After 48 years of service in the town hall: employee retires - and still keeps going

Created: 03/10/2022, 08:00

By: Catherine Hauser

Christine Marksteiner is now retired, but she continues to look after the market archive.

© Gronau

After 48 years of service at City Hall, Christine Marksteiner has retired.

At the meeting in the market archive in the "Max-Biller-Haus", she explains why she continues to work for the market town of Peißenberg.

Peißenberg - It was love at first sight: "I saw these two gentlemen and knew that it would be something for me," says Christine Marksteiner.

She's sitting in one of the blue armchairs on the second floor of the Market Archives, one hand pointing over her shoulder to the wall behind her.

There hang the pictures of Jörg Ganghofer, the builder of the Munich Frauenkirche, and of Gerhoh Steigenberger, who was, among other things, the court librarian at the court library in Munich.

Both have a connection to the "Süßbauer" farm - one received it as a fief, the other was even born there.

Work in the market archive: "Working there, that's it for me"

The pictures of the two celebrities were already hanging in the old market archive, says Marksteiner.

When Max Biller showed her the archive that he had set up on the upper floor of the Peißenberg town hall around 13 years ago, her first glance fell on these two paintings and she knew "It would be for me to work there," says Marksteiner, who was interested in “old things” as a child.

"The atmosphere, the mood, everything" fascinated her in the market archive.

But at first she didn't dare to ask Biller if she could work with him.

"I couldn't imagine anything when it came to archiving work."

The market archivist, who was already looking for someone to support him in his task, noticed that Marksteiner would be the right person and asked her if she could imagine helping out in the archive.

She could.

In the beginning, she did her chores there after her work in the town hall, but that changed with the move to the so-called "Rasp-Haus", today's "Max-Biller-Haus", says Marksteiner.

The mayor at the time, Manuela Vanni, suggested that the market archive should be opened once a week and that Marksteiner could do this during her working hours.

Since then she has been there almost every Wednesday from 2 to 4 p.m.

At the beginning, market archivist Biller was still regularly in the archive.

He kept telling her how happy he was that Marksteiner was supporting him so actively.

In the last year before his death in spring 2018, Biller was no longer in the market archive, he was simply too weak, says Marksteiner.

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Many regular visitors come to the market archive

Since that day she has been solely responsible for the market archive.

Answers e-mails from people who are interested in Peißenberg history or are looking for their ancestors, helps archive visitors who have questions, classifies new exhibits or new material, selects reading material, looks at things that are offered to her and reads herself many texts.

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Actually, whenever the archive is open, someone comes by, says Marksteiner: "There are regular visitors, but also passing customers." A 14-year-old boy from Peißenberg is one of their regular customers.

"He actually comes every week and now knows the archive almost better than I do." Marksteiner says that some pensioners from Peissenberg are also regular visitors to the facility.

So far she has looked after the archive alongside her work at the cash register in the town hall. Now she has retired there after 48 years in administration, but she does not want to and cannot stop working in the market archive completely.

The Wörtherin is still very enthusiastic about history and archive work.

“The allure of the new has become routine, but it never gets boring.

Every day is different in here,” says Marksteiner.

That's why she agreed when she was asked if she could imagine continuing the market archive in retirement.

It is nice work and also a welcome fixture for her.

On her first day as a pensioner, she unlocked the market archive.

"And as long as I can, I'll keep doing it."

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