The name "Mühlhiasl" stands for a figure that has become deeply rooted in Bavarian folk culture. Behind the figure is said to be Matthias Lang (ca. 1753–1805) from the Rabenstein area in the Bavarian Forest – a man who is described in the stories as a simple farmer, as an observer of nature and finally as a "seer".
There are hardly any historically verified documents. Much is based on oral tradition that was not written down until decades later. Nevertheless, Mühlhiasl has remained a symbol of Bavarian folk prophecy to this day.

Interestingly, some of his statements are compared with those of Alois Irlmaier, although the two are far apart in time. The similarity of many motifs is striking – but scientifically unexplained.

The prophecies attributed to him revolve around topics that are still being discussed today. They are not dated, but they describe developments that many people currently perceive as real.

In several traditions it is said:

These lines are often interpreted as an indication of polarization, loss of trust and social division – developments that have shaped Europe for several years.

Mühlhiasl spoke of a time in which:

Historians see this as typical warning images of the time. Many today interpret these statements in the context of inflation, energy prices and geopolitical uncertainties.

As with Irlmaier, Mühlhiasl also contains references to a sudden military conflict in Europe:

However, many of these sentences were not recorded until long after his death – so it is unclear how authentic these traditions are. Nevertheless, they still influence discussions about security, NATO borders and geopolitical risks today.

The Bavarian Forest, characterized by storms, storms and a harsh climate, is reflected in his statements:

, too, parallels to today's climate debates come to mind – regardless of how seriously one takes prophecies.

How reliable are the traditions? ((Quite soberly:))

There are no original documents from Mühlhiasl.
All known quotes were collected much later – often decades after his death.

Folklorists assume that several Bavarian seer figures were merged into one legend, including the so-called "Stormberger". Mühlhiasl is thus more of a product of traditional narrative culture than a historical clairvoyant in the modern sense.

But it is precisely this mixture of myth and reality that makes his character exciting.

Because his pictures – no matter how old they are – fit frighteningly well into our time:

Many people are looking for orientation and compare historical warning images with current developments. Mühlhiasl is often seen as the admonishing voice of past generations – not as a prophet, but as a mirror of our fears and questions.

MFRadio.de stands for sober, independent information. Therefore,

Mühlhiasl is less a clairvoyant than a cultural archive of Bavarian worries, hopes and world views.

Whether you believe in prophecies or not, Mühlhiasl reminds us that Europe has always been at turning points. Many of his pictures can be understood as a warning:

In doing so, Mühlhiasl – consciously or unconsciously – hits the core of what moves many emigrants, critics of the system and freethinkers today.

Mühlhiasl remains a fascinating piece of Bavarian cultural history. His words are not predictions, but they are a mirror of our time – and perhaps an indication of how sensitively Europe reacts to upheavals.

The legendary forest prophet Mühlhiasl is said to have lived and pondered here.

Hunderdorf is the home of the legendary forest prophet Mühlhiasl. The places that have fatefully influenced the life of Mühlhiasl are the mill in Apoig, the Windberg monastery and the monastery mill in Dambach.

 

The village of Apoig, birthplace of Mühlhiasl, was located in the municipality of Hunderdorf until the sixties. Today it has merged with the village of Hunderdorf. Only Apoiger Straße and a plaque in front of the Sandbiller restaurant remind us of this name, which was better known in the past than the main town of Hunderdorf. The mill in the former Apoig is now indicated by the "Mühlhiaslweg".

 

The village of Apoig gained its fame through the seer and prophet Mühlhiasl, who was born at the mill there. When this mill was built has not yet been researched; it is certainly very old and must be counted among the many mills that were built in the Middle Ages. The water of the numerous streams and small rivers of the Bavarian Forest inspired people very early on to drive waterworks such as mills, hammer forges and, more recently, with turbines to generate electricity.

 

The oldest known record of the Apoig mill dates back to the second half of the 17th century, when Kaspar Hagnberger was a miller at the Apoig mill in 1676. In that year, his wedding with his fiancée Maria took place. Kaspar must have died soon and left no descendants.
Not far from Apoig, in the village of Höllmühle near Mitterfels, the miller family Lang lived on the mill there. Of the many male children, not all could hope for the inheritance of the mill. When son Joachim Lang learned of the Hagnberger's death, he saw the possibility of becoming independent by marrying Hagnberger's widow. So it came about that his wooing was heard and in 1669 he was able to lead the widow Maria to the altar. This marriage established the line of the Lang at the Apoiger Mühle, who were subsequently found in Apoig for five generations.

