As if the blacksmith is making a snack

Created: 06/16/2022, 09:02

By: Andrea Graepel

Has learned how to use a hammer and iron over the years: Karl Steinbeißer from the Erling-Andechs home club.

© Photographer: Andrea Jaksch

The big blacksmith festival for the 550th anniversary of the old forge in Erling two years ago had to be cancelled.

Now it's being made up for, and there's twice as much reason to celebrate.

Erling -

The old forge in Erling is probably the second oldest building in the monastery village of Erling.

It was not listed as a monument until 2008 and was extensively renovated with funds from the European funding program Leader, among other things, before it was reopened in July 2012 and has been open regularly for forging shows ever since.

It was the Erling-Andechs local history association that got involved in restoring the Erling village smithy.

Among others, the chairman Karl Strauss and after the reopening above all Karl Steinbeißer have immersed themselves in the history of the forge and know every hammer and tongs.

Steinbeißer, who will take care of the museum building after it reopens, has been able to learn a lot from blacksmith Fritz Kappelmaier over the years.

"I'm always doing something," says Steinbeißer enthusiastically.

Finally, artful plant sticks for your own garden.

The story of the old forge rolls easily off the lips of the 84-year-old Steinbeisser.

Every last Saturday of a month, he tells interested visitors about it, while Kappelmaier stokes the fire and introduces those interested to the art of blacksmithing.

Steinbeisser is convinced that the smithy already existed in Roman times.

It was mentioned with the church for the first time in 1470 as "Schmiede bei sant Veith", today's parish church of St. Vitus, in the property register of the Andechs monastery.

The residential building was directly opposite, right next to the Gasthof zur Post.

Blacksmith Symon Koler paid the monks a pound of wax as rent.

“Wax was precious,” says Steinbeisser.

A high price.

At that time, a pound of wax corresponded to the annual salary of a master blacksmith and had to be painstakingly collected from wild bee stocks.

"There were extra wax climbers for that," says the local historian.

And the monastery needed wax for its candles.

"There was no electricity."

For 400 years there was no further written mention of the old forge.

It was not until 1868 that Georg Beer wanted to add two new dining rooms (fireplaces) and a charcoal cellar to the rear of the building.

Until then, the smithy was probably open.

"The wood cultivation is probably from this time," says Steinbeißer.

The blacksmith was primarily responsible for the hoof shoeing, in the main building for the horses, in the annex a shelter for cattle, which had to be specially secured with a belt because, unlike horses, they cannot stand on three legs.

The last blacksmith's name was Kaspar Bernhart.

He died in 1965, just 33 years old and childless.

The house opposite was demolished in 1975.

The old forge was inherited by the neighboring Pfänder family, who used it as a storage shed.

"Nothing had been changed," says Steinbeisser.

He had helped to take inventory of everything when the building became the property of the municipality of Andechs in 2008.

"It looked as if the blacksmith had just gone out for lunch," he recalls.

This is exactly how it was preserved and how it affects the visitor to this day.

After all, fires are regularly stoked again.

The oldest part, even older than the forge itself, is proven to be the "anvil stick", a block of oak wood, the date of which is assumed to be in the 1570s.

"But the tree was already a few years old by then," says Steinbeißer.

The results of the dendrochronological investigation are well preserved in the records of the Heimatverein.

80 broad annual rings are noted for the oak block.

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Steinbeißer, who came to Erling in 1961 as a maltster and brewer and later served as chief inspector for the Herrsching police, is still enthusiastic about the history of the old forge and the many stories surrounding it.

On Sunday, July 17th, both anniversaries will be duly celebrated: 550+2 years old forge and ten years reopening.