Peace tree and jousting in Schondorf

Created: 08/03/2022 10:43 am

By: Dieter Roettig

With a direct hit, the she-devil of the costume association sent the engraver from the church choir into the Ammersee.

With this clear victory, the jury did not have to intervene under the red umbrella.

© Roettig

Schondorf – Normally there is a proper celebration when municipalities in two countries sign a partnership agreement.

Because of Corona, there was a touching but sober ceremony last year when Schondorf and Italian Boves officially sealed the friendship they formed in 2015.

The celebration has now been made up for with a boozy summer party in the lakeside facilities.

Feucht not only because of the Bavarian beer and Italian wine, but because many participants in the jousting involuntarily took a dip in the Ammersee.

Before the fun, Mayor Alexander Herrmann and his counterpart Maurizio Paoletti planted a peace tree decorated by school children.

Because the underlying reason for the close connection is an old family grave in the Schondorfer Friedhof, where the war criminal Joachim Peiper was buried in 1979.

At first nobody in Schondorf knew anything about an SS Standartenfuhrer Peiper, at times even Adjutant Heinrich Himmler.

Until 2013, a group of believers from Boves in Piedmont paid a visit to the Catholic parish of Schondorf to pray for peace and reconciliation at the grave of Joachim Peiper.

On September 19, 1943, Peiper and his Waffen-SS battalion murdered 23 people and set fire to 351 houses in the town of Boves, which today has a population of 9,000.

Peiper, sentenced to death after the war and pardoned again, was imprisoned in the Landsberg prison for war criminals until 1956.

In 1976 he died in a house fire in his adopted country of France.

One suspected an act of revenge by former resistance fighters.

Peiper's body was not released until 1979 and was buried in the family plot in Schondorf, although he had never lived there.

In addition to the parishes, a close exchange of ideas with mutual visits also developed between Schondorf's mayor Herrmann and his colleague Paoletti as well as committed municipal councillors.

At the celebrations for the 77th anniversary of the massacre, Herrmann was even made an honorary citizen, along with local councilor Kurt Bergmaier, who, according to Herrmann, was one of the “connectors” to the association.

Because Bergmaier was born on September 19, 1943.

Exactly on the day when the darkest chapter of history took place in Boves.

As early as 2015, both municipalities had signed a friendship agreement on the way to an official town twinning.

This was now celebrated with the long overdue summer festival in the lake complex.

A highlight for the audience was the fishermen's jousting organized by the water rescue service with 16 teams, each consisting of a rower, counterweight and engraver.

Hundreds of spectators applauded enthusiastically when the combined team of the Schondorf yacht and sailing club was crowned the overall winner.