 

The marriage certainly produced several children. One of them, Simon Lang, became the father of Matthias Lang, born in 1722 (or 1725). He was the only child of Simon Lang. On July 6, 1745, he married Anna Maria Iglberger from the nearby village of Grub, with whom he had the children Mathäus (Mühlhiasl), born 16.09.1753, Johann, born 25.04.1755, Anna, born 1757 and Anna Maria, born 1762. Since the father of the children is mentioned as a widower in 1770, his wife Anna Maria must have died early. He entered into a second marriage and fathered the children Joseph, born in 1781, Wolfgang and Jakob.

 

The most famous of the many children was Mathäus, who became known as Mühlhiasl beyond the borders of his homeland as a seer and prophet. He was baptized by Father Johannes Nepomuk Altmann in Windberg Monastery, and Georg Bayr (Baier) von Buchberg (Vorderbuchberg), then the parish of Hunderdorf, acted as godfather. At the lower monastery mill in Dambach, Mühlhiasl learned the miller's trade.

 

From his father's brother comes his son Johann Georg Lang, who later became a miller in Dambach. Mühlhiasl's brother Johann was a shepherd in the Windberg monastery until 1801 and then a millhand with Lettl at the upper monastery mill in Apoig. Half-brother Josef worked at his father's mill in Apoig.

 

Mühlhiasl as a miller

In 1788, Mühlhiasl married Barbara Lorenz von Recksberg near Haibach. She bore him eight children; the youngest son was John the Evangelist; two boys and a daughter died early.

 

As early as 1778, Mühlhiasl took over the mill in Apoig from his father (in the case of Backmund only in 1799). Unlike his ancestors, Mühlhiasl was a bad economist. Whether the rich blessing of children or other circumstances were to blame, we do not know. He bought bad grain and thus spoiled the business. In his financial need, he took out a loan of 75 guilders from Windberg Abbey in 1799. Since he was unable to pay off the debts in the following period, he had to leave the mill in 1801, which was owned by the monastery. In this context, he made a prophecy concerning the fate of the monastery. When he was once left standing in front of the monastery gate and chased away, he prophesied: "Well, I am going, but as you chase me away now, others will soon chase you out of the monastery!" Just two years later, the Fathers were expelled from the monastery during secularization in 1803.

 

The fate of Mühlhiasl

Now Mühlhiasl was homeless. With his family, he first found shelter in the outbuilding of the lower monastery mill in Dambach, where his grandmother and a son died. Some want to know that his wife Barbara moved to her parents in Recksberg and then to relatives in Straubing, where she found work in a nursery and was able to buy it in 1805. There is no trace of his half-brother Joseph; two of his daughters hire themselves out as housemaids and marry, two boys are said to have emigrated.

 

The mill in Apoig was sold in 1801 to the miller Josef Lettl von Irlbach for 3450 guilders, which he sold two years later for 7750 guilders. And the Mühlhiasl? He did not stay long in Dambach. In 1804/05 there are reports of a dispute with his brother Johann, which caused him to leave his homeland. It drove him into the forest. He went from mill to mill as a mill judge and repaired damaged facilities. He is even said to have hired himself out as a cattle herder and coal burner in order to survive. He is said to have stayed in the area around Rabenstein and found his final resting place in Zwiesel. There is a lot of speculation about the place and time of his death. Exact details are not known. He is said to have died in 1809, because in that year his wife Barbara is described as a widow. Others postpone his death to 1825, the year in which his brother Johann also died. Pastor Landstorfer places his death in the period between 1810 and 1820, W. J. Beck even between 1825 and 1830. Can this mystery ever be solved?

 

The fraternal quarrel and the Mühlhiasl cross

An event from the life of Mühlhiasl should be mentioned here. Wolfgang Johannes Beck writes in his book "Mühlhiasl", the seer of the Bavarian Forest. Interpretation and Mystery":

 

In 1935, the parish provost Lecker von Hunderdorf was called to a dying woman. She lived in the Obere Klostermühle, the Apoigermühle, which had previously been donated to Mathäus Lang, alias Mühlhiasl. After Pastor Lecker had administered the last sacraments, he noticed a damaged, completely sooty crucifix on the wall next to the fireplace. The wooden Christ's arms hung down, and some parts were missing from his crossed feet. The crossbeam was out of plumb. Pastor Lecker reports verbatim: "When I looked at the cross, the daughter of the dying woman said, "Mr. Pastor, do you want that cross?" When I said yes, I took it off the wall. While she wrapped it in newspaper, she told me that this was the Mühlhiasl Cross. Once Mühlhiasl had a quarrel with his brother here in the Apoigermühle. This brother was Johann Lang, born in 1755, who was employed as guardian of the Windberg monastery. We do not know what the reason for the dispute was. In the course of the dispute, the brother pulled out a knife and attacked the Mühlhiasl. The latter sprang to one side, tore down the crucifix in the Lord's Corner, and struck it over his brother's head. The brother's injuries must have been very serious, because Mühlhiasl left the Apoigermühle on the spot and hid in the forest. His brother survived the dispute and died many years later in the parish of Hunderdorf. Occasionally, it had also been suspected that Mühlhiasl had fled for fear of legal prosecution.

