Elisabeth Kuhn

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Elisabeth Kuhn , later Elizabeth Gies (* 10. October 1930 in Diedesfeld now Neustadt-Diedesfeld; † 6. October 2012 in Neustadt on the Wine Route ), 1949 was the first German wine queen , having previously been directly to the Palatinate wine queen was elected .

family

Elisabeth Kuhn came from a family of winemakers and married the Diedesfeld winemaker Ferdinand Gies (1918-2010) in 1951 , with whom she had three sons. The eldest, Hermann Gies (born June 29, 1952, doctorate in 1982 at Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel ), received a professorship for mineralogy (petrology / crystallography) at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum .

choice

1937-1948 the Palatine Wine Queen represented without additional choice in personal union next to the Palatine also generally the German wine . On October 2, 1949, there was also only one election in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse. 22 candidates applied for the title. Elisabeth Kuhn-Gies recalled in 2010 that she had no oenological expertise to prove, but only had to recite a short verse about the wine:

"I drink to you and you to
the whole German people
and wish them luck and blessings for
the fine wine."

- From the song Das Wildfangrecht by Julius Wolff

At the suggestion of the Neustadt publisher Daniel Meininger , Elisabeth Kuhn was initially elected as the Palatinate Wine Queen by the audience in the hall. Thereafter, the Neustadt organizers submitted the proposal to the German Wine Promotion, which was founded at the time, to elect a wine queen from representatives of all wine-growing regions in the future. Neustadt should remain the place of coronation with the exception of the years in which a German wine-growing congress is held there. After this proposal was accepted, Elisabeth Kuhn received a new crown and a new scepter in a small ceremony and was also named the first German Wine Queen. Elisabeth Kuhn is therefore the only one who carried the title of Palatinate and German Wine Queen in the same year. Since then, it has only been possible for a regional wine queen to apply for election as German wine queen in the following year .

representation

In contrast to today's global marketing of Palatinate and German wine, sales promotion measures were much more modest and mostly only at regional level in the middle of the 20th century. A trip to Berlin, which was then occupied by the Four Powers , for the Green Week was the only major undertaking during the Wine Queen's one-year term in office. There she was received by the then governing mayor Ernst Reuter and, according to contemporary press reports, caused stormy turmoil when she and her wine princesses served 1000 liters of "Freiwein" to the Berlin population at the opening of the First German Wine Week in May 1950 . More than 20,000 Berliners flocked to the square in front of the Schöneberg town hall on this occasion . During this trip, the wine queen also got closer to her future husband Ferdinand Gies, whom she married the following year. He later became mayor of Diedesfeld and - after the incorporation of the wine-growing town - a member of the city council of Neustadt an der Weinstrasse.

Elisabeth Gies lived in her place of birth all her life and even in old age appeared regularly as a guest of honor in the elections for the Palatinate and German Wine Queen, which take place every autumn - mostly in Neustadt on the occasion of the German wine harvest festival .

literature

  • Wolfgang Junglas, Norbert Heine: Wein & Krone - 50 years of the German Wine Queen . Projekt Büro Verlag, Ingelheim 1998, ISBN 3-9805502-1-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Claus Jürgen Holler: First wine queen died at 81 . In: Die Rheinpfalz , local edition Mittelhaardter Rundschau . Ludwigshafen October 10, 2012.
  2. ↑ a b Arthur Wirtzfeld: In royal retrospect: Elisabeth Gies - German wine queen 60 years ago. September 1, 2010, accessed January 11, 2012 .
  3. ^ Claus Jürgen Holler: First wine queen died . In: Die Rheinpfalz , complete edition of the Südwestdeutsche Zeitung . Ludwigshafen October 10, 2012.
predecessor Office successor
- German Wine Queen
1949/1950 		Marie-Elisabeth Pütz
personal data
SURNAME Kuhn, Elisabeth
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gies, Elisabeth (married name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German wine queen
DATE OF BIRTH October 10, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Diedesfeld , today Neustadt an der Weinstrasse, Germany
DATE OF DEATH October 6, 2012
Place of death Neustadt an der Weinstrasse