Mohrenplatz
At the Bavarian State Archives online, you can see this photo taken by Max Beckert some time between 1900 and 1905 of what, at that time, was a building at Mohrenplatz 1 with lüftlmalerei which have since been lost.
On the Eastern wall of what is now Mohrenplatz 1 there is a large lüftlmalerei by Heinrich Bickel, first painted in 1935 and restored in 1997 by Sebastian Pfeffer.
In “Allegory of Ages,” Bickel depicts children picking flowers, a young mountain farmer with scythe, a dairymaid with a cow and an old, bearded woodworker on a backward ascending mountain meadow.
The style is an amalgam of the two most prominent lüftl painters in Garmsich-Partenkirchen, a blend of the stoic romanticism of the original artist Heinrich Bickel and the restorer’s attention to detail.
In 1740, on the site of an old smithy, a large house with a stable was built at what is now Mohrenplatz number 4.
In 1840, the community purchased this building and converted it into a school with two classrooms and living space for the teachers.
Now, it’s home to Fischer’s Mohrenplatz Inn.
In 2005, the town announced a complete redesign of Mohrenplatz, and Andreas Fischer won the bid to build a tavern on the site. Although construction was delayed, his “Mohrenplatz” opened on December 9, 2007.
The lüftlmalerei around the window frames and in the gable above were added in the spring of 2008 by church painter Rainer Wagner from Bad Bayersoien. The mural in the gable depicts the owner’s family’s history and the Inn’s place in Garmisch.
On the far left, a Bavarian tavern scene with Garmisch’s skyline and the Wetterstein Mountains. On the right, a market stall with the Abbey in the nearby village of Ettal near Oberammergau in the background. The fish seller in the market stall is the owner, Andreas Fischer himself, whose family has roots in Ettal.
Altogether, the image suggests that Fischer’s restaurant here in Garmisch sells fresh, regional food, while acknowledging where he and his family came from.1
Mohrenplatz, or “Moor’s Square,” was named in 1927 for the Hotel “Drei Mohren” — or “Three Moors” — which, for nearly 100 years, stood at Mohrenplatz 7.
In the 1880s, Joseph Reiser managed the Hotel Gasthaus zu den drei Mohren on Ludwigstraße in what was then the nearby and separate market town of Partenkirchen.
In 1890, he expanded and established a Hotel Drei Mohren here in Garmisch.
However, the hotel closed in 1978 and the building went vacant in 1982.
Today, the only remnant of that once eponymous hotel, is the lüftlmalerei of three “Moors” (an old heraldic euphemism for “Black men”) painted by Franz Winterhöller in 1984.
The three “Moors” in the mural are holding tailor’s tools, and the banner beneath them says: “Kleider machen Leute,” — or “the clothes make the man” — likely advertising, while at the same time harkening back, for a clothing store that took the place of the Hotel.
- Fischer, Andreas. "AW: Frage zum Wandbild an der Außenwand Ihres Gebäudes in Garmisch-Partenkirchen". Message to the author, 3 May 2020. E-mail: "Das Wirtshaus „Mohrenplatz“ wurde im Jahr 2007 gebaut; die Fenstereinfassung bzw. das Giebel-Bild wurde im Frühjahr 2008 von Rainer Wagner aus Oberammergau – jetzt Bad Bayersoien angefertigt. Auf der von vorne gesehenen linken Seite ist das Wetterstein-Gebirge und eine Wirtshaus Szene dargestellt; Auf der rechten Seite ein Marktstand (Verkauf) und das Kloster Ettal abgebildet. Der Verkäufer mit dem Fisch hat eine Ähnlichkeit mit dem Auftraggeber Andreas Fischer, dessen Familie seine Wurzeln in Ettal hat. Das Bild soll somit auf das Wirtshaus und den Verkauf von regionalen und frischen Produkten, sowie den Standort (Garmisch) und des Herkunftsortes von Andreas Fischer hinweisen."