Prof.-Wackerle-Straße
Prof.-Wackerle-Straße 8, “Gästehaus Zufriedenheit.”
“Zufriedenheit” means “satisfaction” or “contentment” in German.
According to Manuel Bückl on the guesthouse’s website, Johann Rieger, the grandfather of the current owner, built this house and gave it its name.
Admitting that although there isn’t any proof, the website goes on to explain that Johann Rieger was an illegitimate son of the Bavarian King Ludwig II — the product of a secret love affair at the Königshaus am Schachenhigh, in the mountains high above Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
There, this legend goes, his young mother, Marianna, was employed as a maid, and “It can be proven that Marianna Rieger spent a long time in the immediate vicinity of the king at the time of conception, on King Ludwig’s birthday on August 25, 1879. Almost exactly to the day, 9 months later, on May 27, 1880, Johann Rieger was born in Partenkirchen.”
“Even if he himself never displayed his royal origins, there are still a number of hidden references to it at the House Contentment. An exciting search for traces is worthwhile.”
An inscription on the oriel window on the front of the hotel says:
Sollt ich aus allen Gütern wählen
So wählt ich mir Zufriedenheit
Mein Glück mag keinen Neider quälen,
Genug, wenn es nur mich erfreut.
Which translates, loosely, to something like:
“If I should have to choose from all that is good, I choose ‘Contentment.’ Not to be tortured by envy, it is enough if it only pleases me.”
Heinrich Bickel painted a female figure on the back of the hotel in 1948/49, embodying this idea of “Contentment.” Beneath, an inscription that says, “Satisfaction is such a great treasure and has so little space for people”.
At the same house, Bickel designed a large, narrative lüftlmalerei on the side of the building, the “Adoration of the Shepherds.”
Decorative, beautiful colors, fluttering robes, and an artistically rendered stable frame Bickel’s later Neo-Baroque style.
Online, at the Bavarian State Archives, you can see photos of this guest house when it was one of the only buildings on the block, when Bickel’s paintings were still new, here and here.
