As of: February 29, 2024, 9:00 a.m
By: Michaele Heske
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People and their CVs are Hans Prockl’s passion (left).
In 50 years he has had, recorded and written down conversations with a wide variety of people in the Isen Valley - such as with the Isen photographers Anton (M.) and Stefan Böld.
© Hans Prockl
In his book “Isental Protocols”, Hans Prockl publishes conversations from 50 years and thus records a slightly different piece of contemporary history.
Eastern district - Hans Prockl spoke to people in the Isental for 50 years - about their home, work, life, the country, about this and that. 50 years of oral history, which is now available as a book.
Prockl recorded these conversations and published them as the “Isental Protocols”.
A total of 17 stories, all based on tape recordings between 1973 and 2023, lead the protagonists through a long-lost time.
The focus was on wandering shepherd Florian Feußner, who drove his flock of 800 sheep through the Isental between 2015 and 2017.
The sheep farming industry has lost its high reputation, he says.
Because modern agriculture makes sheep dung superfluous, flocks of sheep are now even a “thorn in the side” of many farmers.
An excerpt from Prockl's notes: “The young Feußner is not deterred by hostility.
Feußner: 'I think a farmer is coming'.
Farmer: 'That's a good Oktoberfest!'
Feußner: 'But it's also grass.'
Farmer: 'It's field grass, a field grass!
That's not for Schof!'” Scenes like this happen every day.
Feußner, who even had to take a master's examination, is above it, explains the shepherd.
The shepherd and his flock have now migrated.
Prockl also visited the last crossing guard in Dorfen at his workplace before it was rationalized away because the small railway crossing to the former Meindl factory site was closed.
Or the frogwoman from Niedergeislbach, who used to search for water veins with her dowsing rod, is no longer alive.
“All contemporary witnesses who reported on conditions that no longer exist in the Isental today,” says Prockl.
Prockl, who was born in 1948, felt the urge to document lives and people at an early age.
He himself cannot explain why this is so.
“It’s similar to the passion of a mountaineer; it never lets you go,” he says.
In 1964 he bought a tape recorder with the wages from a summer job.
That’s when his conversation recordings began.
In 1978 he began filming and photographing.
Although Prockl has been taking portraits with his camera and recording the protagonists' words since he was 16, the amateur filmmaker consciously decided against a career in the media: "I'm not a commissioned writer, I'm only interested in people."
After studying physics, he lived in Munich for a long time.
For 37 years he taught mathematics, physics, computer science and documentary film at the schools of the Pfennigparade Foundation.
The lessons with handicapped students left an impression on him.
After his retirement, Prockl returned home.
Today he lives in the small village of Wörth in the Isental.
“Interest in memories has increased,” says Prockl.
In his book he also talks about the former Angermaier bakery in Lengdorf, which David Hanus has now taken over.
On Tuesdays and Fridays, Robert Angermaier is still in the bakery and continues to produce Schuxn, Hauberlinge and lard noodles.
The recordings are from 2018. “The report was particularly wanted by the son, who decided against becoming a baker.
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A special treat are the original sounds from Andreas Scheuer, the former Federal Transport Minister, at the opening of the A94 on September 29, 2019. Prockl transcribed his speech and captured “Scheuer in his typical manner of speaking”.
Anyone who thinks about the great resistance to the road construction project has to smile every now and then, for example when Scheuer offers the motorway opponents, “I argued before... I shouted, I had a liver casserole.”
Most recently, Prockl literally filmed on his doorstep in the Isental; he spent months capturing the new construction of the Isen Bridge in the village of Wörth near Schwindegg.
In April 2023, Prockl interviewed Anton Böld from Isen.
The 86-year-old photographer and his son Stefan, who also enjoyed photography, provide insights into the history of photography.
Back when photography was still done with the Leica and the images were developed at Agfa in Munich, to today, when the images on the memory card are simply edited using Photoshop.
The method of recording such conversations through the media is called “oral history”.
Prockl says that the main aim is to give a voice to those people who are hardly taken into account by traditional historiography.
“So that something remains,” says Prockl.
Because “a book is a sustainable medium.”
Book sales
After Prockl's book "Landleute", the "Isental Protocols" are now also available for 21 euros in the Dorfen bookstore and in Leseglück in Erding or directly from the author: hans.prockl@t-online.de and in the Böld photo shop in Isen .