• home
• adventure mine
• miner's village & shelter hut
• history
• geology
• placement
• hiking
• sports
• photo
• fun & game

calendar application shop download guestbook links help sitemap contact impressum

Reports of accidents, sickness and death run like a red thread through the history of Schneeberg. Ever since its early beginnings, there have been references to mysterious deaths. Miners who stayed at Schneeberg for long periods of time died young. For many years, this was believed to be due to the thin air at that altitude, but finally it was discovered that the drinking-water contained dangerous quantities of heavy metals, including lead, which is poisonous. Even as late as 1940, Hans Wallnöfer reported that, when he first worked at Schneeberg, he could not drink the water and suffered from severe attacks of colic.
Silicosis, once called miners’ cough, a typical disease of Schneeberg, had always been fatal. Breathing in the fine dust in the galleries and enrichment plant led, in the course of time, to atrophied lungs. Coughs, asthma, and heart disease were the stages of this perfidious illness which, in extreme cases, transformed healthy young men into half-suffocated chronic invalids in the space of two years. The situation became particularly serious after 1923, when pneumatic hammers for drilling the rock were introduced. It was not until after 1950 that the first masks were distributed by the management, but the miners, underestimating the danger, often did not use them, because they prevented them from breathing freely and had to be cleaned at regular intervals. 1961 brought a certain amount of relief, when the first pneumatic drills complete with water sprays came into use, eliminating the worst of the dust. Other dangerous diseases reported at Schneeberg were smallpox, tuberculosis, various types of intestinal worms, rheumatism, and alcohol addiction.
Seriously ill workers were generally taken down to the valley, in winter on sledges. The nearest hospital was at Sterzing. A hospital was built at Schneeberg around 1900, on the banks of the river (the roof is scheduled for restoration in the near future). A maximum of ten patients could be cared for in two large wards. The presence of the mortuary on the western side, with a separate entrance, was not particularly encouraging, since in winter frozen bodies often had to stay there several days before they could be carried down to the cemetery. In the last years before mining ceased, the ‘hospital’ was located between the clerical staff’s lodgings and the inn.
Supervisor Wallnöfer tells this version of a miner’s funeral:
‘On the day of the funeral, when the miners gathered before entering the mine for the first shift, the name of the dead man was also called. Then the whole team, instead of answering ‘Present’, shouted ‘Glück auf!’ and a minute’s silence was observed. Miners who were not on duty, dressed in traditional costume and with their flag, accompanied their dead companion to his burial place. The foreman followed the coffin to the grave with his decorated miner’s pick lowered. After the benediction, he raised the pick and declared: ‘According to the ancient miners’ custom, to you, companion, for your last descent into the shaft, a treble affectionate ‘Glück auf!’ Then he commanded: ‘Team forward!’ With this ‘Glück auf!’ repeated three times, the dead man’s friends set his coffin in the grave, the flag was lowered, shots were fired, and the miners’ band played the salute to the flag’.