Ice skating and swimming pool Bad Reichenhall

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The Bad Reichenhall ice skating and swimming pool was a combined ice rink and swimming pool in Bad Reichenhall . It was built on behalf of the city of Bad Reichenhall from 1971 to 1973 based on a design by the architect Hans Jürgen Schmidt-Schicketanz . On January 2, 2006, the roof over the ice rink collapsed, killing 15 people and injuring 34 others. In 2007 the remains of the entire facility were finally demolished.

Hall construction and use

Under the impression of the preparations for the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972, the then Mayor of Reichenhall, Max Neumeyer ( CSU ), and the city council pursued the goal of establishing a center for school sports, recreation and prophylaxis in the city, which was hoped to have a clear signal effect . A modern sports hall was built as early as 1970 at a cost of over DM 2.2 million; Just one year later, the combined ice skating, tennis and swimming pool (DM 15.4 million) followed as by far the most ambitious project, which was unprecedented in terms of the generosity of the execution in the region and in a catchment area far beyond the Traunstein area was aligned. The ice skating and swimming pool was built right next to the sports hall in the new development area of ​​Münchner Allee.

The roof construction consisted of hollow box girders as the main girders; the roof was provided with a very rigid infill at right angles to them . This construction principle is very wage-intensive and therefore no longer common; In contrast to the full glulam beams that are common today , there can be hardly any damage inside the box girder that is not visible from the outside.

Ice rink

The ice rink formed the northeastern part of the facility, and the underground car park was located under the ice rink .

Part of the total hall area of ​​75 m × 48 m was the ice surface, which with 60 m × 30 m was also suitable for international competitions. The total volume of the hall, which was glazed on all sides in 1974, was 69,814 m 3 . During the winter the hall was used as an ice rink and the rest of the time as a tennis hall.

The hall served u. a. the ice hockey club EAC Bad Reichenhall as a training and competition venue.

Swimming pool

The swimming pool formed the southwestern part of the facility. The hall was - with the exception of the area of ​​the changing rooms and the restaurant from northwest to southwest - fully glazed, from the inside one had a view of the surrounding mountains with Untersberg , Lattengebirge , Reiter Alm , Müllnerberg , Sonntagshorn as well as Zwiesel , Staufen and Fuderheuberg . The hall was equipped with a competition pool with six lanes of 25 m each, a diving pool with 1, 3 and 5 m high diving towers , a non-swimmer pool and a children's pool.

The swimming pool also had an outdoor area in the south with a terrace. However, this was only used in the first few years after the opening and was no longer opened due to a lack of interest on the part of visitors.

restaurant

Between the ice skating and swimming pool there was an entrance hall, the cash desk area, technical rooms and, in the early years, a kiosk, where an ice skate rental was also operated.

A restaurant was located on the upper floor at the height of the top tiers of the grandstands. This could be entered directly from the two halls and also via the entrance hall.

Collapse of the hall

On January 2, 2006 at around 3:54 p.m., the roof of the northeastern part of the facility collapsed over the ice rink. 15 people were killed, including 12 children and young people, and a further 34 people were injured, some seriously.

At the time of the accident, the public run was still taking place, with over 50 people in the hall. The training of the SSC Bad Reichenhall was planned for 4 p.m. The ice master decided at 3:30 p.m. to close the hall at the end of the public run and to cancel the training. Although the snow load was still below the load limit, so that no immediate evacuation was necessary, due to announced further snowfalls, the roof should be cleared of snow before further use.

A few minutes before the closure, the roof suddenly collapsed.

After the first easily accessible injured had been rescued, the recovery of the victims was slow and took two days, as safety measures were initially required on the collapsed roof sections and the outer pillars. In the further course, the underground car park below the ice rink also had to be supported in order to ensure the safety of the helpers and any survivors when driving on the ice rink with heavy equipment. The autopsy of the dead, however, showed that they all died in the collapse and did not die of hypothermia .

The roof of the swimming pool withstood the masses of snow. The visitors to this part of the facility were able to leave the hall undamaged.

Investigations

Structural investigation

The building materials technologist Bernd Hillemeier ( Technical University Berlin ) analyzed samples of the wooden roof construction on behalf of the ZDF magazine Frontal21 . According to him, urea- based glue was used, the adhesive effect of which wears off when exposed to moisture.

Prosecutor's investigation

Immediately after the accident, the responsible public prosecutor in Traunstein intervened. Two experts were commissioned with the technical investigation. The reports have been available since July 2006. Then concrete investigations were started against eight people, including four (former) employees of the city of Bad Reichenhall, two planners and two former employees of the company that had erected the roof structure.

