Obituary: Konrad Gantner was there for the family and community all his life
Created: 01/06/2022, 1:14 PM
From: Ulrike Osman
Konrad Gantner died at the age of 90.
(Repro) © Ulrike Osman
At the age of 90 the former Mammendorfer councilor Konrad Gantner died.
He leaves a great void in the church.
Mammendorf
- people like Konrad Gantner are becoming increasingly rare.
Not only was he one of the last eyewitnesses to tell about the war and the time after it.
He was also someone who was committed to the community for decades, while his own company already had plenty of work to do.
Konrad Gantner has now died at the age of 90.
It wasn't long ago that the Mammendorfer wrote down some memories at the request of a grandson.
In it he describes, among other things, how he went home from making hay with his mother at the age of eight in 1939, when he first heard the term "mobilization".
What that meant was clear within a few weeks.
His father and eldest brother were drafted.
A difficult time came for the mother and the six remaining children, and it was not over with the end of the war.
In order to earn a little extra on the local agriculture, Gantner toiled as a young man for two winters for a starvation wage digging peat in Haspelmoor.
He met his future wife at the rural youth conference
But things were looking up.
The son of the long-time mayor Kastulus Gantner graduated from the agricultural school in Fürstenfeldbruck and met his future wife Kreszenz at a rural youth conference.
In 1957 he took over his parents' business, married and fathered his first daughter.
Three more children followed.
In addition to work and family, he has been involved in voluntary work for decades - in the voluntary fire brigade, in the local council, as a director of the hunting association and chairman of the dairy cooperative.
He never fought for these offices - they were offered to him.
And later rewarded him with various awards, honorary memberships and the Medal of Merit of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Konrad Gantner's life was full and full of work, and it was not free from blows of fate.
The death of his daughter Anita as a toddler, the early death of his beloved wife Zenzi and his own serious illness in her early 40s - "I was given nothing," he wrote in his memoirs.
But he kept getting up.
Konrad Gantner was very popular because of his sociability and humor
On April 1, 2021, the four-time grandfather and seven-time great-grandfather celebrated his 90th birthday.
He was happy to have his whole family around and would have liked to have invited more guests.
But for Corona reasons that was not possible.
He liked sociability, humorous and popular as he was.
People liked to see him at the fire brigade regulars 'table and at veterans' meetings, and listened to when he talked.
"He was a very fine person," says Edigna Recher.
Like Konrad Gantner, she was widowed when one day over 30 years ago he accidentally rang the doorbell while looking for an address.
A fateful oversight that brought the two of them a second happiness.
Together they could now do what Konrad Gantner never had the time to do - discover the world.
It went to Israel, Egypt, Canada, Norway.
Konrad Gantner cared for his partner when she got health problems.
He remained mentally fit and interested in politics until the end.
A week before he died, he was enjoying a family dinner with one of his grandchildren and looking proudly at his family one last time.
By the way: Everything from the region is also available in our regular FFB newsletter.