmidbauer.
Michael JH Zimmermann, who lives in Schwenningen at the source of the Neckar - is not only known for his guided tour of the “500 Years of Scholarly Republic of Schwenningen am Neckar” at the State Garden Show in 2010 - supplemented and corrected the family tree of the Zimmermanns created by Karl-Heinz Breves in his spare time.
It is interesting that up to his nephew Frank-Georg all were master builders or civil engineers.
Only Michael's father was out of line as a bank clerk - and he as a classical philologist, historian and ethicist.
“As a historian, you deal with building culture and get annoyed when the old building fabric disappears,” his nephew replied spontaneously.
Even today, Michael is annoyed that after the Second World War, the substance that had remained in the old towns was torn down and replaced by “soulless concrete buildings”.
Over the course of three centuries, however, a harmonious overall impression was created in Schwenningen by adding stylistic elements.
Today, all over the country, everything is "uniformity", individuality is lost and the ability to skillfully insert new things into existing ones.
The building of the Wieskirche located in a paradisiacal landscape is therefore refreshing to the heart.
Upon entering, the pilgrim, looking up in the main axis, looks at the most important features of the house of God: the high altar with the Scourged Savior, the throne at the base of the nave vault and Christ as the judge of the world descending on the rainbow in the fresco.
Wiespfarrer Monsignore Gottfried Fellner was also a stroke of luck for the two carpenters.
During the guided tour through the church after the service, full of light, color and mercy - like the puttos, so to speak - he conveyed the serenity of faith: "You reach the heart."
After lunch in Dominikus Zimmermann's former home, district home nurse Helmut Schmidbauer took Johann Baptist Zimmermann's descendants through the Wiesmuseum.
In the certainty that “love is the measure of mercy that opens the door to eternal life” and the brochure “Until you come in glory”, the Zimmermanns set off again for their home “Swabian region”.
Gerhard Heiss
