Burgberg (Erlangen)

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The water tower , a landmark of the castle hill that can be seen from afar, September 2006

The Burgberg is a ridge in the north of Erlangen . One of the city's 40 statistical districts is named after him.

The castle hill itself, together with the ridge of the Rathsberg to the north, extends from the Regnitz approx. 1500 m in an easterly direction. With a height of 332 m it rises above the level of the city center by about 50 meters, but is exceeded by the Rathsberg with a height of 390 m. A castle that gave the mountain its name could not be ascertained either in a document or archaeologically. Because of the favorable climatic conditions of the southern slope, fruit and wine cultivation has been documented there since the 15th century. The castle hill was not built on until the 19th century, at that time mainly with the villas of the Erlangen professors.

geology

The castle hill is built up from several layers of the upper castle sandstone , which are separated from each other by Latvian horizons . This geological condition was of great practical importance for Erlangen. One can assume that since the high Middle Ages , when stones were used for building houses, ashlars were broken on the castle hill. The earliest evidence of this is from 1619. For the construction of the new town "Christian-Erlang" (from 1686) and the reconstruction of the old town after the great city fire (from 1706) mainly stones from the castle hill were used. Stone mining on Burgberg experienced a final boom in the middle of the 19th century, when numerous university buildings were rebuilt and the city expanded in the course of the founding years . Stone extraction ended at the beginning of the 20th century. Today there are still 31 quarries to be found. Especially in the western part of the mountain some can be clearly seen.

The rock cellars of the Erlangen breweries

The Henninger Keller during the Erlanger Bergkirchweih, 2009

The castle hill gained further importance for the city when in the last decades of the 17th century the Erlangen brewers began to drive rock cellars into the mountain on its south side. In the course of the next 150 years, 16 rock cellars were built , which today still form a labyrinth of more than 21 km in length. The Henninger-Keller leads 861 meters through the entire mountain to the north side. In these cellars there are optimal conditions for year-round storage of the beer that was previously only brewed in winter . This cellar system enabled the Erlangen brewers to deliver fresh beer all year round, making Erlangen one of the leading beer export cities in Germany, especially in the 19th century. Only with the invention of the refrigeration machine by Linde did the Erlangen brewers lose this advantage. This led to the decline of the Erlangen brewing industry. Individual cellars were still used for mushroom cultivation in the middle of the 20th century . They have had their day as a beer warehouse.

In 1729 the Erlangen rifle company built the old town shooting range on the southern slope . In 1755, the city council of Erlangen's old town decided to move the traditional Whitsun market to the cellars on the Burgberg. This custom was kept from then on, this Whitsun market developed into the Erlanger Bergkirchweih , today one of the largest Bavarian folk festivals.

The restaurant Zum Burgkeller existed on the south-western slope from 1856 to 1876 , but was demolished in 1936 when Reichsstraße 4 was relocated and Bundesstraße 4 (B 4) after the war . Further below was the Gasthaus Zur Windmühle , whose building now serves as a residential building and is located directly on the federal motorway 73 (A 73).

Resort and residential area of ​​the Erlangen society

The plate house, September 2006

In addition to the Bergkirchweih, the Altstädter Schießhaus and the beer cellars, other popular excursion destinations arose on the Burgberg in the 18th and 19th centuries, which developed into meeting places for Erlangen society. Professors and dignitaries of the city built small garden houses in their gardens, some of which were designed with fountains and staircases, such as the two-storey plate house on the north side of the castle hill. It was inhabited by the writer August Graf von Platen during his studies in Erlangen in the summer months. In 1825 Platen wrote the tragic comedy " The Treasure of Rhampsinit " here. Today the building is set up as a memorial.

In the forest area of Solitude - the loneliness - on the northwest slope of the Burgberg, above the Jewish cemetery, many Erlangen romantics enjoyed the great outdoors in the 19th century. A well-known attraction was the source on the Solitude , above the Rudelsweiher, which is already in the Bubenreuth area, from which it is a pleasure to hike on to the inns and the observation tower on the Rathsberg.

The area of ​​Solitude is also known as the ice pit. In winter, when the ice cover of the pond was at least 30 cm thick, a larger slab was sawn out, pulled to the bank and cut into commercially available blocks, e.g. B. 60 x 20 x 110 cm. The ice blocks were brought to former stone quarries (ice pits) in this sunless and humid forest area and bought up by the beer breweries. Stacked in rock cellars, the ice lasted until the next autumn. Some beer cellars used to cross the castle hill and could directly introduce the ice.

