Tegernseer in the Sendlinger Murder Christmas

Over 300 years ago, brave men from the Tegernsee Valley marched to the Battle of Sendling to liberate Bavaria from imperial occupation – 109 paid with their lives.

On December 25, 1705, the devastating "Sendlinger Murder Christmas" occurred just outside Munich. More than 1,000 insurgents from Upper Bavaria died attempting to liberate Bavaria from imperial troops. Among the dead were 109 men from the Tegernsee Valley. Although their efforts were hopeless, their memory has lived on to this day: a famous votive picture in the Egern parish church, a memorial plaque in the former Tegernsee monastery church, and the monumental memorial in Waakirchen commemorate their sacrifice.

In 1898, the Tegernsee Veterans and War Veterans Association had the names of the dead from Tegernsee and Wiessee immortalized on a memorial plaque in the former monastery church (on the rear wall of the right aisle). In the Bräustüberl, then as now a meeting place for the valley's residents, their history remains part of the regional identity.

Photo: Herbert Thiess, Wikipedia. The Sendling Peasants' Battle of 1705, detail from the fresco by Wilhelm Lindenschmit the Elder at the old parish church in Sendling.

Brewery Newspaper 13 (2005)