As a young student, Walter Ulbrich began to get involved in another form of development aid. As a pensioner, he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit on the ribbon of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In between there is half a century in which the world has not gotten any better. The mood of optimism from back then subsided after reunification and as a result of neoliberalism, says the 77-year-old. He is relying on new momentum through movements like Fridays for Future, which quickly understood that climate protection and justice are connected.
Walter Ulbrich comes from Gablonz in Czechoslovakia, in 1946 the family had to move to West Germany. He grew up in Neugablonz near Kaufbeuren and got the feeling that the refugees were anything but popular with the locals in the Allgäu. Ulbrich graduated from elementary school and studied precision mechanics at the Munich Polytechnic on his second educational path. He completed his second degree in electrical engineering at what was then the Technical University with a doctorate. In 1970 he moved to Puchheim, where his wife was already running the kindergarten. Three children grew up in Puchheim, and the couple now also have four grandchildren.
Both were involved in the parish, he joined the parish council in 1971. Ulbrich was so enthusiastic about the begging sermon of a Franciscan father from Brazil that he co-founded a Working Group Third World. He and other activists collected a kilometer allowance for a peace march in Nuremberg. From the circle of donors in Puchheim came the first support for a permanent support of projects of the Franciscan in the community of Campo Limpo in Sao Paulo.
In February 1975 the Campo Limpo association was founded in Puchheim and Ulbrich became its chairman. In addition to concrete help for self-help on site in Brazil, it was always about awareness-raising work on site. In youth services and in the Sunday mass, questions such as critical consumption were addressed, to the indignation of some believers, as Ulbrich remembers. The association relocated its aid to northeast Brazil, the poorest part of the country, and focused on helping smallholders. Ulbrich left the board in 1985 in order to concentrate fully on the local projects.
In favor of this commitment, the engineer decided not to pursue another career in the Siemens research department and took on a professorship at the Technical University. In 1987 he was re-elected to the board of Campo Limpo, where he took care of public relations and political interventions. On the 500th anniversary of the European invasion of America, a nationwide campaign for debt relief for poor countries was launched and the north-south gate at the train station was set up in Puchheim.
Such campaigns subsequently represented the focus of Ulbrich’s activities, for example against the Hermes guarantees of the Federal Republic for nuclear power plants in Brazil or the year 2000, which in turn was directed against the debt. At the local level, Ulbrich was active in the Bruck North-South Forum and later in the One World Network Bavaria, and in 2006 he also took over the chairmanship of Oiko-Kredit-Bayern, a support group that grants microcredits to people in developing countries.
The idea, which can be traced back to Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen, was popularized by Muhammad Yunnus from Bangladesh, who received the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for it. However, such loans do not change much of the basic structure. Projects initiated with microloans also have to hold their own against the competition. As soon as several women start weaving baskets in a village or several men offer a rickshaw taxi, it becomes difficult as soon as there is an oversupply.
Ulbrich continues to advocate world trade in which it should be fairer and more just. For this tenacity, first in the parish council, then in Campo Limpo he is recognized. Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD) awarded him the Federal Cross of Merit in August 2020, and on Thursday the Bavarian Minister of Social Affairs Carolina Trautner (CSU) presented him with the award in Munich.
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