"Creating something with your own hands": What appeals to two young men from the Bautzen district about craftsmanship

From Fionn Klose

Bautzen. The new apprenticeship and training year started at the beginning of August. For many young people, this is their first step into working life. While they still have two or three years of training ahead of them, others are already through. Like Martin Schurk from Kamenz and Konrad Hofmann from Bautzen. Together with 91 other journeymen from various trades, they have now been awarded their certificates and are starting out in the profession they learned to love during their training.

Martin Schurk is a carpenter. He was introduced to the trade at an early age. "My father has always done manual work," he says. "I was always allowed to join in." He had fun with it. After leaving school, Schurk first thought about studying, something in physics or math, for example. "My parents said: 'With A-levels, you can go to university,'" says the 22-year-old. "But they weren't angry that I didn't end up doing it either."

From the nature conservation project to the joinery

He had enrolled for applied materials research in Freiberg. "Then coronavirus came along and I didn't feel like teaching online." Instead, he did a federal voluntary service at the Lusatian Lakeland nature conservation project. "I looked after the forest there and got to know the wood a bit," he says. "I thought I could go in that direction." He sent out applications to various joineries. In January 2022, the Wenk joinery from Ostro accepted.

Because he has a high school diploma, Martin Schurk was able to skip the first year of his apprenticeship, and he also taught himself a few manual skills. Every few months he was at vocational school, then back at work and often on site.

"The biggest construction site I was involved in was the church in Crostwitz," says Schurk. "It was restored by all kinds of trades. Our company did a lot of the woodwork." Together with his colleagues, he restored and renewed the 120 pews. He also had his own projects, such as a bedside table or a corner bench.

One of the best journeyman carpenters in the Bautzen district

He had the most fun building his journeyman's piece, a bar cabinet. "Painting it was a real challenge, in the end it took me two weeks," he says. He generally prefers to build cabinets. His next big project is one made of walnut.

What's the best thing about being a carpenter and a craftsman? "That you create something new with every project. You're given a drawing and have to rethink it - and deal with and solve problems. Then, after two weeks, you see the finished result and can be proud of it. I enjoy the craft," says Martin Schurk.

And now he has his degree. One of the best in the district of Bautzen, as he says. He doesn't know whether he will go on to university. He definitely wants to stay in his profession. He would only study a subject that would help him progress as a carpenter.

Parents said: "Study something first"

Konrad Hofmann developed a fascination for organs at the age of five. "My mother sang in the church choir," says the 29-year-old. During rehearsals, he always sat upstairs with the organist. He played the piano for a long time, then moved on to the organ. "Then she got hold of me and never let go."

Born in Schmölln, he took organ lessons and even went to Halberstadt at the age of 19 to attend a C-seminar. This allows you to do church music ministry on a part-time basis. "That involves a lot of organ playing, but also choir conducting," says Hofmann. He has been a C-cantor ever since. He also studied organ in Halberstadt. "That was the first time I could imagine becoming an organ builder."

When he told his parents, they said: "You've done your A-levels now, study something first." He went to Dresden with his wife, whom he had met in Halberstadt. He initially tried his hand at civil engineering, but ended up getting stuck with teaching geography and history. "Then came coronavirus and online teaching. That broke my will to study." He had already completed a total of ten semesters by then.

As his wife later took a job in Bautzen, Hofmann decided to look for something here too. He called the organ builder Eule in Bautzen and asked for an internship. The company took him on as an apprentice when he was 26.

"Creating something out of wood is indescribable"

His apprenticeship lasted just under three years. He went to Ludwigsburg for lessons at the only vocational school for organ builders in Germany. "That was the most strenuous part of the whole apprenticeship," he says. At school, he studied a lot of music history, materials science, physics and hand drawing. What he enjoyed most was the manual construction. Once, he and his class had to make a prospectus drawing, i.e. depict what an organ would look like in the room. It wasn't supposed to be a technical drawing. "But it had to be to scale." He was one of the best in his class.

He passed his exam in June 2024. This also included a journeyman's piece. "In my case, it was a windchest, plus seven metal pipes and 13 wooden pipes," says Hofmann. The most challenging part for him was the craft itself. At the beginning, he had to learn the basics, such as how to sharpen a plane, sharpen a saw or treat wood properly.

And what is the beauty of craftsmanship and organ building for him? "Every organ is unique. Every time you think about it anew, see how it works, struggle with the optimal solution. You play a little bit of God. You have a raw material and create something with your own hands. To create something from something dead like wood, where you can say that it has a character, and to see it develop - that is indescribable."