Bad Laubach on the Rhine

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Bad Laubach am Rhein was a water sanatorium that existed from 1841 to 1901 at the exit of the Laubach Valley in Koblenz .

Laubach

The Laubach was mentioned in a document as early as the 11th century as Loipach and later mostly as Loubach, Loybach or Lauffbach. The name is not derived from Laub-Bach , but from Loh , which is to be interpreted here as a small, gently flowing brook that comes from a sparse forest . In the past, it was mainly fed by the two brooks Brückbach and Dörrbach that flowed from the city ​​forest and flowed into the Rhine directly at the valley exit. Today it receives its water only from the Dörrbach and from the source of the Kaltenbornsbrünnchen and is channeled into the Rhine via the underground sewer system. In the 13th century there was a Siechhaus in the Laubach Valley, which took in Koblenz residents with infectious diseases and was later relocated to a valley 2 km to the south - today's Siechhaus Valley . In 1484 a place of execution at the exit of the Laubach valley was mentioned for the first time. Those sentenced to death by the Koblenz court were beheaded, burned or hung up here. The great flood caused by the ice drift in February 1784 then tore the gallows away and it was rebuilt in the city itself. In 1582 the monks from the Carthusian monastery received permission to set up the leaf-making mill. In 1750, a second upper mill, a little above, was mentioned. In the summer of the 1820s, both mill owners also ran small taverns.

Sanatorium

On February 29, 1840, the general assembly of the Wasser-Heil-Anstalts-Gesellschaft took place with 32 shareholders on the Laubach near Coblenz ; the share capital was 16,000 thalers. On March 24, 1840, the partnership agreement was signed and the doctor Wilhelm Petri from Ehrenbreitstein was appointed medical director of the institution. Between 1840 and 1841, the first two buildings were erected according to plans by Ferdinand Nebel : The large spa house (also known as the Kursaal building) was built roughly on the foundation walls of the Laubachmühle, next to it a residential building only for female spa guests. In 1843 the small Kurhaus (also a colonnade building) with a foyer was built opposite. By 1865 another five buildings were built or existing ones were purchased. The construction management was now with Hermann Nebel . In the 1840s the facility was designed for 50 patients, later up to 200 could be admitted. The cold water was mainly used to treat arthritis , rheumatism , skin and nervous diseases. In 1854 the name was changed to Kaltwasser-Heilanstalt in Laubbachsthale near Coblenz and the share capital was increased to 32,000 thalers. In the mid-1860s, up to 140 patients per day were cared for on some days, and due to the consistently heated buildings, the institution could even be operated all year round. This high occupancy enabled a 12 percent dividend to be paid out . In 1874, Laubach was still one of the 50 most recommendable cold-water healing institutions in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. With the departure of Schüller, however, the decline began and in 1881 the stock corporation was liquidated .

In the spring of 1882, Heinrich Averbeck (1844–1889) , who had previously worked as a spa doctor in Baden-Baden, acquired the entire property. Rebuilt the health resort for all physical healing methods. The comprehensively modernized health resort from then on bore the name Bad Laubach am Rhein . There were Turkish baths and Russian steam baths for performing thermotherapy, special rooms for inhalation therapy , electrotherapy , therapeutic gymnastics and massages . In addition, grape and whey cures and various dietary measures were offered. For the leisure activities of the spa guests, the park surrounding the institution was expanded to 42 acres (about 10 hectares), and there was a billiards, reading, ladies' and music hall as well as a covered bowling alley. Overall, the institution was again very popular, but Averbeck's early death quickly ruined the upswing. His two successors did not stay long in Bad Laubach, so that the institution was mostly only opened in summer and from 1895 to 1897 even had no senior doctor. Finally, in 1897 the Averbeck family sold the three main buildings (large and small Kurhaus as well as an auxiliary building) to Wilhelm Achtermann, who ran a pulmonary hospital there . Achtermann's illness then finally led to the end and Bad Laubach was closed as a sanatorium in the first half of 1901. The new owner was Ernst Kunzmann from Frankfurt, who ran the Kurhotel Bad Laubbach am Rhein there until 1903 . Subsequently, the businessman Carl August Rittershausen from Barmen acquired the entire property, which, however, was foreclosed at the end of 1903 and finally came into the possession of the city of Koblenz via other private owners.

