Billmuthausen

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Memorial stone and cross next to the memorial chapel, design of the memorial plate by Martin Hänisch

Billmuthausen (also Billmuthhausen) is a desert in the Heldburger Land in Thuringia. It is located in the extreme south of Thuringia in the Hildburghausen district between Bad Colberg in Thuringia and Gauerstadt in Bavaria on the Rodach river .

The place is now a memorial on the former inner-German border .

history

Until the 18th century

In 1340 Billmuthausen was first mentioned as "Billmuthehusen" and in 1528 as "Bylmethausen". The village was essentially a manor , owned by the Lords of Lichtenstein from the end of the 14th century . A church belonged to the village, which until 1448 belonged to the parish of Heldburg and then to Ummerstadt . After the Thirty Years' War Billmuthausen, which belonged to the parish of Gauerstadt , was desolate. The school district became Gauerstadt, then Coburg from 1835 . Billmuthausen owned the lower jurisdiction .

From the 19th century to the Second World War

In 1840 there were 14 houses, a mill and a church in Billmuthausen. The mill had a grinding and grinder, its own water and power supply and a bakery. There was also a distillery. The manor comprised around 226 hectares of agricultural land and forests. Billmuthausen owned an old and a new manor house.

In 1834, the economist Rudolf Ludloff bought the Billmuthausen manor, which remained in the family until it was expropriated in 1945.

Billmuthausen belonged to the Office Heldburg in the Duchy of Saxony-Meiningen until 1918 , then to the state of Thuringia. On October 1, 1936, the community was incorporated into Bad Colberg.

Soviet occupation after World War II

The fate of the village after the Second World War was determined by its immediate location on the inner-German border . At first Billmuthausen was fought over, finally American occupation and then in July 1945 the Red Army moved into the village in accordance with the Allied zone protocol . The landowner Hermann Ludloff was arrested shortly afterwards (still in July) by two German auxiliary police officers (former day laborers of the owner) and imprisoned in special camp No. 2 in Buchenwald . Soon after - in early August - he was shot there while his family was being deported to Rügen . The manor was expropriated in September 1945. The land was distributed during the land reform . In 1948 the manor house built in 1841 was demolished on the orders of the Russian occupation forces ( SMAD order 209 of September 9, 1947).

Border fence in the German-German open air museum near Behrungen

GDR

From 1952 the village was in the exclusion zone created by the GDR authorities . In the same year, seven families with 34 people and all their movable belongings fled across the border to Bavaria. During the military expansion of the border, the weir for the mill ditch was destroyed and the water dug from the mill. In 1961 two families were forcibly evacuated ( Aktion Verziefer ). In 1965 the authorities ordered the demolition of the dilapidated village church while the pastor was absent on vacation . The border fortifications were built directly behind the village. After the so-called signal fence had been erected, which ran 500 meters from the border, the mill and the mountain cellars were separated from the village; they were even closer to the border. The residents of the mill had to call every time they left or returned home to let them through the signal fence.

In 1977 the authorities demolished the mill and announced the complete evacuation of the village. Under pressure from the political bureaucracy, house by house was cleared and then immediately demolished. In 1978 the last family was deported and the village was completely razed. The evacuation of the cemetery was planned, but was not carried out due to opposition from the former residents. The Thuringian village of Billmuthausen became a political desert.

In telephone books , atlases and directories of the GDR , the place Billmuthausen was continued even after the devastation. The entry in the last GDR zip code directory was DDR-6111 Billmuthausen Post Bad Colberg; it was adopted unchanged in the first all-German postal code directory from June 1990. Even when new five-digit postcodes were introduced for Germany in 1993, Billmuthausen was assigned the new postcode 98663.

population

  • In 1814 Billmuthausen consisted of 14 houses and had 41 residents.
  • In 1827 Billmuthausen consisted of 15 houses and 65 residents.
  • In 1844 Billmuthausen consisted of 14 houses and 74 residents.
  • In 1857 Billmuthausen consisted of 14 houses and had 69 residents.

Billmuthausen today

What remains is the cemetery and a transformer tower. The two church bells (today in the Otto Ludwig Museum in Eisfeld) and sacred objects of the church (in church custody) have also been preserved. A support association, the Billmuthausen Memorial, founded in 1994, maintains the remains of the village complex. In 1992 he set up a memorial stone in the cemetery (design: Martin Hänisch , stonemason: Kurt Speer), built a memorial chapel in 2004 and erected a memorial cross. The old transformer tower was reconstructed and the village well rebuilt.

A nearby on the Finkenberg the preserved watchtower was acquired by the German Board of Trustees for the promotion of science, education and culture in 2003 is since then that and species protection, research and Bat Center Billmuthausen . To commemorate the Billmuthäuser mill the Friends was the Memorial in September 2005 set up a three-ton millstone. In addition, the memorial was expanded with three new information boards.

The inscription on the memorial stone reads:

“The village of Billmuthausen stood here from 1340 to 1978. Destroyed in 1978, the inhabitants expelled. "

In 2013 there were vandalism attacks on the memorial.

