The local train
Die Lokalbahn is a play by Ludwig Thoma , which he wrote in 1901 and which premiered on October 19, 1902 (in the Residenztheater).
action
The play in three acts is about the visit of the mayor Friedrich Rehbein of Dornstein to the responsible minister in Munich . The reason is the planned route of the new railway to be built and the required train station in Dornstein. The planned route and the planned construction site of the train station far outside the town are criticized. The garden of the brewery owner Schweigel, who is also a municipal representative, is cut up by the railway line.
After his return from the audience with the minister, the mayor claims to have given the minister his opinion to some citizens, some of whom are also authorized representatives of the municipality, and to the newspaper editor Heitzinger who is present, and is first commended for this and on the evening of the day by praise and a booth concert Song board honored.
The newspaper editor Heitzinger reported a little exaggerated on this the next day and afterwards the citizens and some municipal representatives feared falling into disrepute with the state organs. The chosen son-in-law Dr. Behringer, district judge and thus civil servant, then withdraws from the mayor's family.
The mayor confesses to his wife and his brother (major) that in reality he did not have a say in the audience before the minister and that he did not speak because the minister had been so friendly from the start.
The municipal representatives then visit the mayor and want to persuade him to turn around. He tells them that no "bad words" have been spoken. When the local newspaper editor Heitzinger arrives, the mayor and the local authority reprimand him sharply for his reporting. He undertakes to publish a revocation and to admit his error. Then the mayor is given a second declaration of honor through the song board, because he sacrifices everything “for the good of the city”.
Background and history
Ludwig Thoma lived in Dachau from 1894 to spring 1897 . There he ran a law firm, went on excursions into the Dachau hinterland to Oberbachern and Unterweikertshofen , took part in the life of the farmers in the Dachau region with his affable manner and shared a seat at the regulars' table in the Zieglerbräu Dachau with the local dignitaries . The railway enthusiast Thoma probably also took the material for the three-act play "Die Lokalbahn" with him from this time.
The birth of the actual local railways was the Bavarian Local Railways Act of April 21, 1884, according to the most important provision of which interested municipalities now had to purchase the land for the railway line themselves, which at that time only amounted to around 10 percent of the total investment, after which the state of Bavaria built and operated the route . The local railway lines were made full-track, so that a seamless transition from main lines to local lines and vice versa for passenger and freight traffic was possible. In the Dachau region, interested parties from various communities also came together and formed a provisional committee on December 2, 1893, but initially to promote a main line from Dachau to Aichach . However, the state government referred to the possibility of building a local railway. In 1897 a "Railway Committee" was founded again in Dachau to support and plan the construction of a local railway. The railway line should lead from Dachau via Webling , Bachern , Sickertshofen , Schwabhausen , Oberroth, Großberghofen , Walkertshofen , Unterweikertshofen , Sittenbach , Langengern , Plixenried and Oberzeitlbach to Altomünster . Since in this conception the market in Indersdorf was not to have a rail connection, a general assembly of all citizens of Indersdorf with voting rights was called there in 1898. There a counter -project was decided for the local railway Dachau-Altomünster , which should not run from Dachau, but from Röhrmoos , via Indersdorf to Altomünster. Because of these two competing projects, jealousies and quarrels arose between some communities interested in railway construction. They culminated in the fact that the community representatives of Altomünster, Stumpfenbach , Oberzeitlbach, Kleinberghofen , Eisenhofen and Unterweikertshofen declared on July 10th, 1899, “Never and never will they support a futile Röhrmoos – Indersdorf – Altomünster railway project and one and only incessantly in all To be loyal to Dachau ”.
It can be assumed that the jealousies and quarrels were followed and observed by Thoma and that these provided the material for the play. The piece was first started by Thoma under the working title "secondary railway". At the beginning of August 1901 he reported to his publisher A. Langen that the piece would soon be finished and suggested a price of 2 marks for the book edition. In another letter, Thoma reported on a three-act play with the working title "Friedrich Rebholz". The third act was completed in July 1902. While Thoma was working on the final version in 1902, the German Empire slipped into an economic depression, so that the Dachau – Altomünster local railway project was not built. Thoma therefore moved the piece to another location in an urgent procedure. This is how the Dachau local railway came to Dornstein, where the Traunstein – Ruhpolding line had been built a few years earlier under equally violent feuds .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Martin Klaus: The freedom of the writer. Retrieved June 2, 2019 .
- ^ A b Martin A. Klaus: Ludwig Thoma: A fictitious life . dtv, Munich 2016, p. 97-99 .
- ↑ Tony-Wolfgang Metternich: The local line Dachau-Altomünster . In: Amperland . Bayerland, 1973, p. 354–357 ( zeitschrift-amperland.de ).