Consequences of the accident

The accident set in motion a nationwide discussion on ensuring the safety of high-rise buildings . The Federal Minister of Construction at the time, Wolfgang Tiefensee , called on the responsible state building ministers to examine the relevant provisions of the state building codes for their effectiveness. The media criticized the legal and administrative burden of the building supervisory authorities, which are largely not run by construction experts . Calls for a “construction TÜV ” for existing buildings based on the model of the regular inspections of bridges and other engineering structures arose. Until now, according to the state building regulations, it is only mandatory to inspect buildings during their planning and construction - and that only from a certain size.

On January 30, 2006, the first meeting of the “Roofing Working Group” of the Bavarian State Ministry of the Interior took place; The Secretary of State for the Interior, civil engineers and building associations took part in this. The working group should scientifically accompany the research into the causes and suggestions for consequences.

In addition to this meeting, especially in Bavaria, the operators of halls and stadiums that have a similar roof began to inspect the roof structure, some halls were temporarily closed as a precaution (e.g. the ice rink in Geretsried , the roof of which was determined to be an acute risk of collapse Was demolished in 2006). In particular at the stadiums in Senden (closed for almost the entire remainder of winter operations in 2005/06) and in Deggendorf (temporarily closed in 2005/06) deficiencies to be rectified were found. The ice rink in Rosenheim was temporarily closed at the beginning of February 2006 when the suspicion of using the same glue as in Bad Reichenhall arose.

The Werner-Rittberger-Halle (training hall for ice skating next to the Rheinlandhalle in Krefeld ) had been shut down since the accident in Bad Reichenhall. An expert opinion was commissioned by the city to check the load-bearing capacity of the hall roof. The hall has been in operation again since September 2006, the permissible snow load has been reduced as a precaution.

The ice rink in Göppingen was also temporarily shut down in March 2006 after the roof had been checked. After a fire in July 2008 , the hall was demolished in 2010.

The roof of the dolphinarium in Duisburg Zoo was dismantled in the spring of 2006 because moisture had attacked the glued connections here too.

In July 2006 the ice rink in Wiehl was closed after cracks were discovered in the laminated timber .

Although the prosecutor Traunstein against Mayor Wolfgang Meier awareness ( FWG ) is not determined, he was sharply criticized after the collapse of the roof of the population and of the national media and blamed. In the local elections on March 12, 2006, Heitmeier missed the absolute majority required for re-election. He was well behind his challenger Dr. Herbert Lackner (CSU), against whom he lost in the runoff election on March 26, 2006.

process

On January 28, 2008, the trial against three defendants began before the Traunstein Regional Court : the then construction manager and structural engineer for the roof structure, the then project manager of the architectural office and the author of an expert report from 2003. They are accused of negligent homicide and negligent bodily harm. The proceedings against an architect and former senior employee of the city of Bad Reichenhall were separated due to his state of health. The proceedings against another accused had also been discontinued for health reasons; he died on December 30, 2007.

The focus of the evidence so far is the lack of the checked statics. In this context, the public prosecutor's office is accused by the defense attorneys and from among the ranks of the co-plaintiffs of unilaterally investigating the planners and executors. The city's responsibility as the building owner and building supervisory authority had not been sufficiently taken into account.

A judgment was originally due to be pronounced on April 24, 2008. However, at the main hearing on February 28, 2008, the chairman scheduled further court dates so that the trial dragged on until autumn. According to a testimony on June 12, 2008, the city administration of Bad Reichenhall knew that their ice rink was in danger of collapsing. The board of directors of the ice hockey club said that half an hour before the collapse they had been warned by telephone that the training would be canceled in the evening.

On November 18, 2008 the designer of the roof was found guilty of negligent homicide by the regional court for breach of duty of care and sentenced to 18 months imprisonment on probation. The architect and structural engineer were acquitted. The defense of the convicted civil engineer has announced a revision, as has the public prosecutor's office, which is not satisfied with the two acquittals.

The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) overturned the acquittal of the expert (graduate engineer specializing in civil engineering) on ​​January 12, 2010 and referred the matter back to another criminal chamber of the Traunstein Regional Court. In its decision, the BGH relied on deficiencies in the assessment of evidence at the time . In particular, the regional court did not explain in a comprehensible manner why the representatives of the city of Bad Reichenhall would not have acted differently, even with clear warnings from the expert (e.g. cleared the roof or restricted the opening times). The regional court acquitted the expert in a second trial.

Re-zoning and redesign of the site

The entire building complex was demolished by March 2007, with work being suspended between December 2006 and January 2007.

