Paid by the Nazis, painted by a party member: the controversial choir fresco of the Starnberg parish church is to be preserved in the course of the renovation.
Pastor Dr.
Andreas Jall can think of many reasons for this: The painting does not fit the Nazi ideology, he says.
It even sometimes mocked her.
Starnberg - Is that a Hitler salute from God personally? Who knows who painted the choir fresco in the Starnberg parish church of St. Maria has to ask himself this question. City Pastor Dr. Andreas Jall faced so many more. He does not yet have all the answers about the painting from the Nazi era - but he has researched enough to explain to the congregation at Whitsun in the church service why it should be preserved. This decision was made by the church administration and the parish council after controversial discussions.
The renovation of the church is being planned.
And with Paul Hoser's book “Political History of Starnberg”, published in October 2019, which also sheds light on the problematic history of the fresco, the topic boiled up inside the church.
“The idea was to make the picture disappear,” says Jall.
One option: to cover it with a big curtain, "kind of artistic".
Another suggestion: paint it over, which the monument protection would probably not allow.
"A well-known entrepreneur has offered me: I'll buy the scaffolding and the paint - then everything is done in one night," says the pastor in an interview at the altar.
+
Mary and the baby Jesus in the fresco of the Starnberg church.
© Andrea Jaksch
Whoever enters St. Maria cannot even look past the fresco. Wall-high and wall-wide, monumental and majestic, it fills the space behind the altar. Sinister-looking figures and earthy colors make you feel awesome. “At first I also cheated on it. Everyone feels like that, ”says Pastor Jall. But that's not the problem. The problem is the church painter. Theo Geyr, NSDAP member, created the picture between 1934 (immediately after the church was inaugurated) and 1937. The local NS group paid him, according to Jall, with around 30,000 Reichsmarks. An order clearly against the will of the then pastor Michael Ostheimer, a declared anti-Nazi party. He later wrote in the parish chronicle that he saw "the terrible mural as a sign of Nazi rule and art corruption".
Almost 90 years later, a pastor is looking at the picture again - but not with pure contempt, but with a differentiated eye for the details. Yes, the Lord extends his hand forward, but the left. “You could interpret that as a mockery of the German greeting,” says Jall. Then he looks down to the left, at Moses, Paulus and Peter - “Parade Jews, in general all the big figures are Jews.” And over their heads the pastor sees “not an Alpine panorama, but Mount Sinai. There God showed himself to the people of Israel - and not to the Christians ”. The title of the fresco “St. According to Jall, Mary, Help of Christians "celebrates victory over an apparently overpowering opponent, including the victory of the weak" in a religious sense. And the message that every great empire and every zeitgeist will one day come to an end,could really not have been in the interests of the Nazis. It is true that the dominant Mary and the baby Jesus in the center are angelic blond. Jall's comment on this: "If Geyr had painted a dark-haired Jesus, a dull local group leader would have strapped it too."
From today's perspective, the pastor finds it “almost strange that the Nazis paid for it”. In the absence of education, they would not have seen through the many more or less subtle allusions and mockery. But Jall does not want to declare the painter to be a resistance fighter. Rather, to the opportunist. Geyr, who had lived in Starnberg since 1920 and died in Munich in 1953, also painted, according to Jall, “for communists and socialists”. Paul Hoser writes in his book that the painter and temporary district culture warden later turned away from the Nazis - also because they did not grant him the required additional payment for the fresco. Jall's conclusion: "The painting comes from the Nazi era, but it does not fit the Nazi ideology." But he also emphasizes: "There is so much more to it." For example, the "great unknown corporal of the World War",which Geyr, according to his own statement, painted lower right and which could symbolize Hitler.
+
Moses, Paulus and Peter: "All the great figures are Jews," emphasizes Pastor Jall.
© Andrea Jaksch
“It was important to have a controversial discussion.
An opportunistic Nazi painted our fresco.
Point.
You have to know that, ”says Jall.
It helps if you are aware of this problem.
This is precisely why the parish is planning to put the fresco "with intelligent lighting" in the limelight after the renovation.
"It looks completely different depending on the light."
In all seriousness, the painting also provides cheerful anecdotes.
Geyr had taken Starnberg Citizens as a model for the 20 or so figures in his fresco.
“Our sacristan said that Our Lady cut his hair earlier,” says Jall.
The woman who once modeled Maria's image was a hairdresser.
