Lothar Mühlheisen’s Obituary in the Heritage of the Metava Vinedresser Josef Hammerin

Abstract

The author deals with the interconnected destinies of two Styrian families between the two world wars: a vinedressing family from Metava, and the family of the Maribor lawyer and political representative of the German community in Styria, Lothar Mühlheisen. The vinedresser’s documents kept by his descendants (much to their surprise) include the obituary of Mühlheisen, who was President of the local Kulturbund group for Maribor between 1931-1935 and was later court-martialed and sentenced in absentia in 1945 in Maribor. The obituary unveils a tragic saga of two families from the same troubled and unquiet place and time, however, of different ethnicity and, above all, social background and consequently, mentality. The key document in the study is Mühlheisen’s 1954 letter (possibly a draft) to the Minister of the Austrian Government, which has been preserved by the descendants and constitutes a (self)portrayal of a German family/community in Maribor. The lawyer, also the owner of three vinedresser cottages in Metava, decisively marked the life of the local vinedresser Hammer, who died in 1946. Official records say that he committed suicide; unofficially, however, he was pushed into the River Drava by two locals from Metava. The article is a reflection upon the traumas that the protagonists pass unknowingly onto future generations. It also shows how post-war violence was not only an epiphenomenon of establishing socialist power but also something that had a decisive impact on human relations.