A look back at its origins and its fruitful work over the past 12 years since it was founded on September 9, 2000 in Planegg near Munich.

At the latest since the political upheaval in Romania in December 1989 and the almost complete emigration of the German part of the population of Großau to the Federal Republic of Germany in the years 1990 – 1993, the hitherto existing basis of our local community care in Großau changed abruptly.
It was no longer the old home community of Großau with its strong Protestant congregation (known as the largest rural Protestant congregation in Transylvania), which until December 1989 had mastered its own problems and needs with aplomb.
What remained in Großau – with a few exceptions – was a small number of elderly, including sickly and needy compatriots, as well as a large number of unresolved problems. As a result, the area of responsibility of our community care in Großau took on completely different dimensions. Both here in Germany and in our shared responsibility for our spiritual and cultural heritage, which has grown over 800 years in Großau, as well as for the compatriots who have remained there.
This previously unimaginable new situation made the reorganization of our Großau community care increasingly urgent. There were two main tasks that could only be accomplished by a local community organized as an association with the help of as many Großau compatriots as possible living here in Germany:

1. The aim was to create a common “platform” for local community building for the people of Großau who live scattered all over Germany.
2. But it was just as important that we, as a strong Großau community here in Germany, helped and supported the few compatriots who remained in Großau.
   It was precisely these few people to whom we left the overall burden of responsibility for our cultural heritage when we left. This enormous burden could not, of course, be shouldered by those who remained at home.

In 1999, the Großauer Nachbarschaft Böblingen took on the role of “motor” for the necessary reorganization of our Großau community care here in Germany.
This was officially founded on 14 February 1993 after a preparatory meeting in November 1992, with an elected board, auditors, its own statutes and a jointly agreed membership fee.

The need to found a “Großauer Heimatortsgemeinschaft” was discussed intensively at the neighborhood general meeting in February 1998, including how the Böblingen neighborhood could help. However, it was only at the general meeting in February 1999 that the concept presented for the planned process of “HOG foundation preparations” was unanimously approved after an extensive debate.
The strategy adopted was as follows:

1. According to a list compiled by the neighborhood board, a letter of invitation to an extraordinary HOG founding meeting is to be sent to known residents of Großau:
   1. Who are known to have been actively involved in our Grossau community, either as individuals or as representatives of groups.
   2. Who can be assumed to have both interest and the other prerequisites for active organizational work in their environment.
2. The people of Großau who have been contacted are invited by our Böblingen neighborhood to Böblingen on Saturday, July 17, 1999. The aim of the meeting: the long overdue foundation of a Großau local community with statutes and an elected board.
3. The meeting will be announced in the Transylvanian newspaper. In this way, people who have not been reached and who are willing to take on tasks themselves can also be considered within the scope of the available space.
4. At this meeting, information will be prepared on the functioning of existing local heritage societies, as well as draft statutes for the Großau HOG to be founded.
5. If necessary, participants who have traveled from afar are hosted hospitably by the neighborhood members. A joint lunch, as well as coffee and cake, is donated by the neighborhood. It was also decided that all costs for mailing the letters would be borne by the neighborhood treasury.
6. A detailed agenda with the planned course of the meeting will be sent to registered participants in good time.

As planned, the neighborhood board initially compiled a list of 64 Großau residents according to the criteria mentioned under point 1. These were then sent a detailed letter about the planned HOG foundation meeting, with an invitation and reply card on behalf of the Großauer Nachbarschaft Böblingen. After the first refusals, a few additional invitations were sent out, so that a total of around 72 families received the invitation letter in mid-March or early April 1999.

