Even in lockdown his squeeze table rang
90th birthday
Musician, excavator, poet and local researcher Norbert Müller will celebrate his 90th birthday on November 17, 2021.
Frankfurt – Compared to his beloved hometown, Norbert Müller is only celebrating a small anniversary today. But the fact that his 90th birthday falls on November 17th, on which Schwanheim was first mentioned in a document in 880, is far more than just a statistical coincidence for him. It was and is his life’s work to let his roommates share in Schwanheim’s lovable past and present.
After his decades-long career as an excavator, local researcher, poet and musician, the pandemic could not be frightened on countless carnival and homeland evenings: Even in the strongest lockdown, he opened his living room window, reached for the “squeeze table”, as he lovingly calls his little accordion, and sang with his self-composed Schwanheimer hymn “Who doesn’t know you, my Schwanem?” against the general sadness and desolation.
At 89, Frankfurt got Corona – and survived
Then Corona caught him too, fortunately only with a mild course thanks to a double vaccination, even at the age of 90. Nevertheless, Müller had to stay in hospital for a few days for treatment and observation. “But on my special day I was able to go home in time,” said the happy birthday child. Now, Müller prefers to take it easy and safe with two celebrations for relatives, close friends and guests of honor – congratulations at a distance is the order of the day.
When little Norbert saw the light of day in 1931, Schwanheim had been part of Frankfurt for three years. “Molly”, his Uzname, sang and wrote poetry in his earliest childhood, but also with sporting successes as a boxer, track and field athlete and handball player at TUS Schwanheim and Eintracht Frankfurt, about which he shone after his work in the Vibo leather works in Schwanheim also found his position in sales and storage in the Georg von Opel dealership.
With the folding spade to the castle ruins
How Müller got his calling as an excavator, he tells in a special publication of the magazine “Die Port” of the homeland and history association Schwanheim, which he co-founded. “Inspired by a book of legends about the Nibelungen, I wanted to know more about our Germanic and medieval ancestors and in the spring of 1959 I went to the first secret excavations on the Falkenstein castle ruins with a folding spade”, he remembers.
Ulrich Fischer experienced. At that time, together with like-minded people, he was allowed to dig up the remains of a Roman estate and the Goldstein moated castle.
Many of his finds ended up in the Schwanheimer Heimatmuseum, founded in 1973. “Dr. Fischer was almost like a father to me,” recalls Müller. Because he himself had changed from Saul to Paul, i.e. from treasure digger to local archaeologist.
In retirement, Müller wrote a Schwanheim novel
After his retirement, the local researcher, the doctor, zoologist and Schwanheimer chronicler Wilhelm Kobelt as his role model, found even more time for his passions: Müller wrote books with poems, sagas and stories that he put together from archive documents, and his Schwanheim novel “Schwedenfeind “.
He works in the archives of the local history museum, leads excursions and wars at numerous Schwanheim forest readings, local history and carnival events with his squeeze table, always a welcome guest.
One of the rare events of the cheerful Schwanheimer was the death of his beloved wife Betty six years ago. lonely Müller lives alone, but he does not get lonely. Because his daughters, grandchildren and neighbors stop by regularly during the pandemic.
Two more wishes from the jubilee Norbert Müller: “That I stay clear in my head and that I can soon open the window again in dry weather and play my music.” For Schwanheim and of course the Schwanheimers.