The first regicide in German history meant the end of the Dukes of Andechs-Meranien.
A drama, an intrigue.
Katharina Buzin as director and Lisa Haselbauer as author and speaker wove a play that found an honorable place in the Andechser miniatures series on the stage in Andechser Florianstadl.
Andechs
- The miniatures were brought to life four years ago by the Friends of Andechs Monastery. As a cultural series that is thematically related to Andechs. The artistic direction lies with the theater scholar Katharina Buzin, a student of Markus Everding. Your connection to the Holy Mountain goes back to the Orff Festival. To this day, the Munich resident feels connected to this place and obviously also to its history.
The story-telling theater “regicide blamed on the Andechs-Meranians” starts at the beginning when the Andechs counts played an important role in imperial politics alongside the Hohenstaufen family. Far more than the Wittelsbachers at the time, when the Andechser - previously raised to the rank of imperial prince and with the title of duke (Meranien) - are at the height of their power. When the Andechser Ekbert and Heinrich were accused of complicity in the murder of Philipp von Schwaben in Bamberg and ostracized in 1208, a large part of the Andechser territory fell to the Wittelsbachers.
Ekbert was bishop in Bamberg. Margrave Heinrich was also a guest at the wedding of their brother, Duke Otto, with Beatrix of Burgundy. Philipp von Schwaben had actually promised Otto von Wittelsbach the girl. Grateful for any support in the fight for the royal crown against the mighty Guelphs, the king broke one promise and instead gave the bride to the loyal Andechs Duke Otto.
Jealousy and power skirmishes - can there be better models for a drama? Lisa Haselbauer put the narrative theater into impressive words, which reveals the murder based on a novel. “Vogelfrei” is supposed to tell of the rise and fall of two Andechs brothers, written by Marlis A. Reebhaus. Anyone looking for the title in bookshops will not find anything - the author's name is nothing more than an anagram and the novel is nothing more than a stylistic device that is the template for the narrative and gives an opportunity to change perspectives.
In the person of the 25-year-old Daniel Warland, this change of perspective takes place initially in an explanatory, sensitive manner and ends up verbatim, especially in a powerful voice. The student of the Berlin Academy of Dramatic Art Ernst Busch leads one hour through this miniature with impressive urgency and force.
Sometimes gentle when he asks the young bride Beatrix about her impressions of that day, diabolically when he ventures his bitterness as Otto von Wittelsbach, the irony of becoming a Staufer murderer as a Staufer friend. “Why did Philipp do this to me?” The other Otto, the Andechser, “was celebrated like someone who has killed a dragon”. This jealousy can be the answer to the motive for murder - like so much more. Quite worthy of a drama. The young team around director Katharina Buzin (28) implemented this wonderfully dramaturgically.
It remains true that the Andechs brothers Ekbert and Heinrich were accused of complicity.
While Ekbert was back in office and dignity as bishop in 1211, Heinrich retreats to present-day Slovenia.
Otto, who was with the Palatinate County of Burgundy, resigned himself in the fight with the local nobility.
With the death of his son - another Otto - the Andechs-Meranians died out.
Heinrich is buried in Dießen.
In recent history, he appears in the narrative as an apparition on the Dießener Ufer - with his gaze longingly directed towards Andechs.
ANDREA GRÄPEL
