Anna Schmid came to Geretsried as a young woman with her husband. The Lenggrieser founded their own bakery there. Your customers were refugees, and their origins were irrelevant.
- In the series Geretsrieder Lebenslinien we shed light on the municipality and its people through the ages
- Anna Schmid founded a bakery in the young community
- “We got along well straight away, you didn't look where the other person came from,” she says.
Geretsried - At 91 years old, Anna Schmid, better known as the baker's grandma, is perhaps a little more clumsy than her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. As she scurries through the Schmid-Bäck bakery and talks about her age, however, you cannot tell. The sales area used to be where the trolleys are now. The entrance was where the store now goes. And where the cold stores are now, was the kitchen.
Between all the things that a modern bakery needs today, this “past” still shines through - indestructible and not to be forgotten. The parent company on Schlesische Strasse is nestled around a former bunker. Anna Schmid and her husband Anton moved into the relic of the Geretsrieder armaments works in 1961.
From Lenggries to Geretsried? Not everyone understood that
For the couple with their three sons Hansi, Xaver and Toni, the dream of their own bakery came true. For many a Lenggrieser - Anna Schmid grew up in the Isarwinkler village and had leased the Weindl bakery on Johann-Probst-Straße with her husband - the move to the neighboring district must have been difficult to understand. “Annerl, how are you down there?” The people of Lenggries asked when they met Anna Schmid while skiing on the Brauneck.
The then 31-year-old from Upper Bavaria found life among refugees in the young Geretsried community anything but strange. “We got along well straight away, you didn't look where the other person came from,” she says.
Anna Schmid is now sitting in her room with coffee and strawberry cake. She and her husband built the apartment on top of the massive walls, about two years after they took over the “bunker with oven”. At first there was only one room for living and sleeping, the shop with a bakery and a shed for the journeyman. Expanding the bunker building was the only option. “You could only get a hole in the walls with a compressor. And even with that, it took all day. God, that was a racket, ”recalls the 91-year-old with a sigh.
Business was good from the start
Gerhard Schmidt-Gaden brokered the property in Geretsried to the Schmids. The founder of the Tölzer Knabenchor was expelled from Karlsbad and worked at the Weidach art mill. "He told us that the Yugoslav Lauermann, who had the bakery, wanted to sell." The bunker was comparatively expensive, but cheaper than other bakeries in the region. "We were so happy that we could buy something of our own."
Business was good from the start. “The bakery previously only had white bread, people threw themselves on my husband's rye bread.” The Lenggries native was pleased that the Schmid-Bäck 'was immediately well received. Especially since the Geretsrieder, usually the women came and bought bread and at least ten rolls on Saturdays, which could also pay for baked goods. “The Lenggrieser were rafters, there was no work. I wrote everything down in a book. "
But that's not the only reason why Anna Schmid has never regretted moving to Geretsried. “It was a good get along with the people,” she says. Unlike in a committed village, the young community did not look at what the other was doing. “People were geared towards getting something. They had lost everything and saw that it would go on. "
Origin does not matter
Anyone who shopped at Schmid-Bäck 'was asked by the baker's wife how it worked, what it looked like. “People liked to talk,” says Anna Schmid. While she listened, she packed the bread, cashed in, and her customers quickly returned to work at Speck or Lorenz. There was no time for friendships. “But when the music played, everyone was there,” says the 91-year-old. "The Egerlanders played such beautiful melodies that we did not know in Lenggries."
Anna Schmid collected many of these memories in an album. As she talks, she flips through the neatly written pages. “This is a G'schicht”, she says suddenly. “I completely forgot.” One day her mother's cousin came into the bakery. The cousin lived with a Silesian in Geretsried. She felt bad that day. Anna Schmid drove her to the hospital, where she died eight days later. With this memory, the 91-year-old explains why “I can't beat the right-wing extremists today. That's just not necessary. ”Anna Schmid's cousin was a simple farm maid when she was young. One day she was entrusted with a boy whom she was supposed to raise. A teacher in Benediktbeuern had given birth to him - after a liaison with a French. “That's why they were sent to the concentration camp.” The Franco-German connection turned into a capable cook in Munich.
Also read: “We are strangers and homeless”: Excerpts from Elisabeth Hodolitsch's escape diary