  • Area in 2008 after the facility was torn down (looking south-west)

  • Terrain 2015 (facing northeast)

  • Terrain in August 2018 (looking southwest)

Concerning the future of the site, a referendum took place in Bad Reichenhall . According to this decision, 53% of the voters were in favor of building a new ice and swimming pool on the site, while the city was planning a tourism university there. In order to demonstrate for the will of the majority of the population and to commemorate the victims of the collapse of the ice rink, the songwriter Hans Söllner , who had already given a benefit concert in Reichenhall for the relatives of the victims in the spring of 2006, held a benefit concert from January 16 to February 10, 2009 a sit-in on the site of the collapsed ice rink. Nevertheless, the city of Bad Reichenhall disregarded the referendum and the demonstration, mainly for cost reasons, and stuck to the university, which was to be implemented on the site as the Bad Reichenhall campus of the IUBH School of Business and Management from September 2009 . Today, however, the campus is located at the hotel management school, after the university did not extend the leasehold contract for the site of the former ice skating and swimming pool in 2013 due to the foreseeable insufficient occupancy. Most of the site is currently undeveloped. In 2016 it became known that the Bavarian State Office for Weights and Measures , which had been relocated to Bad Reichenhall , was to be rebuilt on the property.

At the beginning of 2010, a memorial was built on a small section of the former ice rink area, which was officially inaugurated on November 20, 2010. The planning for this, which began shortly after the accident, had previously come to a standstill in 2008 in an effort to find an amicable solution with all relatives. As a result, the city of Bad Reichenhall, in consultation with a small group of relatives, commissioned the artist Karl-Martin Hartmann non-publicly . The cost of this memorial was kept secret, but is said to have been in the range of several hundred thousand euros. Until recently, individual relatives had vehemently protested against this project in public.

  • Memorial in August 2018

  • REI ice rink2.jpg

On January 2, 2016 at 3:54 p.m., the time of the tragic accident, the relatives gathered in the presence of the Lord Mayor of Bad Reichenhall Herbert Lackner at the memorial made of colorful glass steles and commemorated the 15 people who were killed in the accident. Following the short, privately held memorial service, an ecumenical service was held in the Church of St. Zeno . From this commemoration for the 10th anniversary of the accident was u. a. also reported in the daily topics.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ BR-Online: Bad Reichenhall - one year later (after access on February 14, 2007, URL no longer available since 2012)
  2. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung of January 5, 2006: "Be ashamed, you have these people on your conscience"
  3. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung of March 13, 2006: "No Stoiber-Malus for the CSU"
  4. ↑ Spiegel Online of January 28, 2008: "I wanted to make everything one hundred percent perfect"
  5. ↑ Focus from June 12, 2008: "The word collapse risk has fallen" (dpa / ddp)
  6. ^ Bad Reichenhaller Halleneinsturz BGH overturns judgment in the ice rink trial ( memento from January 31, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), BR-online on January 12, 2010
  7. ↑ a b c Federal Court of Justice - press office: collapse of the Bad Reichenhall ice rink: acquittal overturned. In: Communication from the press office, No. 5/2010. Federal Court of Justice, January 12, 2010, accessed on January 12, 2010 (on the judgment of January 12, 2010 - 1 StR 272/09).
  8. ↑ Stephan Stübinger: Attribution problems when several negligent acts interact. Using the example of the decision of the BGH on the collapse of the Bad Reichenhall ice rink (BGH NJW 2010, 1987) , ZIS-online 07/2011, 602 (PDF; 204 kB)
  9. ↑ dpa: University on the area of ​​the collapsed Reichenhaller ice rink , report in Münchner Merkur , online from May 7, 2009 at merkur.de
  10. ↑ Campus Bad Reichenhall ( Memento of the original from June 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Website for the Bad Reichenhall location of the IUBH School of Business and Management , online at iubh.de @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.iubh.de
  11. ↑ No new campus on Münchner Allee , online at heimatzeitung.de on October 7, 2013.
  12. ↑ State Office to be built on the ice rink area , PNP -Online from January 13, 2017
  13. ↑ a b Christine Haberlander and Christoph Dicke: Ice rink collapse ten years ago - memorial ceremony in Bad Reichenhall ( memento from March 18, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), message on January 2, 2016 from Upper Bavaria in the BR , online at br.de

literature

  • Andreas Peters: Behind the cross the clearing: shadows over Bad Reichenhall. The ice rink tragedy. , ISBN 3-86685-060-3

Web links

Coordinates: 47 ° 44 ′ 3.8 ″  N , 12 ° 53 ′ 15 ″  E