Gustav Mesmer

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Typical watercolor by Gustav Mesmer from 1987. Old wallpaper. (Private property)

Gustav Mesmer , also brother Alexander (OSB), (born January 16, 1903 in Altshausen / Oberschwaben ; † December 25, 1994 in the Diakonie home in Buttenhausen ) was a flight (bicycle) bike maker, visionary and basket weaver.

Life

Gustav Mesmer was born in 1903 as the sixth of twelve children. After his school career, which was greatly shortened by the First World War , Mesmer was only 11 years old at the time, he worked as a so-called “contracting boy” and cheap labor on various estates. While working in the economics department of the Untermarchtal monastery , he was persuaded by a Vincentian sister to join the Benedictine order. After six years as brother Alexander in the Benedictine monastery of Beuron , he ended his stay in the monastery shortly before taking holy vows .

In 1928 he began an apprenticeship as a carpenter in his home town of Altshausen. His master gave him a good testimonial, but "his own and quiet being" was noticed. On March 17, 1929, Mesmer disrupted a confirmation ceremony in the Altshausen village church with an unchristian declaration that "the blood of Christ is not being distributed here and that everything is a hoax anyway". Eleven days after the incident in the church, he was admitted to the Schussenried psychiatric sanatorium because of his religious crush and disturbance of public order .

In Schussenried he was employed in the bookbinding shop and was considered a "capable worker". According to his stories, Mesmer read in a magazine in the institution's bookbinding shop about an Austrian and a French who wanted to fly on a bicycle. His irrepressible will for freedom - Mesmer made 16 attempts to escape in the late 1930s - he expressed, inspired by the uninterrupted thought of flying, by drawing and making model aircraft in all variations: based on ancient models, only powered by muscle power. On October 10, 1932, the following note appeared for the first time in his medical record: "Invented a flying machine, submits corresponding drawings".

After the Second World War he learned basket weaving in the institution. In 1949 he was transferred to the Weissenau State Psychiatric Hospital at his own request . In 1962 he wrote his biography with the title “Of a person whose life path led through orders like psychiatric hospital”. Due to the negligence of the authorities and the lack of accommodation for his relatives, his applications for release dragged on for years. In 1964 he was finally released into a self-determined life.

A retirement home in Buttenhausen , a small village on the Swabian Alb , was Mesmer's last stop in life. Here he caused a stir when testing his model aircraft made from all sorts of scrap, for example with a converted women's bike. After some time he received the name "Icarus vom Lautertal" from the population. None of his flying objects have ever lifted off (but he always maintained that with one of his models he would have “hopped” a few meters).

In old age he was able to experience how his flying bikes were presented in exhibitions as " Outsider Art ", including a work show in Altshausen Castle and in the adventure station created by Manfred Gruber for the German contribution to the world exhibition " EXPO 1992 " in Seville " The dream of flying".

Autobiography

  • Gustav Mesmer - Flugradbauer, called Ikarus vom Lautertal , ed. from the office for design Kirchentellinsfurt. Tübingen: Silberburg-Verlag , 1999 (4th edition), ISBN 3-87407-314-9

Movies

  • Gustav Mesmer - the aviator , director: Hartmut Schoen
  • Gustav Mesmer's dream of flying , directed by Hartmut Schoen
  • Gustav Mesmer - As free as the birds , director: Holger Reile
  • Earthbound movie about the Flugradbauer Franz Seeliger, Director: Oliver Herbrich

music

  • Ikarus vom Lautertal by Grachmusikoff on the album Thank you. Nice

Exhibitions

  • Gustav Mesmer - "called the Icarus from Lautertal" (photographs / texts / sketches); Ed. Culture under the umbrella. Kirchentellinsfurt: Verlag Simon / Hartmaier / Mangold / Schirm, 2002. The catalog was published on the occasion of the Mesmer exhibition from November 17, 2002 to January 19, 2003 in the "Carl Schirm" business park in Kirchentellinsfurt .
  • Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen, until June 28, 2015
  • Art et Marges Museum in Brussels, 2017
  • State Palaces and Gardens of Baden-Württemberg, Schussenried Monastery, 2017: Floating, flying, falling - The human space in visions of art (One room was dedicated to Gustav Mesmer)

literature

  • Franco Zehnder: Flugträume (2 Leporello with 4 segments each with photos and sketches), Verlag Architektengruppe Rutschmann + Partner, Stuttgart, 1989
  • Hartmutöffel et al .: Gustav Mesmer ; in: Hartmut Löffel (ed.): Upper Swabia as a landscape of flying. An anthology . Konstanz & Eggingen: Edition Isele, 2007; Pp. 151-174. ISBN 978-3-86142-429-1 (including poems by Mesmer).
  • Holger Reile: Der Ikarus vom Lautertal , in: Neues Deutschland from July 21, 2011, p. 14
  • Gustav Mesmer, called Ikarus vom Lautertal , audio CD, Silberburg-Verlag Tübingen, 1998, ISBN 3-87407-449-8 .
  • Stefan Hartmaier u. a .: Gustav Mesmer, called Ikarus vom Lautertal. (Catalog of works with ill. 450 pp. German / English), Patrick Frey Verlag, 2018, ISBN 978-3906803739
  • Ulrich Mack: Airplane builder - private monk - visionary: Gustav Mesmer, his religious searching and thinking . Psychiatrie u. History, 2018, ISBN 978-3931200237

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Radio play: A tinkerer in portrait. “The Icarus vom Lautertal” conquers the Dornier Museum in Friedrichshafen on January 15th . In: Schwäbische Zeitung from December 30, 2010
  2. ↑ Schussenried Monastery :: Personalities: Gustav Mesmer. Retrieved June 11, 2020 .

Remarks

  1. ↑ according to other information as the fifth of ten siblings
personal data
SURNAME Mesmer, Gustav
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German flyer, visionary and basket weaver
DATE OF BIRTH January 16, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Altshausen , Upper Swabia
DATE OF DEATH December 25, 1994
Place of death Buttenhausen