As of: March 28, 2024, 4:30 p.m
By: Tanja Brinkmann
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When the bells are silent, the altar boys are called upon to vigorously turn the crank on the ratchets in the Oberammergau church tower. © Sebastian Schulte
The trigger was a visit to Glentleiten. Christian Stückl discovered an old Oberammergau ratchet. He and two spezl rebuilt it, reviving a custom in 1979. From Maundy Thursday onwards, the bells will be silent again this year, instead there will be a loud clatter.
Oberammergau
– The bells are silent before Easter. At this time, Christians remember Jesus' suffering and death on the cross. Good Friday in particular is a quiet holiday. One that is all about mourning. Of course it doesn't stay completely quiet. In order to still call the believers to prayer, there is a lot of rattling. A tradition that was revived in Oberammergau 45 years ago.
Christian Stückl discovered a historic ratchet in the Glentleiten open-air museum. Made of wood that rattles well. The Passion game director must have been 17 years old at the time. And very curious. He began researching with two specialists from the traditional costume club and found that there had been no rattling since the end of the Second World War. Why? Stückl can't remember. The 62-year-old remembers that he, Manfred Bauer and Christoph Feldmeier measured, drew and ultimately recreated the exhibit. On Good Friday 1979 the boys and their ratchets were ready.
We'll be chatting until Easter Sunday
These have played an important role before Easter for centuries. This is because, as Adolf and Hildegard Rehm explain in their book on customs, they have been “a sign of mourning over the death and suffering of Christ” since ancient times. According to the Rehms, in the 14th century, pilgrims to Rome also used the ratchets to draw attention to themselves with the noise in the individual villages and to beg for some money. Now it's all about announcing the prayer and service times. This is taken care of by the altar boys who start rattling in Oberammergau on Maundy Thursday at 7 p.m. and continue until Mass on Easter Sunday. At 4:57 a.m. there is one last clatter. And also with the approximately 1.5 by 0.5 meter ratchets that Stückl and Co. built.
The old ratchets that Christian Stückl and his friends built in 1979 are in the church tower. © bartl
“We fixed one of them this year,” says Florian Alzinger, one of the senior altar boys. New boards were installed and a few broken tenons were replaced. Now it's hanging on one of the sound holes again and one of the 14 guys is turning the crank hard. The operation, which lasts three minutes each, is strenuous. “You change hands every now and then,” says the 19-year-old. It is an honor for him to keep this tradition going. They will be rewarded with a Ratscher breakfast. And Alzinger enjoys the view from the church tower.
Church attic - a real treasure trove
Stückl and his friends certainly paid attention to this, but they were even more interested in the attic through which they got to the tower. A true treasure trove. “That’s where we discovered the Holy Sepulchre,” says Stückl. The glass balls were washed and the whole thing was put back up. Two flags that were carried in the Corpus Christi procession also appeared there. “We had them prepared by a seamstress,” remembers Bauer. The motivation for him and his friends was to “reintroduce old customs”. However, after one attempt, they gave up on the idea of placing the large and, above all, heavy cross at the back of the gallery in the chancel at Easter.
Nevertheless, they continued rummaging in the attic. “We sat up there a lot,” says Stückl and laughs. His Santa Claus robe also comes from the church warehouse. “We found a lot of good things,” confirms Bauer. And a lot of things have also been revived, like ratcheting.
The 17 and 18 year olds back then attached great importance to ensuring that everything was correct. That's why they couldn't accept the fact that the priest didn't want to stop the hourly chime for technical reasons. “We just wrapped the clapper tightly,” says Bauer. By Easter Sunday only the rattles could be heard.