Today's Tölzerin Dagmar Mietner met Fritz Schwegler when she was two. And he could tell a lot about Ludwig II. The story behind a snapshot.
Bad Tölz / Herrsching - This Tuesday is a very special day for Bavarians loyal to the king: King Ludwig II was born on August 25, 175 years ago. Corresponding to this date, Dagmar Mietner from Tölzer brought out a nice souvenir and made it available to the Tölzer courier. It shows the now 59-year-old as a small child together with Fritz Schwegler, one of the last employees of the “Kini”.
Dagmar Mietner's father, Gerhart Darchinger (82) from Herrsching, reports how the recording came about. “At the time I read in a newspaper article that Fritz Schwegler lived in Seeshaupt.” Darchinger was keenly interested in the last royal pioneer - his grandfather was an ardent Ludwig fanatic and had numerous portraits of the king hanging on the wall. Herrschinger didn’t hesitate and stopped by the very old Schwegler on March 10, 1963 together with his daughter Dagmar - and was received very kindly by him and his wife.
For the long tours with King Ludwig II "you need an ass"
“He talked a lot about the time, when he came to the farm at the age of 18,” Darchinger recalls. Schwegler reported how Ludwig II left Neuschwanstein late every evening at 11 o'clock, in summer by carriage and in winter by horse-drawn sleigh, Schwegler as a pioneer. If it ever went to Munich, the horses were changed in Berg, "and there was an extra gold piece," Darchinger tells the story. For the long tours, as Fritz Schwegler put it in good Bavarian language, “you need an ass”.
The former forerunner of the king talks about his experiences
The former pioneer even let the guest try on a ring that he had received personally from the king: a gold ring with a lapis lazuli stone with an engraved “L”. Schwegler later had to return the piece to the Wittelsbach Compensation Fund.
The former judicial officer still likes to look at the photo of the unforgettable encounter. - even if daughter Dagmar, then two years old, doesn't look particularly happy. The father says with a smile: "She was just very shy as a girl."
An expert on Ludwig II is the Third Mayor of Bad Tölz, who even wrote his doctoral thesis on the "Kini".