On the trail of the Schongau healing waters

Created: 06/01/2023, 08:00

By: Elke Robert

This votive tablet shows a fountain on the right near the Heiligkreuz chapel in Schongau, the water of which is said to have healing properties.

© Stadtarchiv Schongau

Was there a healing spring in Schongau that brought relief to those suffering from eye problems?

This was mentioned recently on a field trip, and also in the building committee, because the water is simply discharged into the sewage system.

What do you know about the source?

How valuable is the water?

The search for clues is difficult.

Schongau

– It was Bettina Buresch (Greens) who recently brought the issue up for discussion in the building committee: During an excursion by the Bund Naturschutz (BN) on the subject of water, attention was drawn to it.

During their tour, the participants passed the Holy Cross Chapel, where an important eye-healing spring is said to have flowed.

There is also a citizen's application.

"Now it's unsightly, the source, and would have to be revised," Buresch wished.

"Currently, this healing water is fed into the sewage system, that's outrageous, we have to change that."

Works around the city walls

Sebastian Dietrich was aware of the citizen's request that contact had been made.

However, the city master builder also emphasized that it would not be easy to find a solution: "This requires complex planning, soil investigations are necessary." He pointed out that all areas around the city wall are to be gradually tackled anyway wool.

As is well known, the Sonnengraben is to be redesigned in 2023.

Water trickles quite unspectacularly from the Schongauer Berg not far from the Heiligkreuz chapel.

©Robert

Dietrich's suggestion included two steps: Making the source visible once you have reached this point during the renovation of the city wall area.

Until then, a sign could draw attention to the former source.

Rainer Engler from Schongau, who was a speaker on the BN excursion, was “shocked” about the condition of the former source.

"She's run down and not well cared for," says Engler.

The cool water seeps away inconspicuously

However, he has no concrete indication that it could be a healing spring specifically for eye diseases - in contrast to other springs in the area such as the Ulrichsbrunnen in Paterzell or the Frauenbrünnlein in Rottenbuch.

During an on-site visit with the city archivist Franz Grundner and the former district home caretaker Helmut Schmidbauer, it quickly becomes clear: more than a few drops of water are not coming out of the mountain at the moment, the cool water seeps inconspicuously against a wall diagonally opposite the Heiligkreuz chapel on the footpath towards the Münztor the west side of the city wall.

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On site: City archivist Franz Grundner (right) and the former district home caretaker Helmut Schmidbauer at the Heiligkreuz chapel.

©Robert

But it is no longer about that legendary healing spring anyway, the Schongauer Berg carries a lot of water with it, says Schmidbauer.

Grundner knows that the area was completely redesigned during construction work in the 1950s and 1980s.

But the source did exist: To supply the citizens, the spring water, which rises at Café Holl, was once piped underground with wooden water pipes to the Heiligkreuz chapel.

Around 1900 there must have been a cast-iron fountain there.

The spring water could also have served as a drinking trough for cattle.

gaps in the records

Before the Second World War, however, this fountain must have been finally closed.

"The city is currently trying to renature the springs that are fed into the canal," reports Grundner, who has also discussed the issue with Florian Hiemer.

He is the manager of the Schongau public utility company.

However, the project is not easy: Because there are gaps in the existing records, one often no longer knows exactly where the water comes from and which routes it takes.

Many believers made pilgrimages there

And is the former fountain at the Heiligkreuz chapel really healing water?

Schmidbauer previously had a votive tablet in the Schongau town museum.

It shows a farmer dressed in red, whose horse pulls a cart, apparently with a seriously ill child in it.

The inscription reveals that in 1710 the farmer Davidt Köpfle from Ingenried brought his 13-year-old boy to the pilgrimage church, who was then probably healed.

On the left the Holy Cross Chapel, on the right a bubbling fountain.

Whether the spring really stood right next to the church, as depicted on the votive tablet, can no longer be verified today.

It could also just be artistic license.

But it is documented that it is a pilgrimage church.

The first mass in the originally semi-circular wooden chapel was held in 1606, and many believers made pilgrimages there.

There was probably a spring before the pilgrimage church

As can be read in the Schongau parish community, the Schongau citizen Georg Bader is said to have been cured of paralysis after he had visited the image of the crucified Savior.

From 1690 the wooden building was replaced by a stone building.

"Each pilgrimage church needs water," says Schmidbauer.

He even assumes that the source came first and that the Schongau pilgrimage church was only built afterwards.

Records from that time repeatedly mention the healing connection in combination with church and water.

Reports are "highly speculative"

In a list of healings in the last quarter of the 18th century, around 80 percent affected "the bones, rheumatism or the walking apparatus".

Eye problems are also mentioned again and again.

"But I don't have any concrete reports of pure water healing, so we're struggling to prove something," says Schmidbauer.

Grundner expresses himself much more soberly: "All reports about the healing effect of the spring are highly speculative."

"In the Middle Ages it was assumed that water was particularly helpful for eye problems," reports district home warden Jürgen Erhard, who also took part in the excursion.

The belief in the protective effect of holy water is also deeply rooted in the population.

Schongau was a “climatic health resort”

Erhard recalls another major water source in Schongau: coming from the Rösslekellerberg, it also fed what was then the Johannisbad on what is now Fanschuhstraße at the foot of the city wall.

The "climatic health resort of Schongau" is suitable "according to medical judgments based on many years of experience", not only for summer holidays, but especially for convalescents from serious illnesses, for people with a weak constitution and for those who, because of a large number of illnesses, or just general nervousness need a strengthening stay," says an advertising brochure for the Johannisbad from 1887.

But even Erhard has no evidence for a healing effect of Schongau spring water, quite apart from the fact that, when used internally, minerals in the water are of course beneficial to health.

The Johannisbad is no longer there, but what has remained from that time is the possibility of water cures according to the teachings of Sebastian Kneipp.

The facility on Lechuferstraße has only recently been renovated, but of course has nothing to do with a possible healing spring.

So what is the story about the Schongau healing waters?

Perhaps Helmut Schmidbauer's sentence fits best: “You learn to believe in it.

When you are in dire need, you grasp at straws.”

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