However, the result of this campaign was very sobering. Despite a lot of positive feedback on the matter, only nine of the people contacted were ultimately prepared to attend the planned founding meeting in person and to actually participate in the HOG board to be elected.
However, this would have lacked the necessary broad participation for a convincing HOG founding meeting. The board of the Böblingen neighborhood decided to cancel the planned official meeting and cancel the rental of the event rooms.
To ensure that the huge amount of time and material that had been invested up to that point, which was almost impossible to name, did not “fizzle out into nothing”, the idea was born to invite the remaining nine “willing people” to a private working meeting in Grafenau to discuss how to proceed.
Of course, the board of the Großau neighborhood in Böblingen and the teacher couple Helga and Hans Klein were also on board.
This meeting then took place on July 17, 1999. After detailed discussions, it was decided to found the “HOG-Großau” working group, with the clearly defined objective of realizing the long overdue reorganization of our Großau local community as a non-profit and registered association with an elected board, statutes, membership fee, etc. The concrete implementation of this objective was agreed upon. The next Großau meeting in 2000 in Planegg near Munich was scheduled for the concrete implementation of this goal.
In three well-organized working group meetings the following year in Augsburg, Ingolstadt and Göppingen, the Großau meeting 2000 in Planegg near Munich was thoroughly prepared. The organizers of the last two Großau meetings in 1996 and 1998, as well as the board of the Großau neighbourhood in Böblingen and Mathias Krauss, curator of the Großau home congregation, were of course also invited to the first working group meeting on 6 January 2000 in Augsburg. Even at this first meeting, the presence of the teacher couple Helga and Hans Klein, as well as the former Großau gymnastics and sports teacher Heinz Wälther, present in his function as second chairman of the BB neighborhood, had a very positive effect on the objective and constructive working atmosphere. As respected former teachers of most of those present, they also had the competence to make a “point” here and there. At this meeting in Augsburg, all the important tasks for the planned Großau meeting in Planegg were clearly outlined and distributed accordingly. All the necessary procedures and requirements for the organization and implementation of the first election of the board of a newly founded Großau local heritage society were also clearly discussed.
The defined strategy, specified at the following two working group meetings, then led to the surprisingly great success of the HOG foundation meeting at the Großau local heritage meeting in Planegg on 09.09.2000. At the meeting, a total of 99 Großau families and individuals signed the registration lists and submitted their valid declaration of membership. In total, there were 179 adults, plus children and young people.
The successful home meeting in Großau in 1999 and the initiative launched beforehand by the Großau neighbourhood in Böblingen with the clearly formulated circular letter to many Großau families regarding the need for a home town community organized as an association certainly had a very positive effect.
Equally important was the fact that the former Großau pastor families, Ernst Weingärtner, Konrad Schullerus, Mathias Stieger, as well as the former Großau teachers and many former key players in the area of cultural community life in Großau also campaigned for the implementation of this idea in their personal environment.

At this HOG foundation meeting in Planegg, the first election of a Großau HOG board was of course also held.

In its first constituent meeting, the distribution of offices was determined:

The following were elected to the statutory Advisory Board for Elders:

The following were elected as auditors:

From the church collection of 2109 DM received at the meeting, a very urgently needed lawnmower was purchased for the cemetery maintenance in Großau and the entire net profit of 2000 DM from the sale of the video cassettes from the 1999 meeting in Großau was transferred to the home church community. This very interesting video cassette was produced by Gerhard Kasper (Reutlingen) and Heiko Liebhart (Munich) in days and nights of work.

We applied to the Böblingen tax office for recognition as a non-profit organization and to the Böblingen district court for entry in the register of associations as a registered association (e.V.). Both were very important in order to confirm the certainty of solid, correct, transparent and non-profit association work to the new members, but also to the initially skeptical remaining compatriots.

1. On January 11, 2001, our HOG-Großau was granted provisional recognition as a non-profit association and this has been confirmed again and again to this day. This is after the annual financial reports and the charitable work in the area of local history, youth and customs as well as for church and charitable purposes have been checked.
2. On November 27, 2001, after checking all the necessary documents, our HOG-Großau was registered as a registered association (e.V.) in the Böblingen register of associations.
3. At the first board meeting on January 6, 2001 in Heilbronn, it was decided that the HOG would cover the wage costs for a cemetery caretaker to be hired.
4. 2001 was also a year of lively club activity. Worth mentioning is the beautiful and large traditional costume group at the festive parade at the Whitsun Heritage Day in Dinkelsbühl under the direction of Maria Schenker.
5. From the 9. – On June 10, the successful “Landlertreffen” took place in Goisern, where a numerically large Großau traditional costume group – in Saxon and Landler costumes – also received much applause from the spectators during the festive parade. In the marquee, the youth dance group delighted the audience with their lively dances.
6. At the end of January 2001, an 8-page circular – also intended as the first annual report – was sent to the HOG members together with a congratulatory card.
7. On November 21, 2001, a nationally valid and manageable Postbank account was opened at Postbank Stuttgart, which is now also our HOG association account.
8. The first issue of our local magazine “Großauer Blatt” was published at Whitsun 2002. It is published by the board of the HOG-Großau e.V.. In its basic function, it fulfills the role of an annual report on events and happenings relevant to the local community.
9. The “Großauer Blatt” is sent to all HOG members free of charge and is also forwarded to the Böblingen tax office. In addition to the financial aspect of the annual report, the tax office also checks the corresponding reports on activities and events, which are a prerequisite for the recognition of the non-profit status of our HOG.
10. Thanks to the responsible work of the HOG board, the trust and interest of the people of Großau in the association also grew. In January 2001 there were a total of 203 adults, at the beginning of 2003 there were already 326 and again a year later, in June 2004, our HOG had a total of 381 adults, plus young people and children.

