Status: 11.11.2023, 15:00 PM
By: Sebastian Grauvogl
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Looking forward to leafing through: (from left) Edgar Maier, Barbara, Carl Langheiter, Helmut Maier, Gerhard Braunmiller and Alexander Langheiter. © Thomas Plettenberg
It took Carl Langheiter three and a half years to catalogue all the boxes from the private archive of the Wallach, Schießl and Maier families in Miesbach. Now the work is complete.
Miesbach – "Shooting target, 28.5/29.7 slightly oval, two centimeters thick, painted on softwood. Given by A. Ellmann on November 30, 1882, won by Mr. Hummel, motif: girl with cat in her arms, bullet holes marked in red." Carl Langheiter has documented in detail, almost meticulously, the collection of the former mayor of Miesbach, Johann Baptist Wallach (1821 to 1885), his son Ignatz Schießl and his grandson Johann Baptist Schießl. And the target was only the first number of – watch out – 1037. Langheiter not only described every single piece (more than 3400 in total before the summary) from the dozens of boxes that are still stored in the attic of the family's house on Miesbach's town square, but also photographed or scanned them.
Only five volumes printed
Now, three and a half years later, the catalogue is ready. Together with Wallach's descendants, the brothers Helmut and Edgar Maier, the former chairman of the Miesbach Museum Association has now presented this mammoth work to Mayor Gerhard Braunmiller and city archivist Barbara. Langheiter had five volumes – each with the textual descriptions and all the photos in black and white and their colour counterparts printed on DVD. Two copies for the city, one each for the Maier brothers and one for Langheiter himself. The (now labeled) boxes with their articles, also provided with archive numbers, remain in the warehouse on the town square. Langheiter sees a museum use at best in the form of thematic special exhibitions. The diversity of the archive as well as the period of 160 years (1770 to 1930) that the contents cover would otherwise simply overwhelm you.
But why all the work? "I'm just a curious person," says Langheiter. This is an explanation for his motivation, which is hardly comprehensible to many outsiders, to dig through the – completely unsorted – estate of an apparently passionate collector for years. But according to Langheiter, it is at least as extraordinary that the boxes have not only survived for generations without falling victim to clearing out. In fact, the population continued to grow steadily until the early 1950s.
Private documents, but also a lot of historical information about the city of Miesbach
Part of the fascination with archiving the collection was the mixture of insights into the private life of a Miesbach baker's family and historical views of the city and the people living there at that time, explains Langheiter. The boxes contain countless correspondence, documents, photographs and postcards. In many cases, there is at least a rudimentary description with names and dates. Where this was not the case, Langheiter had to make a classification by comparing it to other documents or, in some cases, drawing conclusions from his own historical knowledge. The historian admits that he refrained from sorting the archive chronologically because of the much greater effort involved. "This work is reserved for those who are interested in it at a later date," he writes in the foreword to the catalogue.
But as it is, leafing through the book makes you feel like rummaging through the boxes in the attic. On every page, behind each archive number, there is a small window into a long-forgotten time in Miesbach's city history. And if you are willing to take a look at it, you can even understand Langheiter's curiosity a bit.
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