 

The prophecies of Mühlhiasl

He is said not to have returned to his homeland. In the dark rooms of the Waldler huts, young and old alike listened to him when he gave his prophecies and prophecies. One was amazed at his intelligence and eloquence; many smiled at him, others admired his gift of vision. Much of what Mühlhiasl had predicted has now come true, but some is waiting to be realized.

 

For more than a century, Mühlhiasl's prophecies were only passed on from mouth to mouth. One can imagine that many things were added or omitted that came out of Mühlhiasl's mouth.

 

Pastor Georg Mühlbauer, who died in 1921 at the age of 93, learned about Mühlhiasl's prophecies from his father, who lived to be almost 97 years old and whom Mühlhiasl is said to have known personally. The first written publication dates from 1923 from the pen of the pastor Johann Evangelist Landstorfer, who died in Oberalteich in 1949. He learned the prophecies that appeared in the Straubinger Tagblatt from the mouth of the pastor Mühlbauer. It is therefore thanks to him that they have remained alive today.

 

The more opaque the times are, the more people tend to listen to old prophecies and bring them back to mind. Again and again you hear: "Mühlhiasl already prophesied that!" From the oldest written records of the prophecies of the forest prophet we take the following lines. It is noteworthy to note that most of the prophecies of Matthias Lang, as Mühlhiasl's real name was, end with him predicting a "clearing of the world", i.e. a kind of catastrophe. Many of these interpretations of the future seem to have been fulfilled, even if one can often interpret and interpret his words in a variety of ways.

 

Half a century ago, Pastor Landsdorfer von Oberalteich dealt in detail with the life story of Mühlhiasl and wrote down and published his visions of the future.

 

"A time is coming when the world will be cleared away and the people will be fewer". Many of his prophecies are grouped around this statement. "When the peasants with waxed boots (rubber boots?) to stand in the manure shop; when the peasants dressed like the townspeople and the townspeople like fools; when the men put on red and white hats - it's never far away." If we think of the variety of fashion in recent decades, there is a little truth in this statement.

 

"When the people do nothing more than eat and drink, when the peasants eat nothing but cakes, when peasants eat cakes, when peasants eat chickens and geese themselves - when peasants plough up all the boundaries and hew out all the stevedores (hedges), when peasants all politicize..... the night is never far away." There is no denying that we are all doing quite well as far as nutrition is concerned. Was he also alluding to the land consolidation that was being carried out everywhere?

 

Many of his interpretations of the future are aimed at the development of traffic: "When the black road goes up from Passau, when the black road comes over the Danube and runs into the Böhm, when the iron dog barks up in the Danube, when people can fly in the air, when wagons drive without horse and drawbar, when most people drive with two-wheeled carts, so fast that no horse or dog can run along, and then it won't be long in line." To these statements, if they really come from Mühlhiasl, there is probably nothing to add. In Hunderdorf, it indicates exactly the place where the railway line was later built: "Up to here and no further".

 

He also made statements about the settlement of our area. "In the city, five- and six-story houses are being built, houses are being built everywhere, houses are being built like castles and vicarages, schoolhouses are being built like palaces." If we look at the modern way of building, Mühlhiasl could not have been wrong at all. "In Lintach, everything is full of houses and mud huts, but afterwards nettles and blackberry brats grow to the windows exceptively." At the former pond of Eglsee, he indicated exactly the places: "A house will be built there", there is now the parish hall. The following prophecy is difficult to interpret. Did it mean the house in Breitfeld or the Noltewerk, which had been unplastered for a long time? "A house is built, but is not expanded beforehand, even if it has been built for a long time."

 

Regarding religion, he predicted: "First come the many anniversaries - everywhere there is preaching about faith, everywhere there are missions. No one cares about it. The people are getting really bad. Religion becomes so small that it is put into a hat. Faith becomes so thin that it can be dismissed with the scourge. Faith becomes so little that it can be driven away by the snapping of the scourge. The Catholic faith is best ridiculed by one's own Christians."

 

He also knew how to report on the economy: "The gold goes to iron and steel. For a gold piece you can still buy a farm. - Wood is as expensive as sugar, but it's enough." Will the energy crisis have to serve here? - "Same money comes up. Money is made, so much that you can't even know it, even if it's nothing but paper flanks (inflation after the 1st World War!), the people can't get enough of it. Suddenly there is no more".

