Doris Wildgrube from Arnoldsgrün works as a sought-after electrical engineer and energy consultant at international building sites – but her main source of fame in her home region is as a writer who uses her local dialect. How do these two elements fit together? “There’s no contradiction,” she says and adds, “Those who spend a lot of time travelling around the world learn to really appreciate their home region and its culture.”

Down through the years, the 58-year-old has become very familiar with foreign countries, the people living there and their everyday lives – for example in Morocco, where she supervised the construction of solar power units.

Other contracts have taken the freelance engineer to France, Spain and even to Kyrgyzstan.

“I’ve been able to observe how proud people are of their culture. I often notice in the Vogtland region that the dialect is embarrassing for some people. We really have no reason to be ashamed of it. If people are fully aware of their own roots, they don’t need to be afraid of influences from outside,” she says.

“We’re able to maintain an open attitude if we live out our traditions and our beliefs with self-confidence. That’s what I’ve learned on my travels.”

She has been involved in helping unmarried pregnant women in Morocco for six years; they are often rejected by society.

“The first time I visited a women’s refuge, I was horrified. The women were lying on the ground with their babies in a vulnerable state.”

Since that time, Doris Wildgrube has been collecting donations, for example through giving travel lectures, and handing over the money to the “Association Widad” social project. The women now have beds, their own kitchen and are being taught by a chef so that they can earn a living themselves. 

The Vogtland dialect is a matter very close to Doris Wildgrube’s heart. She founded the Vogtland dialect group and it currently has about 30 members. The authors organise the Vogtland dialect days at the open-air museum in Eubabrunn every two years and give various readings all over the surrounding region.

Then there are dialect meetings in pubs, dialect walks and a new feature – a day when school pupils’ read texts out loud in the town library in Oelsnitz in November.

“What’s important for us is to communicate their own roots to the young people with self-assurance. That’s why our dialect authors also read their works in schools. Unfortunately, many parents meticulously try to ensure that their children don’t speak any dialect. This often leads to conflicts with the grandparents who still spontaneously speak the first thing that comes into their minds. Our dialect is part of our cultural and local history. If I’m on the road at major building sites, it doesn’t matter whether I speak a dialect at home, as long as I can make myself understood in the standard language and with foreign languages too,” says Doris Wildgrube, who is able to speak English, French and Russian.

“If people have deep roots in their home region, they can still cope with finding their way around the world with different languages.”

“As children, we spoke a lot with the old people in the Vogtland dialect on the farms,” the resident of Arnoldsgrün recalls. She then had to adjust her speech during her studies at the Technical University in Dresden.

“But at some stage, I started to consciously use my dialect again in my private life.”

Doris Wildgrube later worked as an engineer at the electric motor factory in Dessau. The grandmother she loved died in her home region in 1986.

“I couldn’t come home and that was really a terrible experience for me. I started to write stories in the dialect that I’d heard from her.”

She returned to Arnoldsgrün in 1988 and her son Sebastian, who has now drawn attention to himself as a musician, was born in her home region too.

She had quite a struggle after the Berlin Wall fell.

“I gained further qualifications as an energy consultant – but this was a topic that attracted little attention initially.”

Doris Wildgrube is currently supervising building sites from Lower Saxony to the Allgäu region in southern Bavaria and has taken over the responsibility for managing energy issues for the town of Falkenstein in the Vogtland region.