In 1928 the Corps Guestphalia "An den Kellern 45" inaugurated the new corp house, which stands on the site of the Birknerskeller and is still a meeting place for many students during the Bergkirchweih.

Immediately to the east of the Burgberggarten, the Reichspostmeister Ruprecht Wels set up a terrace-like restaurant and amusement park, the so-called Welsgarten, from 1770 . The Erlangen fraternity was founded there on December 1, 1817 . A memorial plaque on the lowest terrace wall commemorates this event. The garden was parceled out at the beginning of the 20th century and villas were built on. One of these villas is now the seat of the Erlangen Music Institute. Even today, the castle hill is the first address in the city and is built on with villas and spacious single-family houses.

Burgberg tunnel

South portal of the Burgberg tunnel, April 2008

In the Regnitz valley, which runs from south to north, the castle hill forms, as it were, a locking bar due to its east-west orientation. The Nuremberg-Bamberg trunk road and the Ludwig-Danube-Main Canal could still be passed on the narrow valley floor between the Regnitz and the western slope of the mountain. When the Nuremberg-Bamberg railway line was built as part of the Ludwig-Süd-Nord-Bahn in 1844 , there was no longer any space for a railway line. Therefore it was decided to build a tunnel through the castle hill, which took place between 1841 and 1844. It was the first Bavarian railway tunnel (length: 306.65 m).

As part of the four-track expansion of the Nuremberg-Ebensfeld railway line ( VDE 8.1 ), a second tube was built next to the tunnel from 1844 from 2015 to 2016. With a maximum overburden of 38 meters, it is also 306 meters long in order to preserve the historical portal situation.

More monuments

The Canal Monument, April 2008

For the inauguration of the Ludwig-Danube-Main Canal in 1846, the monumental canal monument was erected on the west side of the castle hill directly above the canal route . It was designed by Leo von Klenze , the design was carried out by Ludwig Schwanthaler . On a high pedestal, it depicts the facing personifications of the Main and Danube , framed by two figures who embody trade and shipping. It is considered the most important monument of the 19th century in Middle Franconia. Today the A 73 and the state road 2244 pass right in front of him. As a result, its effect is significantly impaired.

The Jewish cemetery was laid out on the northern slope of the Burgberg in 1891 . It survived the course of time unscathed and is now used as a burial place again.

The water tower on the castle hill was built between 1904 and 1905 in order to be able to supply the buildings in the "upper part of the town" with water. In keeping with the zeitgeist of the time, it was built in the form of a keep . The striking 36 meter high structure can be seen from a distance and is one of the landmarks of Erlangen. The neighboring elevated tank with a storage volume of 4000 m 3 was built in 1956.

The Burgberggarten was created in 1972 from the amalgamation of four older gardens and today covers an area of ​​around 30,000 m². In 1982 it was turned into a sculpture garden. 17 large sculptures by Heinrich Kirchner are set up in the spacious area . The garden has been under ensemble protection since 1989.

Historical pictures

  • The Catfish Garden, 1797

  • The Bergkirchweih and the old town shooting house, 1853

  • The south portal of the Burgberg tunnel, steel engraving by Carl August Lebschée , 1881

  • The source at the Solitude, around 1905

  • Canal monument in its original surroundings, 1845

Web links

Commons : Burgberg (Erlangen)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Till Fichtner: Castle Hill .
  2. ^ Jochen Buchelt: beer cellar on the castle hill .
  3. ^ Renate Wünschmann: Ice pits .
  4. ^ Martin Knauer: Burgberg Tunnel .
  5. ^ Renate Wünschmann: Canal Monument .
  6. ↑ Ilse Sponsel: Israelitischer Friedhof .
  7. ^ Andreas Jakob : Water tower .
  • Other sources
  1. ↑ von Freyberg in "Erlanger building blocks for Franconian homeland research", Vol. 27, p. 7
  2. ↑ Buchelt-Schieber-Dörfler, "An Erlanger Please!", Erlangen 2000
  3. ↑ Andreas Jacob (ed.): The Erlanger Bergkirchweih. Germany's oldest and most beautiful beer festival. City Archives Erlangen. ISBN 3-921590-35-3
  4. ↑ Ludwig Göhring: Erlanger excursion booklet , 1910, special print, 4th edition
  5. ↑ Google: Erlanger water tower on Burgberg . As of August 16, 2009.

Coordinates: 49 ° 36 ′ 36 ″  N , 11 ° 0 ′ 40 ″  E