 

Since things are subsequently foisted on Mühlhiasl as "prophesied" that he did not say at all, it is understandable, because we humans will always put our interpretations, our fears and fears into it, but also our longing for peace and security. 

On Dec. 31, 2001, a new book was presented in the Straubinger Tagblatt under the title "Auf den Spuren des Mühlhiasl, eine faktenerhebung". The author, Dr. Wolfgang Odzuck, states that it was not the hitherto alleged Mathias Lang the Younger, born 16.09.1753, who was the so-called "Mühlhiasl, the seer", but his brother Johann, born on 28.04.1755. The author comes to this assumption through the study of his life and the requirement profile for the Mühlhiasl. Dr. Odzuck was strengthened in this statement by a printed report around 1920 by J.B. Raun, who does not mention the seer as Mühlhiasl, but Mühlhansl several times. Hansl is the short form of the name Johann. This assertion is a completely new point of view in Mühlhiasl research.

 

As far as the prophecies of the seer of Apoig are concerned, Dr. Odzuck has not discovered any significant differences from the already known statements of other authors. The new book deals in detail with the lives of the people who are connected with the prophecies of Mühlhiasl or Mühlhansl, which are briefly discussed here. Odzuck researched the knowledge of this while studying the church records (birth, marriage and death articles) of the parish of Hunderdorf in the Episcopal Central Archive of Regensburg, in the State Archives of Landshut, the Mitterfels Nursing Court and in many other sources.

 

Mathias Lang the Elder was married to Anna Maria, née Iglberger, von Grub near Hunderdorf. Both had the children Mathias the Younger and Johann.

 

Mathias the Younger was born on 16.09.1753 in Apoig. He was married to Barbara, née Lorenz (born 28.11.1765) from Recksberg near Haselbach and had 7 children with her (with other authors there are 8). Among them were the sons Wolfgang, born 08.09.1789 and Josef, born 08.01.1791. Mathias the Younger is said to have taken over the mill from his father in 1778 and 1788 respectively. In 1801 he moved with his family to Straubing, where they bought a nursery. Mathias the Younger is said to have died in Straubing in 1805. He was previously regarded as the well-known prophet Mühlhiasl. Mathias Lang the Younger was actually baptized as Mathäus, but almost all authors call him by the name Mathias.

 

Johann Lang, born on 28.04.1755, was the brother of Mathias the Younger and married Anna Maria Schreiner in 1789, the illegal daughter of the weaver Johann Schreiner von Rankam near Degernbach. Her mother Walburga Schreiner married Anna Maria, née Mayr from Untermenach, to Johann Lang. According to Dr. Odzuck, Johann was the prophet Mühlhiasl who became known in the forest. He is described as a shepherd in the birth entry of the sons Jakob and Martin. After the sale of the Apoiger mill, Johann is said to have lived with the new owner Joseph Lettl as a mill servant and then with his cousin Georg Lang at the monastery mill in Dambach. After a quarrel with his brother Mathias, he disappears from Apoig and hires himself out as a shepherd in the central Bavarian Forest. However, he must have returned to his hometown, as he was buried in Hunderdorf on 08.07.1825. Johann could not write, which can be seen from the marriage letter of his son Jakob dated 21.01.1825. Johann Lang had the sons Jakob, beb. 17.07.1790 and Martin, born 11.11.1791.

 

Georg Lang, son of the brother of Mathias Lang the Elder, i.e. the cousin of the brothers Mathias the Younger and Johann, was born on 24.04.1757 on the Höllmühl near Mitterfels. During the secularization of the monastery in 1803, he acquired the monastery mill in Dambach. In 1804 he married Rosina Staudinger and died on 07.02.1833 at the Klostermühle as a miller and farmer.

 

Whether Mathias the Younger or his brother Johann, as Dr. Odzuck claims, is the famous prophet of the forest, is certainly not yet clear for the person of the seer known as Mühlhiasl. In any case, these new research results have also confirmed that the Mühlhiasl or Mühlhansl lived and was a member of the Lang milling family, which has been documented at the mill in Apoig since 1689.

 

Owners of the mill in Apoig:

 

until       1689 Kaspar and Maria Hagnberger

from        1689 Lang

            family 1778/1788 Mathias Lang the Younger

            1799 Tenant Johann Probst

            1801 Joseph Lettl

            1803 Wolfgang Sperl

            1804 Johann Schießl

            1811 Auction

around       1850 Fire damage

            1908 Josef Hobmeier

            1968 Georg Schneider

            1986 Dieter Schneider

The legend from the Bavarian Forest is said to have predicted the following events:

Author: Tom Weyermann / MF-Redaktion
Sources: Bayerisches Archivar / Wikipedia / SüdOstVerlag