Manfred Gnädinger

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Man in July 1998

House of Manfred Gnädinger in Camelle, Galicia.

Sculpture by Man

Manfred Gnädinger (Boehringen, Germany 1936 – Camelle, Spain, 28 December 2002) a.k.a. Man or O Alemán was a German hermit and sculptor who lived in the village of Camelle, on the Costa da Morte, in Galicia (Spain). He lived a very simple and natural life, building sculptures on the beach where he lived and tending to his small garden. In November 2002, when the oil spill of the Prestige destroyed his sculptures and the ecosystem of the area he lived in, it is thought that Man let himself die of melancholy and sadness, thus becoming a symbol of the destruction unleashed by the oil spill.^[1][2]

Hermit and sculptor[]

In 1962, Manfred Gnädinger or "Man" arrived in the small village of Camelle on the Costa da Morte, in Galicia (Spain) from Boehringen at Lake Constance in southern Germany. His whereabouts before this period are unknown. He was described as having been well-dressed and educated, when he arrived. It is said that he went mad after falling in love with the teacher of the village and being rejected. A few years later, after becoming sensitized to ecological issues, he built himself a small hut on the beach of the village, next to the Atlantic Ocean, and spent the next thirty years in this place, where he quickly became a curiosity of the village. Inhabitants referred to him in Galician as O Alemán (the German), then just "Man", a name he eagerly accepted for its symbolism. Tall, with a long beard, and dressed only with a loincloth in any weather, he would swim out in the Ocean, even after he was fifty years old. He had no electricity or running water in his hut, and was a strict vegetarian, eating only from the small organic garden he had created.^[3]

Man executed colorful sculptures out of stones, driftwood, animal remains and other elements washed up by the sea, which sometimes reminded people of Gaudí's work. Tourists would come to visit the open-air museum he had created where the sculptures integrated into the natural landscape. Man's only source of revenue was a small fee (1€ as of 2002) he would ask from everyone visiting the Museum of the German. Man would also ask visitors to do drawings for him in small notebooks. More than 1000 of such notebooks were found after his death with around 200,000 drawings.^[4]

The Prestige[]

On 13 November 2002, the oil tanker Prestige developed a huge leak in one of its tanks during a storm off the coast of Galicia. After four days, it split in half and sank into the Atlantic Ocean. A few days later, Man woke up to find his life ruined by an oil spill. Tons of oil had washed up on the beach where he lived. Most of his sculptures were irremediably destroyed and the oil even reached his house. Man was absolutely devastated, his whole life work destroyed before his eyes, and the natural environment where he lived heavily polluted for years to come.^[1]

A month later, he was found dead in his hut. He had had circulatory and respiratory problems, but most local people believe that he died of melancholy and sadness at the sight of the complete and utter destruction of his life by the oil spill. The Camelle authorities organized and paid for his funeral, and hundreds of locals attended.^[1]

Thousands of birds and fish died in the aftermath of the oil spill, but Man was the only human victim. His life and his death are remembered as a symbol of the destruction unleashed by the Prestige. His museum, which he bequeathed to the ministry of education and cultural affairs, before his death, can still be visited in Camelle^[5] even when there were big gales in November 2010^[6] and February 2014. The museum was restored in December 2017*.(Clarification) *Note: Man's museum was his statues, not his hut. Although some work was done on the hut in 2017, with a new roof and a new floor put in to receive his ashes, it was not a "restoration; his statues continue to disintegrate and there is no plan to have any work done to restore these or delay their decomposition. To date (November 23rd, 2020) there is no plaque or marker to say that Manfred was finally buried in his hut where he wanted to be. Also, to add to the below*, if the funeral was "symbolic" most of the attendees, including Man's nephew, Clemens Gnädinger, were not aware of it.

• On the 10th anniversary of his death Manfred Gnadinger was disinterred and cremated to be buried in his museum. This was one of his last wishes in his last will. This funeral was just symbolic. Only more than 5 years later on January 27, 2018 he finally was buried in his museum.^{[citation needed]}

References[]

Bibliography[]

• A pegada de Man, text and photos by Xoán Abeleira, Xerais, Vigo (Galicia), 2006. This is the first book published of Manfred Gnädinger.
• Cequera, Bernardo: Manfred, the German of Camelle. Film Documentary 60 min. (2008)

• Saunders, Tracy and Gnädinger, Clemens: They Think You Are Jesus The Magical Madness of Man of Camelle, Priscillian Press, 2018

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Manfred Gnädinger.

• MAN-Camelle