It is said that as as youngster he was interested in spiritual matters. He may have had artistic ambitions, but did not go to an art school.
I do not know if there was a specific reason why in the early sixties Manfred decided to leave Germany and settle in Camelle, in the Coruña area, facing the Atlantic. Probably it had to do with a desire to be away from the materialistic, industrialized world and live a more natural life, a desire that was not uncommon among young people those days.
The villagers may have thought he was a pilgrim, on his way to Santiago, and gave him hospitality like Galicians are used to do. Maybe they were suprised that Manfred did not intend to go to Santiago, but preferred to setlle in their community.
It is said he got a room in the house of a spanish lady who was german from origin and still could speak the language. There are pictures showing mr Gnädinger as the young emigré, neatly dressed and clean shaven. He went to mass on sundays. And he fell in love with a spanish young lady, but she went for another man.
It is not quite clear why, but mr Gnädinger’s life took a suprising new direction. He decided to say goodbye to the comfortable aspects of western life and to start a new, more natural, ecological and vegetarian life. He constructed himself a small cabin of some 2x3 meters on the beach of Camelle, close to the jetty that protects its harbour (I inderstand he bought the plot from the local authorities for a symbolic amount).
He went to live there his own life in that cabin without running water and electricity, feeding himself with food he procured from the sea and with vegetables he cultivated in his own garden, walking barefoot and being dressed in just a loincloth, exercising a lot by swimming far into the ocean and jogging daily.
A very, very special hippy of the sixties.
picture Wikimedia
And an artist too.... In and around this cabin he created his own artistic environment. He made sculptures from stones and rocks that were around and from all kind of washed up material that could be found on the beach. Cabin and creations became a museum. It could be visited by tourists, who had to pay a small fee to look around and had to make some drawing in one of mr Gnadinger’s notebooks.
He became known as the aleman of Camelle (the german of Camelle) and generally was spoken of as Man. Although he was rather eccentric, in general the villagers seem to have accepted his way of life and looked at him as one who belonged to the community.
This situation continued through the seventies, eighties and nineties of the former century.
Things changed dramatically in 2002. The oil tanker Prestige, sailing along the Galician coast run into problems, broke into two and lost tons of oils. The sea and the beaches were heavily polluted and Man’s plot, creations and cabin were ruined, covered with a thick layer of black raw oil.
Emotionally shocked, Man locked himself up in his cabin, locking the door with a sign that everybody should keep out. After a number of days, people became worried, they went into the cabin and found him dead.
His death aroused much publicity in the spanish newspapers. He was described as the first human victim of oil pollution. An overview can be found on this website (most texts in spanish).
After Man passed away the government has not been very active in taking measures to have the site preserved for the future, although it is reported that mr Gnädinger had legated money to the state to keep the site intact.
The cabin and the creation nowadays are still there. A fence has been erected with a signpost asking people to respect the site. A foundation has been formed by friends of the museum, who are active in promoting that measures are taken to preserve the site for the future.
In july 2009 the Galician parliament has decided to start a project to study all aspects of such a preservation. (Here is an interview in Spanish with mr Creus, who will do the research).
Inspired by Manfreds life and work some movies have been made. Here is one, made by Juan Carlos Abraldes in 2006 (an animated short movie, 8 min) that is rather special in its composition and message.
Man (Manfred Gnadinger)
Museo del Aleman
Camelle, Galicia, ES
can be seen from the street, but is closed for visits pending renovation



















