A memorial donated out of gratitude: Ex-city councilor died at the age of 94

Created: 01/04/2022, 08:55 AM

From: Doris Schmid

Ernst Walko died on Boxing Day.

© Hans Lippert

Former dentist and FDP city councilor Ernst Walko died on Boxing Day at the age of 94.

Geretsried - In his practice on Karl-Lederer-Platz he probed many Geretsried people and was politically active in the city council.

Ernst Walko has now died at the old age of 94.

High school diploma, military service, imprisonment and forced labor: Ernst Walko had already experienced all of this when he came to Gelting in November 1945 at the age of 18 as a displaced person.

The villagers gave him and his parents, who came from Käsmark, a small linguistic island in eastern Slovakia, a friendly welcome.

The family found accommodation with a farmer named Hasch on Buchberger Strasse in Gelting.

Diagonally opposite, at the Blum, lived his future wife Gisela.

She was also a refugee child and came from the Egerland.

The couple met while playing table tennis in the cellar of the Alten Wirth and married in 1953. The marriage resulted in three daughters - one died at the age of 15 months.

A memorial donated out of gratitude: Ex-City Councilor Ernst Walko died at the age of 94

In 1959, Walko - previously employed by a Munich dentist - dared to take the step into self-employment.

He opened a practice on Karl-Lederer-Platz, and his wife supported him.

Vis à vis, the dentist Dr.

Walter Immertreu his practice.

“I always checked how long he worked in the evening.

That's how I started treating patients late into the night, "Walko said with a wink in an interview with our newspaper.

Later the two sat together on the city council, Immertreu for the Christian Socials and Walko for the FDP (from 1984 to 1993).

After his active time as a city councilor, he continued to be politically active: in 2007 he was one of the supporters of the planned Spaladin wellness facility.

Now and then he stopped by the CSU regulars' tables.

He was critical of the redesign of Karl-Lederer-Platz.

"For me, those years between 1945 and 1952, which I was allowed to spend in Gelting, were some of the happiest years of my life," said Ernst Walko.

“I felt at home here from day one.” Out of gratitude, he donated the Geltinger Obelisk together with the Raiffeisenbank Isar-Loisachtal and the Geretsried Historical Working Group.

In 2013 Ernst and Gisela Walko celebrated their diamond wedding, two years later the Geretsriederin died.

On Christmas Day 2021, Ernst Walko closed his eyes forever.

He leaves two daughters, four grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

The urn burial takes place in a small group.