Holzknecht
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Holzknecht is an old, colloquial term in Bavaria and Austria that is still used today for forest workers . The logging was regulated there by a so-called wood master system.
The wood foremen were independent entrepreneurs who, in accord with their own workers, the wood cutters, took over the felling and transport of the wood to the storage areas for the mostly state forest offices . These lumberjacks usually came from the "sub-peasant class" and were entrusted by the wood foremen with all work , not just the forest work. In those places where one wanted to avoid the enormous amount of wood required to build so-called giants (slides) and Klausen (weirs for the wood drift) for the purpose of transporting the felled wood into the valley, the heavy logs had to be brought there on sledges by the woodcutters in winter. This venture was dangerous and daring, which killed many people. It was not until the end of the 19th century that such farmhands were only used to work in the forest. The wood master system ended at the beginning of the 20th century. From then on, the forest offices themselves employed the lumberjacks.
Since a large part of the woodwork was done earlier in winter, this was often done by carpenters etc. who only found work in summer in their main occupation. The earnings of the lumberjacks were mostly below that of other day laborers , but the type of work, the freer life of the lumberjacks and their distance from some of the constraints of life in the village made the activity a worthwhile profession for many young men and generated their own self-confidence. The former Austrian forester Joseph Wessely wrote in The Austrian Alpine Countries and Their Forests (1853) : “Holzer and Köhler are the kings in the Alps on the dance floor and with the prostitutes ... they set the tone for merrymaking, inventors of the most popular songs and the most fitting chatter ".
At the end of the 19th century there was still no statutory social system . Therefore, when the loggers were no longer able to work in the forest, they had to move to the community poorhouse . Staying in this poor house was conditional on being able to chop wood or do other work for the community. If they could no longer do that either, they had to go "to the quarters". This meant that every citizen of the community, graduated according to their wealth, had to take in such a community poor in their house for half a day up to three weeks.
The timber industry was particularly highly developed in the catchment areas of the salt works such as Berchtesgaden , Bad Reichenhall , Traunstein , Rosenheim etc., which constantly had a great need for firewood. The Holzknechtmuseum Ruhpolding shows the work and life of the woodcutters.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ See the Lexicon of Lost Professions by R. Palla, keyword “Holzhauer”, p. 140
literature
- Sepp Paukner: Forest worker in the Upper Bavarian saltworks area. WVB, Regensburger Schriften zur Volkskunde Volume 7, Bamberg 1991, ISBN 3-927392-24-3 .
- Sepp Tiefenbacher , Hiltraud Ast : The Gutensteiner Holzknecht. Speech, work and life. Illustrations from the Lower Austrian - Styrian border mountains, Society of Friends of Gutenstein, Perlach Verlag, Augsburg 1997, ISBN 3-922769-26-8 .
- Ekkehard Schwartz : Working and living conditions of forest workers in the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century in Germany. KWF report no.24. Kuratorium für Waldarbeit und Forsttechnik eV (KWF), Groß-Umstadt 1998, 196 pp.
- Uwe Tobä: Between stopwatch and splitting ax - the history of forest worker training in the 20th century. Interdisciplinary investigation with special consideration of forest work science and professional and work pedagogical developments, basics and justifications. Conte-Verlag, Saarbrücken 2003, 472 pages, ISBN 3-9808118-7-5 .
- Josef Aschenwald, Martin Reiter: The old lumbermen from Zillertal - Horuck! How it used to be ... Edition Tirol, Reith im Alpbachtal 2005, 160 pages, ISBN 3-85361-106-0 .