Nativity figures with a moving story

Created: 12/25/2021, 7:00 PM

From: Christoph Schnitzer

The late artist Erich Hoffmann carved a life-size nativity scene.

The figures are shown annually in Marktstrasse.

© Pröhl / Archive

Especially when it gets dark, strollers on Tölzer Marktstrasse like to stop in front of the brightly lit wooden hut next to the Vintner monument.

You are probably wondering what the two life-size wooden figures that can be seen behind a large pane of glass are all about.

Bad Tölz

- behind the glass you can see the angel of the Annunciation who is giving Mary a lily.

A small photo shows the sculptor Erich Hoffmann at work.

Until January, when the hut is dismantled, nothing will change in this classic nativity scene.

There is a reason for this, as Rhoda Hoffmann explains.

She is the artist's widow, who died in the summer of 1995 at the age of 54.

It is a Christmas story in which a little melancholy and - as with all nativity scenes - memories of times long past resonate.

But also pride and satisfaction.

Hoffmann's figures are also in the USA

Hoffmann came from Oberammergau and had learned his trade in the renowned Heinzeller workshop. In the 1970s, he and his wife Rhoda moved to Bad Tölz and opened their shop in the so-called Sporrer-Haus in Marktstrasse in 1984. Older Isarwinklers will remember that a large nativity scene was always on display in the shop window of the Hoffmann store at Christmas time. Today, says Rhoda Hoffmann, it is at the Sport-Sepp in Lenggries.

Hoffmann not only worked for the regional market, but also had international customers.

With a smile, his widow remembers an American army clergyman who was stationed in Tölz and was so enthusiastic about Hoffmann's work that he made a promise: If he was ever given responsibility for a church, Hoffmann would work for him.

Later this clergyman took over the “St.

Mary's Priory ”in New Haven, Connecticut / USA and kept its word.

Hoffmann received the order for five life-size saint figures in the church near the university.

Every year since the artist's death, his wife Rhoda Hoffmann has exhibited the two figures he created in a hut at Christmas time.

© Pröhl

First work for the Christmas market

In 1994 her husband decided on an unusual work. He had planned to carve a life-size nativity figure every year, which he then wanted to give to the city. Background: The "Active Tölzer" had launched a Christmas market in 1989. During the market, Hoffmann worked on his figures in a hut in front of the visitors. That was a real attraction, says Rhoda Hoffmann. For this reason, many people from Tölz still fondly remember him. Hoffmann, however, was not allowed to complete his generous gift. Two figures were not finished until the doctors diagnosed leukemia in the man, who was always perfectly healthy. A late consequence of his work in the Bundeswehr on what is now known to be extremely health-endangering radar systems. Hoffmann died in July 1995.

“Much too early,” says his wife, an Englishwoman who met and married him when he was 17 on vacation in Italy.

Sentimentality is not her thing, but that's what she says: “He was the love of my life.

It's been 30 very happy years. "

And in a sense he left her with an assignment that she has been fulfilling ever since.

Namely, to set up and show the only two figurines created in the crib every year during the Christmas market.

When they can then be seen in the hut, her husband will come back to life through the figures.

And that fills her with a deep feeling of happiness.

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