Station: [105] The Old Schoolhouse

F: No sooner had he taken up his post as schoolmaster, than Michael Lipp found himself facing his first major problem. This was back in 1811, and the school where he was meant to be teaching was at risk of collapse! Well, part of it, anyway.

M: But it took several more years before the old building was finally declared unfit for use. In the autumn of 1818, the matter was finally solved. The new school building was ready: "two-storeys, bright, hygienic, spacious and well furnished". It housed two classrooms, a teacher's flat and the town hall. Today, the "Old Schoolhouse" hosts, among other things, the local library and the "Kulturbühne", a cultural venue with regular events.

F: For a long time, Michael Lipp was the only teacher in the village. There were times when he was teaching up to 140 children. Lessons were held from 8 am to 11 am and from 12 noon to 3 pm, excepting Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. Sunday school was from 12.30 to 2 pm.

M: Teacher Lipp was clearly very energetic: he was also the organist, the choirmaster and the sacristan. And as churchwarden, he even managed the parish funds. He died in 1857, and the parish later named an entire street after him – Lehrer-Lipp-Strasse.

F: The opposite of good Teacher Lipp was a man called Georg Haintz. He was the first village schoolmaster mentioned in the historical record. As to whether Georg Haintz was a decent teacher, nobody knows. But he was certainly good with a gun.

M: In February 1710, the teacher and his accomplice, the farmer Johannes Beck, were dragged out of their beds in the middle of the night – and arrested on a charge of poaching.

F: How on earth could it have come to that?

M: School was only held in the winter months. So in the summer, the teacher had to find other ways to earn a living. Among the customers of his illegal enterprise were several priests, a district clerk and an innkeeper. The authorities even regarded the teacher as the leader of an entire "herd of poachers".

F: Georg Haintz, meanwhile, refused to accept he was guilty of anything. After all, poaching wasn't a sin, even his priest agreed with that, and besides, he'd never fired at a huntsman. Indeed, he prayed five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys every day.

M: But all his protestations were for nothing. On the 27th of June 1710, Georg Haintz, the "arch-villain and inveterate poacher", was executed.
 
Fotos: © Jürgen Bahnmayer