In 1917, the Koblenz city council decided to set up a half-day holiday colony for around 400 children in need of relaxation in Bad Laubach. Funding for the renovation was approved and the first renovations were carried out. But the project was given up in February 1918. Ultimately, the city used the property to accommodate less well-off citizens. By the end of the 1920s, the buildings were in such poor condition that most residents had to move to other municipal buildings. Due to the great housing shortage after the Second World War, Bad Laubach was then poorly prepared for housing. In the 1950s the residents moved to the new settlements In den Mittelweiden , Am Fort Konstantin and Unterer Asterstein . At the end of the 1960s, federal road 327 was moved from the Hunsrück over a large hillside bridge through the Laubach valley to the southern bridge, and all the buildings of the former Bad Laubach sanatorium except for the large Kurhaus were demolished. It was a three-story, five-axis building cube, flanked on the narrow sides by two-story, three-axis wings. The ground floor opened onto the park with large, arched French windows. An all-round stick strap summarized the three components. The noble representative building was the high point of late classicism on the Middle Rhine. Ultimately, at the urging of the forest administration, this building was also demolished in December 1981.

The Petri spring below the Geiskopf and the Kaltenbornsbrünnchen were used to supply the sanatorium with water. The water was brought to the institution through underground pipes. To increase the pressure there was an elevated tank as early as 1841 , which was moved to the Karthäuser Affenberg in 1882.

The Trinity Chapel was built in 1848 to save the spa guests the long way to the Sunday service in the Koblenz Church of Our Lady .

Senior Doctors

  • 1840–1872 Wilhelm Petri (1805–1872)
  • 1873–1875 Maximilian Schüller (1843–1907)
  • 1875–1880 Adolph Mäurer (1839–1901)
  • 1880–1881 Gustav Loeillot de Mars (1845–1904)
  • 1882–1889 Heinrich Averbeck (1844–1889)
  • 1889–1891 / 92 Wilhelm grid man (1856–1919)
  • 1892–1895 Paul Grosch (1861–1923)
  • From 1895 to the beginning of 1897 the institution had no senior doctor
  • 1897–1901 Wilhelm Achtermann (1851–1901)

See also

literature

  • Hubertus Averbeck: From cold water therapy to physical therapy . Bremen 2012, p. 588-892 .
  • Hans Bellinghausen (Ed.): 2000 years Koblenz . Boppard 1973.
  • Theodor Gsell-Fels: The baths and climatic health resorts of Germany. 1. Department: The baths of the Black Forest and the Rhine . Zurich 1885, p. 202-204 .
  • Eugen Hoewer: Bad Laubach . In: Koblenzer Heimatblatt . tape 6 , no. 41 , 1929 ( dilibri.de ).
  • Liselotte Sauer-Kaulbach: Where Kurschatten once walked. On the history of the missing health and health resort Bad Laubach . In: Rhein-Zeitung . tape 44 , no. 80 , April 6, 1989, pp. 14 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bellinghausen, p. 427.
  2. ^ Fritz Michel : Old Coblenz courts . In: Administration of justice in old Coblenz . Koblenz 1911, p. 5–16 , here p. 12 .
  3. ↑ Not by Hermann Nebel, as is usually stated in the literature, cf. Averbeck, p. 595.
  4. ↑ Averbeck, p. 594.
  5. ↑ Averbeck, p. 622.
  6. ^ Udo Liessem: Buildings of the 19th Century . In: History of the City of Koblenz . Stuttgart 1993, p. 409-451 , here p. 426 .
  7. ↑ Averbeck, p. 793.

Coordinates: 50 ° 20 '  N , 7 ° 35'  E