To the nativity scene in Benediktbeuern

The popular old Bavarian Christmas market in Benediktbeuern cannot take place again this year due to the corona pandemic.

The pre-Christmas mood will still prevail in the village.

This is ensured by around 25 nativity scenes, which can be seen in numerous windows during Advent.

Benediktbeuern

- Last year, the support group for customs and culture in Benediktbeuern initiated it for the first time: a so-called “crib path”, which was intended to conjure up a Christmas atmosphere in the village as an alternative to the old Bavarian Christmas market.

“The response back then was very good,” recalls former mayor Georg Rauchberger, who, as a member of the association, was one of the main initiators of the “Krippenweg”.

25 home and shop owners take part in the campaign

At that time, around 15 cribs were set up in the windows of private individuals and business people, mostly in Dorfstrasse and Bahnhofstrasse, according to Rauchberger.

This year, he estimates, he got around 25 home and shop owners to set up cribs in their windows facing the street so that passers-by could look at them.

Many of those who are taking part this year were already there last year and would have been only too happy to take part again this year.

There is an almost life-size crib in front of the rectory

If you start at the village square, the first thing you notice is the almost life-size wooden crib that was set up in the open in front of the rectory.

And in St. Mary's Church, says Rauchberger, a particularly beautiful baroque nativity scene with changing scenes can be seen.

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Behind the windows along Bahnhofstrasse and Dorfstrasse there are many nativity scenes, such as the one on which the monastery carpenter Otto Scherg helped carve.

© Blessed

Also in some shops around the Benediktbeurer Dorfplatz - for example in the pharmacy - there will be cribs in the shop windows.

If you stroll up the village street from here and lurt a bit into the small windows of the old farmhouses, you will discover larger and smaller nativity scenes.

Sometimes with figures made of wood in nature, sometimes painted and sometimes clothed in fabric.

Sometimes there are valuable nativity scenes, sometimes nativity scenes from other Alpine regions such as the Val Gardena in South Tyrol, sometimes very old ones.

“Some of them are around 100 years old,” says Rauchberger, citing a so-called “box crib” as an example.

Very modern cribs are also shown

But very modern nativity scenes can also be seen: for example at the transition from Dorfstrasse to Häuserstrasse, where the figures are made of brushed and rusted metal.

And now, shortly after the first Sunday in Advent, the biblical scene of the Annunciation is set up in a window diagonally opposite.

As the Christmas season progresses, however, the display in the window will change, says Rauchberger.

But not only whole cribs can be seen in the windows and are lit up when it gets dark.

An elderly lady, for example, says Rauchberger, put angels and other Christmas figures and symbols in each of her windows - they too are bathed in a warm light at night by candles and lamps.

And some citizens, says Rauchberger, have put a Fatschenkindl in their window.

Christmas mood in the pandemic

He and the others from the association are happy that there is "a little bit of an Advent atmosphere in the village" with the crib path - despite the pandemic.

There are also nativity scenes in some of the windows in the upper area of ​​Bahnhofstrasse.

Some citizens, says Rauchberger, would not have set up their house cribs themselves, but would make it available to others for their windows.

And in the guest information (Prälatenstrasse 3), a crib by the monastery carpenter Otto Scherg has been set up.

A

crib

with the exact positions of the individual cribs is available from the Benediktbeurer guest information.

You can also find it on the websites

www.brauchumsverein- benediktbeuern.de and www.benediktbeuern.de

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