This was a presentation of the founding history of the HOG-Großau, with the corresponding activities and events surrounding the “birthday” of our association on September 9, 2000 in Planegg near Munich.

Conclusion: Since the existence of the working group and our HOG, i.e. from 1999 until today, we can look back on a fruitful and successful association life.

Our Großauer HOG has always played an admirably active role in all the traditional costume meetings organized in Großau, at our Großau meetings here in the new homeland, at the so-called “Landlertreffen” in Goisern and the performances of our beautiful traditional costume groups at the annual festive parade in Dinkelsbühl. The performances of the traditional costume bearers, the Großau brass band, the dance and theater groups always elicited great admiration and applause from our Großau residents and the guests present at each of these events. It is always said that “you can be really proud of your community”.

Anyone who has been in Großau since the HOG was founded will inevitably notice the well-kept churchyard, parsonage and cemetery and also the repair work in the fortified church. Our Großau HOG is and was also involved in all these pleasing conditions and measures, within the scope of its financial possibilities. Since 2001, both the salary of the cemetery caretaker and half the salary of the janitor of the fortified church have been paid from the HOG treasury and donations received.

In this short chronicle of our HOG-Großau, we should of course also briefly report on the changes of elected members within the HOG committees over the years:

• After the first “legislative period”, Michael Klamer, Sindelfingen, HOG board member from the very beginning, did not stand for re-election for reasons of age. He was always actively involved with great personal commitment in the HOG founding efforts of the Großau neighborhood, as well as in the HOG working group. We would like to thank him most sincerely for this.
• Josef Vetro, Augsburg, previously an active member of the working group, stood for election in his place at the 2004 Großau meeting in Gerlingen. He has been a member of the HOG board ever since.
• At its meeting on November 14, 2004, the newly elected Board of Directors unanimously appointed Gerhard Kasper to the Board with the task of “film documentation”. In this function, he produced two very valuable and successful film documentaries of the Großau Reunion 2004 in Gerlingen and the Homeland Reunion 2005 in Großau, for which we would like to take this opportunity to thank him. For time and professional reasons, he was no longer available for the 2008 board election at the Großau reunion in Gerlingen.
• Instead, Maria Onghert-Renten was elected to the new HOG board and took over the position of “treasurer” from Anna Engelhuber and thus the HOG office.
• Due to the physical distance to the new office in Heidenheim, the previous auditors Klaus Kastenhuber and Michael Klein no longer stood for this office. We would like to thank them for their professional and competent work.
• Anneliese Gabel, Gunzenhausen, and Mathias Wiserner, Königsbrunn, became the auditors of the newly elected Board.

After a 4-year term of office, elections to the Board of Directors were held again on September 10, 2012 at the Großau meeting in Bobingen, near Augsburg, in accordance with the Articles of Association.

A real generational change has now taken place. Four of the previous board and HOG founding members were no longer available: Maria Schenker, Anna Engelhuber, Josef Ramsauer and Frank Schartner. They were given a ceremonial farewell by the newly elected first chairman of HOG-Großau, Ernst Klamer, Reutlingen.

Gwendoline Onghert-Renten, Heidenheim, was also elected to the Großau HOG Board for the first time, as 2nd Chairperson; Rosine Stieger, Fellbach (near Stuttgart), as Secretary, and Harald Krauss, currently in Augsburg, as HOG Internet Representative. In the HOG Elders’ Advisory Council elected were Mathias Wiserner, Königsbrunn and Frank Schartner, Grafenau. They succeeded Josef Beer Senior, Ingolstadt, and Michael Hutter, Böblingen, who were no longer available for reasons of age. Both were involved with heart and soul from the beginning of the first HOG founding efforts in 1999: Mr. Hutter as chairman of the Großauer Nachbarschaft Böblingen and Mr. Josef Beer as bandmaster of the newly organized Großauer Blaskapelle. We would like to thank them warmly for this.

We are grateful and happy about the commitment of the young board members mentioned above and wish the elected HOG board in its new composition much success and perseverance in this voluntary association work, for the benefit of our local community and our dear home church community in Großau. We are very confident in this regard, because young people also bring new ideas and a more unprejudiced view of many things.

Frank Schartner, Grafenau