Hohenlinden - To impart knowledge to people in a playful way has always been the goal of Günther Knerr.
Whether at work in the Deutsches Museum or on a walk in the woods, at home in Hohenlinden.
To present museums and their sometimes highly scientific content in an easily understandable way, and above all to bring them closer to children, that is what Günter Knerr has been committed to throughout his life. Even in his current place of residence, he helped to vividly work through the events of the famous battle, developed a cycle path to stations of the battle with a dedicated team and wrote a very special biography on 1,600 pages.
The tall man actually comes from the Saar-Palatinate and was born in 1938 in a small village near Homburg.
But after elementary school, “a quick passage in wartime”, and graduating from secondary school, he moved to far-off Munich at the age of 20.
He wanted to study chemistry there, but needed several jobs to live.
“So I ended up at the Deutsches Museum by chance, where I hired myself out as an unskilled worker in the workshops.
Because I was always gifted with craftsmanship, and I also enjoyed this activity, ”Knerr remembers.
Conveying knowledge to the next generation: children's cookbook without any text
In fact, the museum director at the time, Josef Maierhofer, soon encouraged him to set up a chemistry division. And he was able to warm to Knerr's idea of attracting more children to the museum. “At that time, many scientific employees and department heads frowned upon creating exhibitions especially for children or formulating texts suitable for children. Those who, in their opinion, did not understand science and technology should not go to a museum, ”says Knerr, outlining the former mood. But he was very committed to letting children discover their environment, "because just after the first moon landing in 1969 an unlikely interest in science broke out".
With a small team, he not only developed a kind of construction kit to advertise science and museums in schools and kindergartens.
He also wrote books that conveyed knowledge to children in an easily understandable way, and even had a cookbook specially prepared for them, without any text, but self-explanatory with photos and sketches.
"Unfortunately, this exciting project failed because two publishers fell out because of it," the sprightly pensioner regrets today and proudly shows his work folder from back then with the previously unpublished works on the book.
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A page from Günther Knerr's self-explanatory children's cookbook.
© J.Dziemballa
Met future wife at work in the Deutsches Museum
In return, he had his first traveling exhibitions from 1972 onwards, which were first shown in the Deutsches Museum, but later went to Berlin, Vienna and even Haifa / Israel as duplicates. When his boss Maierhofer left the museum in the mid-1970s and Günter Knerr was without a specific job, he decided at 37 to study pedagogy in Freiburg. He graduated with a diploma and in 1978 turned to a new task under a new museum director: first he set up a special exhibition entitled “Playing, Building, Experimenting”, then the permanent exhibition was the series “Building blocks in awe”.
After all, 120 press representatives came to the opening of the Deutsches Museum at the time, according to Knerr, who also had to devote himself to critical issues. Because some museum visitors were of the opinion that especially in the aircraft department the accompanying texts were “too trivialized”. After all, they are also bombers from the World War and other destructive specimens. Together with museum colleagues from Washington, Knerr finally succeeded in developing a new text structure for the museum - more honest, more explanatory, more unambiguous. “That made my career a steep climb,” says Knerr, looking back on his career today, as he had developed what is known as a fund-raising system. Depending on the subject area, he could also fall back on funds from the industry involved,built special shows on glass, textile or paper technology, for example.
After a walk in the woods: Knerr recreates the famous battle of 1800 for Hohenlinden
The work in the museum also brought him personal happiness: in 1970 he met his current wife Elisabeth there.
With her and her two children, he first moved to Birkach in 1978 and shortly afterwards to that row house in Hohenlinden, where he still lives with her today, surrounded by a wildly growing garden.
He has a son with her and two other children from a previous marriage, all of whom are grown up.
And so he came up with the idea of writing a special kind of biography for these five children and meanwhile also five grandchildren.
“I wrote down my whole life on around 1,600 pages.
But not only from my personal point of view, but in such a way that I can later answer all of my descendants' questions.
He also achieved a lot for Hohenlinden. When he happened to meet Alfons Nagl, chairman of the Hohenlinden 2000 association, “while walking through the woods”, he encouraged him to recreate the famous battle of 1800 during the Napoleonic Wars for the local museum. Since Günter Knerr had a lot of experience with multimedia at the Deutsches Museum, where he left in 2003, he was able to create an exciting structure here too. Together with a dedicated team, he even created a 55-kilometer cycle path to the sites of this former battle. Now, following an app, interested parties can literally cycle through history here.
Günter Knerr, meanwhile, prefers to make himself comfortable on his terrace, continues to write about his life and grows tomatoes on the side. Our Ebersberg newsletter informs you about all developments and results from your region about the upcoming federal election - and of course about all other important stories from the Ebersberg region.