Bell consecration 2014

The Friends of Billmuthausen (chairman: Rüdiger Stengel, Coburg) had the two bells of the Billmuthausen church, which had been silent for 50 years, repaired; they should ring the bell in Billmuthausen again on certain occasions. The consecration of bells took place on May 31, 2014 during a solemn ecumenical open-air church service with over 150 participants in the Billmuthausen Memorial. The two bronze bells Faith and Hope are permanently kept in the Otto Ludwig Museum Eisfeld, brought to Billmuthausen on such occasions and rung on portable bells.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g “The” topography of the country . 1853 ( google.de [accessed November 25, 2017]).
  2. ↑ Irmhild Tschischka: Scrolled through the chronicle of the Bad Rodach districts; A piece of Bad Rodach's city history . Writings of the Rückertkreis Bad Rodach e. V., Issue 29, Bad Rodach 2005, ISBN 978-3-943009-29-3 , p. 1067
  3. ↑ a b August Schumann: Complete State, Post and Newspaper Lexicon of Saxony ... Published by the Schumann Brothers, 1814 ( google.de [accessed on November 25, 2017]).
  4. ↑ Bettina Iduna Kieke: Billmuthausen - How a village disappeared ; in NITRO, Berliner Journalisten, issue 2/2011, pp. 20–33
  5. ^ Rudolf Friedrich Ludloff: History of the Ludolf-Ludloff family . Roßteutscher, 1910 ( google.de [accessed November 25, 2017]).
  6. ↑ Walter Schneier: Coburg in the mirror of history: from prehistoric times to the present: on the trail of princes, citizens and farmers . Druck- und Verlagsanstalt Neue Presse, 1985 ( google.de [accessed on November 25, 2017]).
  7. ↑ Article about the introduction of the new postcodes by Maren Hellwege on kalenderblatt.de
  8. ↑ Friedrich Adolph Schumann: Complete State, Post and Newspaper Lexicon of Saxony: containing a correct and detailed geographical, topographical and historical representation of all cities, towns, villages, castles, courtyards, mountains, forests, lakes, rivers etc. collectively Royal and Prince. Saxon country including the Principality of Schwarzburg, the Erfurt area, as well as the Reussian and Schönburg possessions. Aa to Bückgen . Schumann, 1827 ( google.de [accessed November 25, 2017]).
  9. ^ David Voit: The Duchy of Saxony-Meiningen . Storch & Klett, 1844 ( google.de [accessed November 25, 2017]).
  10. ↑ Herzoglich-Sachsen-Meiningisches Hof- und Staats-Handbuch: 1857 . Hartmann, 1857 ( google.de [accessed November 25, 2017]).
  11. ^ Riot at the Billmuthausen Memorial , Free Word of July 13, 2013
  12. ^ Bells from Billmuthausen should ring again , Free Word of November 13, 2013
  13. ↑ Faith and hope break their silence , Free Word of June 2, 2014

literature

  • Jason B. Johnson: Divided Village: The Cold War in the German Borderlands , Taylor & Francis, 2017, ISBN 978-0-415-79377-3
  • Anna Kaminsky (ed.): Places of remembrance. Memorial signs, memorials and museums on the dictatorship in the Soviet Zone and GDR , developed by Ruth Gleinig; on behalf of the Federal Foundation for the Processing of the SED Dictatorship, third, revised and expanded edition, Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag 2016, ISBN 978-3-86153-862-2
  • Norbert Klaus Fuchs : Das Heldburger Land - a historical travel guide , Rockstuhl Publishing House, Bad Langensalza 2013, ISBN 978-3-86777-349-2 .
  • Norbert Klaus Fuchs: Billmuthausen - The condemned village . Greifenverlag zu Rudolstadt & Berlin, 2009, ISBN 978-3-86939-004-8 .
  • Daniel Zuber (Ed. Förderverein Billmuthausen e.V.): Billmuthausen, Leitenhausen, Erlebach - the looped villages in the Heldburger Unterland , 2009, OCLC 862829040 .
  • Thuringian Institute for Teacher Training (Ed.): The deadly hushed terror. Forced resettlement in the GDR , Bad Berka. DNB 96998054X , ISBN 978-3-934761-50-6 , ISBN 3-934761-50-X .
  • Elmar Weidenhaun ; Dieter Ludloff: Billmuthausen Memorial - a razed village , ed. from the Friends of the Billmuthausen Memorial e. V., Verlag Frankenschwelle, Hildburghausen 2002, ISBN 3-86180-137-X .
  • Heinz Voigt: Misdeeds veiled to the last - in 1978 the last house in Billmuthausen fell . In: "Gerbergasse 18, Thuringian quarterly journal for contemporary history and politics", publisher: Geschichtswerkstatt Jena e. V. in cooperation with the Thuringian State Commissioner for the Stasi documents: Forum for History and Culture, Issue 25 - Issue II, Jena 2002, ISSN  1431-1607 , DNB 018375545 , OCLC 643902458 , OCLC 313714127
  • Heinz Voigt: A Thuringian village, sentenced to death - in 1978 the last residents had to leave Billmuthausen . In: " Gerbergasse 18 , Thuringian quarterly journal for contemporary history and politics", publisher: Geschichtswerkstatt Jena e. V. in cooperation with the Thuringian State Commissioner for the Stasi documents  : Forum for History and Culture, Issue 5 - Issue II, Jena 1997, ISSN  1431-1607 , DNB 018375545 , OCLC 643902458 , OCLC 313714127
  • Max-Rainer Uhrig: The Heldburger Land . In: "Frankenland, magazine for Franconian regional studies and cultural care", issue 6, Würzburg, June 1990. Available online on the website of the Würzburg University Library at: [1]
  • P. Lehfeld: Architectural and Art Monuments of Thuringia , Booklet XXXI, Duchy of Saxony-Meiningen, District Court districts Heldburg and Römhild, 1904, reprint, Verlag Rockstuhl, Bad Langensalza, ISBN 978-3-86777-378-2 .

Web links

Commons : Billmuthausen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 50 ° 17 '  N , 10 ° 48'  E