His name stands for camaraderie, authentic folk music, dedication and helpfulness. In your lifetime and now. Biwi Rehm died at the age of 85. His companions mourn.
Garmisch-Partenkirchen - The news has spread like wildfire. Biwi Rehm is dead. Torn from the middle of life. He who seemed so indestructible. "The corona time was very hard on him," says his wife Marille, "he missed his friends so much." The virus also denies him his last wish: a large corpse on which all his loved ones are gathered. The comrades of 15 round tables and two dozen clubs, musicians and fellow teachers. "Something is coming," he always said to his wife and set up his own savings account. If he is carried to his last rest in the Partenkirchner Friedhof next Tuesday, only a close family can say goodbye.
He would have celebrated his 86th birthday on May 11th. And now his friends are sending letters of condolence, not congratulations. Apricot Rehm hardly comes to his senses these days. Folk musicians from all over the Alps call, members of the Arminia student movement, of which he was so proud. The Lions Club expresses its shock at the loss, "it has shaped club life with its cheerful nature".
They reach offers of help from all sides. People give back something that Biwi Rehm gave them. His affection, his willingness to help, his sense of humor, his calm that can hardly be shaken. "He was a good listener, with integrity, a pleasant person all round," describes Gerty Roscher, who at the same time started her teaching career at the Werdenfels High School in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. "Even if you had a different political opinion. You couldn't be angry with him, ”assures Alois Schwarzmüller, as a teacher, local politician and a companion at the regulars' table for decades.
Arrested while birding
Was known and appreciated: Biwi Rehm.
© Very
Marille Rehm has been a good partner to her bivouac for 46 years. Since they have been together, the spouses have sung together. "Our voices went well together," she says. The two have also harmonized in everyday life. Because she was tolerant as a partner, she could accept that for her husband the music "always came first, even before the family". Still, she found life by his side to be rich. Not only because of the many trips around the world, the personalities she got to know through the popular singer. "His time as Second Mayor was also wonderful for me." She allowed him to socialize because he was "affable" in the best sense of the word. “He went to his regulars' table at Tegernsee every fourth Friday of the month. For 30 years, until March. In any wind and weather, even when there was two meters of snow. "
Everyone who knew Rehm has his own memories. Roscher tells of the companionship that he cultivated in the teaching staff. That he was an excellent skier. About his passion for songbirds. What exciting school trips they were. They came to Russia with their students. Once, the bivouac bought a nightingale with a bird encyclopedia in his hand and smuggled it into the plane in the breast pocket of his jacket. How the students cheered when customs had passed. The second time, Rehm was arrested while observing birds in a Russian military compound and put in a cell for a few days. With a murderer. Franz Josef Strauss greatly appreciated the folk musician, and the German ambassador soon got him out. Roscher remembered the trip with fellow teachers. They were approached three times at Lake Neusiedl, “You are one of the Rehm brothers. May we bring you a bottle of wine? ”She thinks of“ the best fish soup in the world ”, for which the gourmet and cook got the ingredients from the Viktualienmarkt.
A friend of the students
Peter Egner also enjoyed the hospitality at Rehm often and with pleasure. Already as a student he loved his teacher in sports, biology and geography: "He was the way everyone wants a teacher." How he could motivate. When the boys didn't get very far in the shot put, he promised a box of beer to anyone who surpassed him with the iron ball. "I won it." When fellow teacher Schwarzmüller heard this story, he had to laugh: "That's how he was, the bivouac. He was a friend of the students. ”And he was proud of them. At the regulars' table he always talked about how far they got there. "He was not afraid of police checks," says Schwarzmüller, "because he said straight away that the Munich police chief was his student."
Peter Egner, like Rehm Gausängerwart of the Oberland Trachtenvereinigung, has always impressed Rehm's attitude and consequences. For example, when it was about the ZDF Sunday concert in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1993. How he got a lot of enmity when he refused to act as a representative of the authentic alpine folk song together with entertaining entertainers. "Then he vehemently pulled through his position regardless of any disadvantages." Rehm, the district home care worker for folk music and customs in the district for 43 years, was a matter close to his heart. Bayerischer Rundfunk recognized its commitment with the gold medal. He has received many awards, especially in local politics. Together with his brother Waggi, he launched the event “Bayern sings and plays”. For a quarter of a century, the Rehm brothers used the proceeds to support children, youth and adults.
He yodeled with his brother for the Pope and Gorbachev
The nicknames Biwi and Waggi have remained with the brothers from their childhood. In the baptismal book they are called Wilhelm and Adolf. For more than 50 years they performed - also on behalf of the Federal Foreign Office and as representatives of Bavaria - with the collected songs and juchers. They yodeled for Pope John Paul II, Mikhail Gorbachev, Queen Juliane of the Netherlands, Caroline of Monaco. They were traveling around the world as ambassadors for their country - apart from Australia and South America, in fact, everywhere. When Johannes Rau, then Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, christened a ship in Japan, the duo delighted the audience with a solemn yodel. The Biwi also campaigned for his home region with his vocal means for the Olympic application in South Africa.
Many locals will remember the musicians' meetings, the intimate Advent and Passion singing. And above all, the serenades that the Rehm brothers brought to them for a milestone anniversary. For God's reward. How they made every festival special. And that's why the bivouac will have all these people around him when his wife, four children and three grandchildren say goodbye next Tuesday. As it should be for a human collector.
Eva Stöckerl
