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A climate of fear and beatings: Former boarder remembers

2022-04-24T07:09:19.880Z


Peter Weigel attended what was then the Brothers of Mercy boarding school in Algasing for almost two years. Now he tells about his experiences at that time. 


Peter Weigel attended what was then the Brothers of Mercy boarding school in Algasing for almost two years.

Now he tells about his experiences at that time. 

Algasing/Riederding - "Barmherzige Brüder" says Peter Weigel while drawing quotation marks in the air with his fingers. He snorts to show what he thinks of these "merciful ones".

Not that much, at least nothing that speaks of mercy.

Weigel is sitting at his table in the living room of his house in Riedering (Rosenheim district).

He offered his guest coffee and pretzels before traveling 70 years into the past.

Peter Weigel speaks of a time in his childhood.

Of the three years he calls the "darkest of my life".

Of years in the care of the Church.

With the Brothers of Mercy, who ran a school home, a kind of boarding school, in Algasing near Dorfen.

Former student Weigl remembers punishment, caning and family confinement

Weigel was there from 1952 to 1954.

And experienced cold, a climate of fear and beatings.

A few years after the Second World War, schoolchildren in Algasing came under a regiment that informed them in writing who was in charge, or better: in command.

The rule book was called the “guiding star”.

Every student got them.

It read who the "supervisors" of the student were.

The prior first, then teachers and prefects.

Important rule: "The student must show obedience to the superior." It is a book about discipline and order.

It sounds more like the Wehrmacht than raising children.

Weigel describes a climate of arbitrariness.

"You were never immune to punishment, it could always happen that you caught one," he says.

There was also something like clan detention.

"If something happened, but nobody reported, then the whole class had to kneel down to receive three thoughtful ones." That's what Weigel and his schoolmates called beatings with the cane on the buttocks and back.

A life like in the military

Otherwise it must have been like in the army.

"We had to build beds, like in the military," he reports.

“And we had lockers.

If the prefect said it was messy, then everything was thrown out.” There were dormitories for “40, 45 children”, there were dining rooms.

And washrooms: "The toothbrushes in the cup had to be aligned in a row," says Weigel.

The Riederinger describes a strange, sometimes absurd world in which the rulers were called Fidelis, Suitbert or Sophronius.

There were also human teachers, says Weigel.

With some others, on the other hand, it scares the listener.

In the seventh grade he saw a prefect who owned four canes, in four different strengths.

"If someone wanted to punish someone, he would first stand in front of the four canes that were hanging there and ask: 'Which one should I use now?'"

But there are not only bad memories of the boarding school

Weigel paints the picture of a gloomy institution in which the monks themselves made life unbearable for one another.

"They were real thugs," he says.

"Maybe because they were frustrated." Weigel doesn't want to demonize anything.

He doesn't have bad memories of everything.

The food was good.

In any case, there was no shortage; after all, the monastery had its own farm.

They were used in classes to pick potatoes, always with a basket for two students.

Whoever picked it up the fastest was rewarded with a glass of lemonade.

The school was also good, at least better than what he had experienced in his hometown of Ecking: four classes in the morning, four classes in the afternoon.

And all of that in one room – this is what the school system looked like in the agricultural state of Bavaria in the early post-war period.

Algasing obviously offered more.

And that's why many parents brought their children to Dorfen.

At least ten of his classmates were from Rosenheim, Weigel estimates, "from all walks of life."

At least Weigl didn't notice anything about sexual abuse.

Was it just beatings and harassment, or were children also sexually abused, as in Ettal boarding school?

"I don't know," says Weigel, at least nothing of the sort happened to him.

He hadn't heard anything about it either.

However, decades later, at class reunions, some students "really became hateful," says Weigel.

He had to, or rather was allowed to, leave after three years because he had proven himself to be a ringleader.

His younger brother also left the boarding school.

“Since then he has closed with the church,” says Weigel.

He did his military service in Oldenburg, not far from the coast.

He always loved the sea, says the Upper Bavarian.

Maybe because you only see space and no walls.

He later worked for Bayer, then for the large undertaker Denk.

His attitude remained: "I don't like injustice." And his strained relationship with authorities remained.

The church?

Weigel takes a deep breath.

He was even on the parish council.

His relationship to the church as an institution has cooled.

But he also says it is to the Order's credit that he apologized in 2010.

In the former boarding school, the Brothers of Mercy now run a care facility for people with disabilities.

This also reconciles Weigel with his past.

Through the abuse report, however, a lot has now come up again.

"I wanted to tell my story," says Weigel.

To show how fragile a child's heart is."

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Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-04-24

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