There won't be a real birthday party this year for Althegnenberg's former mayor Helmut Hilscher.
Corona throws a spanner in the works for all festivals.
The honorary citizen of the community will be 80 years old on Monday (March 1st).
“But that doesn't matter.
I celebrated my 50th, my 60th and my 70th birthday in a big way, ”he says.
Althegnenberg - Helmut Hilscher came to the community in 1946.
His family comes from Upper Silesia and, like so many Sudetenlanders, was driven from their homeland after the end of the Second World War.
On the way with four small children, his young mother headed for an uncertain future in the direction of Bavaria.
Room in the Bergmüller property
The family first came to Maisach and then moved to Althegnenberg.
Helmut Hilscher has no memory of that time.
"The only thing I still know is that I got a biscuit from a lady on the freight train to Maisach," he says in an interview with the Tagblatt.
The five-year-old, his mother and three sisters shared a room in Althegnenberg in the Bergmüller estate, the local inn.
The father was a prisoner of war in Siberia, that was all the family knew of his whereabouts.
At some point he was "released to die" from captivity, as Helmut Hilscher reports.
He and his younger sister wanted to pick up their father at the train station.
But instead of the expected passenger train, only a freight train stopped.
Only one man got out of it - emaciated and in Russian clothes.
The children ran away, frightened, and hid, then sneaked after the man who was walking towards the center of the village.
They finally found him in the family room.
After the initial shock was over, there was chocolate from my father, which he had received from the Red Cross in Munich.
The supposedly doomed man went on a recovery cure.
“And then he got well and was even 85 years old,” reports Helmut Hilscher.
A council flat - and then things went up
The family was given a community apartment.
“And from then on things went up,” said Hilscher.
They quickly felt at home in the community, the children found friends, and later weddings were celebrated here.
In 1966, Helmut Hilscher married his Maria-Luise, “a real Mittelstetten woman”, whom he met while dancing at the Eberl inn.
The couple had three children and are now seven-time grandparents.
He never gets confused about the names of his grandchildren.
"But sometimes I have to look at the birthdays," says the man celebrating with a smile.
Helmut Hilscher passed the master builder examination.
He first worked as a construction manager in Augsburg before he went into business for himself with a construction business.
He was also involved in community politics.
In 1972 he was elected to the local council and was mayor from 1977 to 2002.
He has not interfered in political events since he left.
He never attends municipal council meetings, but every citizens' meeting - with the exception of the virtual one in the previous year.
And swap with today's politicians - he definitely doesn't want that.
You can always find news from Althegnenberg here.