Heini Link is dead: kiosk legend dies unexpectedly on New Years Day

Created: 01/06/2022, 09:30 AM

From: Markus Schwarzkugler

His only living room: Heini Link at Notzinger Weiher not far from his kiosk in June 2021. He is wearing one of his notorious Hawaiian shirts.

© Markus Schwarzkugler

There is disbelief after the sudden and unexpected death of Heini Link, the kiosk legend of the Notzinger Weiher.

An obituary.

Notzing / Erding

- It was a really hot day in June last year when we visited Heini Link for an interview.

The man has a big anniversary to celebrate - what he thinks is probably unique in all of Germany: 50 years of the kiosk at Notzinger Weiher, and the landlord has always been the same since then.

Heini Link.

We are sitting in the small garden behind the kiosk - his refuge, to which he can retreat with his wife Gertrud and enjoy the chirping of the birds.

Even the woodpecker keeps dropping by and nibbling on the food balls on the tree.

Link is clearly enjoying that.

He wears a Hawaiian shirt - he has one for every day of the week.

And he talks enthusiastically about the woodpecker.

When the bird comes back to this little idyll in the future, it will be surprised where the benevolent man with the weird shirts, which complement the surrounding nature so nicely, has gone.

It is unbelievable for everyone that Heini Link died in the morning hours of New Year's Day at the age of 72.

Suddenly and unexpected.

Notzinger Weiher: kiosk legend dies unexpectedly - sadness great

Link built the kiosk at Notzinger Weiher himself.

"I had every stone in my own hands," he said in the aforementioned conversation with our newspaper.

“Well, that was a spectacle in the district council back then,” he remembers when he said to District Administrator Simon Weinhuber at the beginning of the 1970s that it doesn't always have to be the pick who win the contract.

"Ha, do hod a right!", Weinhuber had agreed.

It takes less than five minutes to decide whether Link will be awarded the contract to build the kiosk.

It's a very good decision.

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Enjoy the nature, provide the bathers with food and funny conversations - no, it's just not carefree in all these 50 years.

Link estimates that he is broken into 70 times - on average more than once per bathing season.

At one point a thief even wants to punch a hole in the wall, sometimes refrigerators are knocked over and dishes destroyed.

This also annoys the otherwise relaxed-looking Link.

“I want you to have a lagerl of beer,” he says with a laugh.

Kiosk legend from Notzinger Weiher dead: "The children's smiles were answer enough"

Link is also worried about the district's expansion plans for his beloved pond, whose nature and tranquility he sees threatened.

Link also defends himself publicly, his kiosk survives that too. In an interview six months ago, he looks back stoically: “I had no existential worries.

It was always clear to me: I have a contract that this kiosk has to be. "

The children's smiles were answer enough.

A sentence Heini Links that explains its popularity well.

And yes, it has to, not only find the kiosk's regulars.

Corona can't change that either, Link admits that the crisis is also troubling his shop.

But his wife Gertrud and his daughters Kerstin and Julika - he also has a grandson - help him, as always, during this time.

“Thanks to them, everything has worked so well for so long,” he says.

Of course, it also works because Link is such a popular conversation partner not only for his regular customers.

For the little ones he has lollipops on offer that the grandparents got 50 years ago "at Heini".

And funny stuffed animals that move around lively - the shaker cat, lion, monkey, for example.

This shortens the waiting time for the impatient boys and girls for the currywurst, for which Link's kitchen is so valued.

The number one best seller, Link emphasizes vehemently, is then the ice cream.

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Kiosk operator and inventor: Patented popcorn for diabetics by Heini Link

Because of the money, Link has not run the kiosk for a long time - "then I would have stopped 30 years ago".

Link is a professional all-rounder.

At the age of 21 he became a full-time works council at IG Metall.

He runs a disco in Neufahrn and the restaurant "Zum Holledauer" opposite the Erdinger hospital.

He also delivers church candles and car parts across the country.

He even developed organic popcorn or sweet popcorn for diabetics and had them patented in the early 1990s.

At the time, he was asked why people with diabetes absolutely needed something like this.

"The children's smile was answer enough," says Link, who has been married to his Gertrud for 40 years for the second time.

During all these experiences, Link also takes care of the upbringing - not only of his children, but also of his bathers.

To leave rubbish in the nature carelessly, that displeases him very badly.

In the meantime, there is a maximum of one day that “a single piece of paper” is lying around, says Link with satisfaction.

On the occasion of his 50-year-old, he calculates that in all that time he has covered 300,000 kilometers from his apartment to the pond.

A not inconsiderable part of it by bike.

The fact that this original will no longer cycle to the pond in the coming bathing season comes out of nowhere for everyone.

There is also great sympathy on the Facebook page “Notzinger Weiher Naturbadeparadies”.

In a funeral post it was said that Link had “always delighted everyone at the kiosk with his humor and humanity” - “his delicacies anyway”.

He always had an open ear and valuable advice for small and large problems and worries.

The children would have loved "their Heini" too.

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Our anniversary interview with Link ends with the statement - not the question - of the author that Link is still a long way from thinking about quitting.

“No, this is my life here,” is the clear answer.

And Link draws back briefly, says that once "some kind of shaman hopped around".

He found the special character of the Notzinger Weiher.

The kiosk owner also says that he imagines all the birds there chirping after him when Link comes.

Now they will twitter again for their Heini.

And if the shaman should return at some point, he would probably feel something else in the wind in addition to the character of the pond - the aura links, which will definitely keep an eye on his pond.