About "es Linze Marie"

Cool woman in her twenties

Of course, emancipated and tough women have not just been around since the 21st century. After all, who doesn't know the lively, self-confident girls from Berlin in the 1920s? But you don't have to look over to that glittering metropolis on the Spree to discover such cool ladies. No, a glance at the Würzbach is enough! To be more precise: to Oberwürzbach.

Lucky you!

"es Linze Marie" was born in Oberwürzbach in May 1908. "Linze Marie", the Oberwürzbach original, whose real name was Maria Schmitt, did something that is commonplace today, but was considered completely unseemly for a woman at the time - especially in the village -
: she rode a bicycle!

Franz Rebmann from the Oberwürzbach local history association, who conducted an interview with the ninety-one-year-old in 1999, documents just how much such a monstrosity disturbed the village community and the spirit of the times: "es Linze Marie" was labelled a "wild sow". This obviously didn't make much of an impression on her, because a few years later she was riding around on her motorbike at the age of seventeen. And as she proudly recounts in the interview, she wrecked three of her bikes. Nothing worse happened, she was probably lucky. And this species of animal seems to have somehow remained true to her. Because a photo from 1952 shows "es Linze Marie" on a walk together with this very bristly animal.

And perhaps this is precisely what characterises Maria Schmitt: while many a master or mistress is out and about in the forest with "Bello" or "Waldi", this woman strolls through the fields with her little pig "Lieselche".

Written by: Peter Klaus, City Archive St. Ingbert

_{Published:03.09.2025; Last updated: 31.03.2026.}