2024-03-30 20:04:37
Published 30. March 2024, 9:04 p.m
From the Foreign Legion to the Forest Man: This is the fascinating story of the Bunker-Ärnschtu
Michel Gyoth spent 30 years of his life in a bunker in the forest near Murten. Some would describe him as a hermit, others as a forest man.
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Michel Gyoth led a mysterious life in a bunker in the forest of Salvenach FR.
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His life was marked by experiences in the Foreign Legion, unfulfilled love and the search for independence.
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He became a symbol of a man who sought solitude but was still surrounded by community.
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Despite his reclusive life, Gyoth was a respected member of the community in Salvenach until his death in 1977.
Michel Gyoth, also known as “Gyoth Ärnschtu” by acquaintances and friends from Salvenach FR, led an apparently isolated life for almost 30 years. At the beginning of the 1950s he stayed in a bunker from the First World War in the Upper Eichelried in the community forest of Salvenach FR and lived on the forest and the gifts of the villagers.
20 Minutes visited the Gyoth bunker in Salvenach and spoke to Berni Wieland, Martin Wieland and Armin Aebi, a mechanical engineer who knew the man in the bunker personally, regarding the strange existence of Gyoth Ärnschtu.
You can see what the bunker looks like today in the video at the top.
A poor basket family from Freiburg’s lower town
According to the Murten registry office, he was probably born on August 3, 1897 in the Freiburg Lower Town or in Marly FR. He came from a Korber family. “They probably never had much money,” says Aebi. He later moved with his two brothers to Gempenach, not far from Salvenach. The eldest brother forbade him to make baskets, which led to arguments. He then went to the south of Germany, where he worked for a farmer for several years.
There he probably experienced the first big shock of his life: According to his own story, he fell in love with a farmer’s daughter and the two wanted to get married, but her parents did not allow the marriage. Although he enjoyed a high reputation due to his work, the in-laws are said to have not provided a basket for their daughter. “That hit him hard,” says Aebi. So hard that he left Germany and joined the Foreign Legion in France.
“What was done to those deployed there broke their character,” said Aebi. “He never talked much regarding that time and didn’t like it.” That was probably the second big shock of his life.
How the Gyoth got into the bunker
After more than five years in the Foreign Legion, Gyoth returned to Switzerland “as a man shaped by his fate,” as Aebi says. In Bellechasse he had to serve a prison sentence because of his service in France. He then completed his Swiss compulsory military service.
He then lived for a short time in an apartment in Lurtigen and for the first time kept himself afloat by doing odd jobs for the Salvenach farmers. The move into the bunker didn’t happen overnight. “Sometimes we got up and my mother said: Look, Ärnschtu has spent the night in the stable once more,” says Aebi. On a particularly cold night he lay down in the drying oven of the Salvenach oven house. “Then his boots stuck out of the oven in the morning,” says Aebi and laughs.
“Nobody knows exactly why he ended up in the bunker,” says Aebi. He always helped out with the villagers, but according to stories, he might not be counted on for long; he wanted to be independent. “He always asked for schnapps at the farms,” said Aebi, “but he never drank alcohol in the bunker.”
Not a hermit, but a forest person
Some residents of Salvenach described Gyoth as a recluse who sought solitude in the forest. Martin Wieland and Aebi wouldn’t sign it like that: “The Ärnschtu was unique,” says Aebi. He didn’t talk much and it took a while for him to open up to you. But he was frugal and took little help from others. “He may not have been able to live directly among people, but he definitely wasn’t a hermit.”
He was known in Salvenach and always had visitors. «He enjoyed living in the forest. He regularly fetched fresh water from the Galmbrünnli. I think he was a happy forest man until the end of his life.”
Two years before his death, Gyoth fell into the Bibera and contracted pneumonia. At the same time, he had a rat problem in his bunker and his age-related problems became noticeable, which is why he moved into the Galmgut/Jeuss retirement home “without much resistance”. “Astonishingly, he started wiping the stairwell every day straight away and without being asked,” says Aebi. He died in a retirement home at the end of October 1977.
The forest man with a mischievous smile
In a video report from RTS from 1971, Gyoth can be seen briefly from minute 14 onwards receiving a visit from a school class. According to Aebi, this is the only video recording of the “Forest Man”. An intimate picture opens up: Gyoth is wearing dark, old clothes, his face is adorned with a round nose, a gray beard, and thinning hair can be seen under a cap. He takes a few hunched steps out of his bunker and accepts a bottle of apple cider with a mischievous smile.
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