Styrian Oswald Walser

The crib maker with the 120-year-old rucksack

Ossi Walser knows how to build alpine nativity scenes.

(Bild: Fürbass Josef)

Passionate nativity scene maker Oswald Walser from Eibiswald dispenses with pomp and circumstance and only uses natural materials that he collects on mountain pastures. Included: a 120-year-old rucksack that found its way to him via a double liter of wine.

Advent brings us closer to Christmas Eve with each passing day. Unfortunately, many people don't really get to rest even during the quietest time of the year. Oswald "Ossi" Walser (75) from Wuggitz in south-western Styria is not affected by the pre-Christmas hustle and bustle. When he enters his small workshop, which he has set up in the cellar, and closes the door behind him, the noisy world stays outside.

The man from Eibiswald builds alpine nativity scenes and root cribs. With his characteristic thoughtfulness and an eye for the essentials. "The Holy Family takes center stage for me." He dispenses with embellishments and also avoids overloading his nativity scenes. "I don't like pompousness at all." The simplicity of the stable in which the baby Jesus was born should be conveyed to the viewer.

On the road with a 120-year-old rucksack
You won't see any plastic. Walser joins wooden parts without screws or glue. He even carves the figures for the alpine nativity scenes himself from blanks. He has bought in corn straw figures for the root nativity scenes. Sometimes, however, he also makes some from wire frameworks, which are dressed by his wife Sophie.

He is often out and about on the mountain pastures - with hunting sticks and his indestructible old rucksack.

(Bild: Fürbass Josef)

When Ossi Walser walks through nature, he does so with reverence for creation and with his eyes wide open. He finds all kinds of things that he needs for his hobby: Branches, cones, moss, lichens, sponges and thistles. Walser has been a hunter for half a century, a mountain and nature warden for over 40 years and a great bird conservationist.

In addition to his hunting stick, he carries an old rucksack that has been around for a good 120 years. "I got it from my father. But he didn't buy it either, he bought it from an old man for a double liter of wine."

Cook, artist and road builder
Incidentally, his deep love of Alpine pastures is no coincidence: "My father was a mountain man, my grandma and my aunts were dairymaids. So even as a little boy, I spent a lot of time on the mountain pastures during the summer vacations. Another of Walser's passions is carving. His first work, a monumental painting of a hunter, adorns the wall of the house. It was created in 1981 as a notched carving.

The Trieben native probably inherited his creative streak from his father Sepp, even though he was more inclined towards the fine arts. Incidentally, Walser trained as a chef and waiter. In 1964, he moved to Reutte in Tyrol, where he completed a four-year apprenticeship. He subsequently worked as a chef in various hotels.

This is also where he met his current wife Sophie, who worked as a parlor maid in one of the hotels. Love led him to the south of Western Styria. Until his retirement, he worked as a road builder for the province of Styria. 

Josef Fürbass, Kronen Zeitung