If you look in the direction of Bierbach from the pilgrimage church in Maria Thalheim, you will see the Klausenberg directly.
There, on this small hill, probably the first church of the place stood.
A narrow path leading from the Mesnerhaus over the Klausenberg to the district road is named after a monk who brutally lost his life a long time ago: Jakob Zeilmeier.
Fraunberg – but who was he?
To find out, you need to look back in history a good 320 years.
At that time Jakob Zeilmeier, a hermit or also called Klausner, lived in a so-called small well house, south of the church.
Especially in the Middle Ages there were many hermits who voluntarily withdrew from the world.
They wanted to escape the hustle and bustle of their time, forgoing any kind of comfort and possessions, in search of their personal happiness - with inner contemplation, with turning to elementary values.
At that time, around 1701, there was also the Röhrlbrunnen, which offered refreshment to many pilgrims - later the Kramerhaus was built there.
It is said that Zeilmeier, who belonged to the Third Order of Saint Francis, offered schooling for the children of Thalheim in the "upper room".
Because there was no longer a regular school, an official school had been forbidden because of the War of the Spanish Succession.
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In memory of the Klausner Jakob Zeilmeier, this path was named not far from the district road in Maria Thalheim.
© Thomas Obermeier
In 1726 Zeilmeier gave his hermitage to the monk Kaspar Rainer, also a hermit from Sankt Emeran in Unterföhring near Munich.
He had received special permission from the ecclesiastical government in Freising to settle as a second hermit in Maria Thalheim.
Zeilmeier himself moved into a new dwelling outside of the village on Klausenberg, this time with a large garden, which belonged to the school until the 20th century.
However, his lonely life came to a sad end: on the night of January 6th to 7th, 1735, he was attacked by robbers in his cell, cruelly tortured and killed.
Nobody in town could understand this horrible act at the time, after all Zeilmeier lived in self-imposed poverty.
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The stone tablet commemorates the year of the murder and his resting place.
FIZ stands for Frater Jakob Zeilmeier.
© Thomas Obermeier
A votive plaque on the southern wall of the pilgrimage church commemorates the insidious murder, a stone plaque in the Michaelskapelle with the inscription "FIZ 1735" points to the spot where Zeilmeier was buried.
A few hermits were to live as his spiritual successors in Maria Thalheim.
It was not until May 12, 1804 that the hermitage was officially abolished by a so-called "national ordinance".