Rock passages (Nuremberg)

Rock passages under the Agnesgasse / Albrecht-Dürer-Straße area in the northern old town

The rocky passages are a widely branched system of tunnels and cellars under the old town of Nuremberg . The tunnel system in particular was kept secret until the middle of the 17th century.

location

Most of the rock passages and rock cellars known today are in the northern old town. In the southern old town there are also some cellars that are not open to the public because of the many former breweries. Outside the old town there are or were also some facilities such as B. under the Johannisfriedhof , the Sandberg in St. Johannis, the Bucher Straße and the Bayreuther Straße.

history

The rock tunnels were carved into the rock from 1380 onwards as a system of tunnels and cellars that extended over several floors and was mainly used for the fermentation and storage of beer.

In addition, underground water extraction tunnels were created in the castle hill. The longest of these tunnels led water into the cellar of the Nuremberg town hall, where the hole prison is located, in which prisoners of the city were imprisoned from 1340 to 1813. Because this water extraction tunnel ended in the hole , it was also called the hole water pipe .

The corridors in the defenses of the Nuremberg Imperial Castle are known as casemates . They can be found in the bastions built by the builder Antonio Fazuni between 1538 and 1545 . Fazuni used the rock as a building material, so the casemates can also be counted among the rock corridors.

Beer cellar

Colored ore-bearing layers in the sandstone

An ordinance of the City Council of Nuremberg from 1303, which stipulates that only barley malt may be used for brewing beer - no other types of grain, because these should be saved for the bakers - can be seen as a kind of purity law for beer . This law was supposed to ensure that in the event of a bad harvest, rye and wheat and spelled are used exclusively for baking bread and not for brewing beer. Since barley is only of limited use for baking, this type of grain could then be used for brewing beer. This regulation marks the beginning of the Nuremberg beer history we know .

The first documented mention of the rock passages was an ordinance of the city council dated November 11, 1380 as to how someone who gives gifts should have a home : everyone who wanted to brew and sell beer had to have their own cellar, toes schuch deep and sixzehen schuch far… . In the Middle Ages and the early modern period there were up to 42 breweries in the city that supplied the population with a sufficient amount of beer. In the past, beer was consumed almost five times as much as it is today. Each brewery had to dig a cellar under the house in the sandstone , which over the years was driven up to four stories deep and (with the permission of the neighboring neighbors) horizontally as production increased.

Former beer warehouse

The construction of the multitude of vaults and corridors, which were carved out of the rock over an area of 25,000 m² and resulted in a fascinating labyrinth, was strictly monitored in order not to endanger the stability of the subsoil. Any violations by the client or the stonemasons, for example that the uprights of the floor below were not exactly on top of each other, were severely punished.

In order to ensure the desired cooling of the beer, so-called cooling domes were built across the floors, which were filled with ice in winter . With the spread of modern cooling technology, the rocky passages lost their original meaning as a cool storage facility. The temperature in the cellars is constant between 8 and 12 ° C.

A system of ventilation shafts, which was developed in the 14th century, still ensures a constant exchange of air in large areas. During the Second World War , the old beer cellars were of particular importance for the survival of the Nuremberg population during the bombing of the city. Expanded as an air raid shelter , they offered space for tens of thousands of people.

In the second half of the 19th century, Nuremberg was the leading Bavarian beer town far ahead of Munich. Some barrels of Nuremberg beer were also transported as freight on Germany's first train journey from Nuremberg to Fürth in 1835 .

Casemates

The huge bastions of the master builder Antonio Fazuni have been rising from the moat behind Nuremberg Castle since 1545 . At the time of its construction unique in Germany, the imposing complex caused a stir and served as a model for many other cities. This monument, which remained largely intact during the Second World War, is a first-rate testimony to the fortress construction of the Renaissance in Germany. Inside, steep stairs lead down to pointed barrel-vaulted, bullet-proof defensive passages deep under the bastions of the imperial castle, the casemates with their loopholes. Through some of these loopholes you can still look out from inside the fortress wall and imagine how the Nuremberg soldiers should have fired at their attackers back then.

Water tunnel

A connecting staircase that was laid out in 1543 leads from the casemates even deeper into the rocky passages of the Lochwasserleitung. It is not known when the construction of these once secret passages, carved out of the rock, was started. But as early as 1459, the pipe master Scharpf described the already existing Lochwasserleitung.

These rock passages are narrow, hardly more than 60 centimeters wide, a total of around two kilometers long, mostly upright tunnels for the extraction and forwarding of water. With the introduction of the central drinking water supply, these centuries-old underground water extraction systems became superfluous.

The rock passages in the sandstone layers of the castle hill represent a special feature of water extraction in medieval Nuremberg: They were created exclusively for the extraction of water and its forwarding. In doing so, the existing hydrogeological conditions were skilfully based on the existing hydrogeological conditions: Within the Burgsandstein , due to the intervening , extensive Letten layers, several floating groundwater horizons appear , from which the seepage water, which occurs at a shallow depth, could be obtained at different levels.

In order to be able to extract even more groundwater from the castle hill, the extensive expanse of the Lettenlage, which acted as aquitars, was used and the idea was to drive long accessible water tunnels in the hanging areas in order to open up large areas of the water horizons along the entire length of the tunnel.

Water tunnel of the Lochwasserleitung (water tunnel with open channel)

So that the extracted groundwater could be fed to a tapping point or a well , a drainage channel - often covered with fired brick plates - was always created in the bottom of the waterways. The water was directed from the extraction tunnels to as many locations as possible. For this purpose, deep and wide water basins or vaults with corresponding capacities were created at the mouth holes of the water tunnels, from which wooden or lead pipes or corridors hewn out of the rock led on to the consumption points. In contrast to the water extraction tunnels, these tunnel tunnels were mostly only low in height, so that one had to crawl through them for inspection drives. The total length of the known tunnel systems was around 2 km.

When rock passages were first excavated for water extraction in Nuremberg cannot be documented precisely: A city bill from 1383 seems to indicate the payment of work on one of the secret water tunnels. The oldest secure written evidence about the water tunnels dates from 1459.

It has also not yet been fully clarified where in the city of Nuremberg there were underground tunnel systems and how large they were overall. The entire network of all water extraction tunnels ever built under the city can probably never be completely reconstructed. The reason for the inadequate knowledge of these underground systems is to be found in the strict secrecy of such systems, which was maintained during the imperial city period. The underground rock tunnels for water extraction were officially designated as secret tunnels by the city council. These almost fearful secrecy efforts were based on important security and defense considerations: if enemies besieging the city tried to poison the wells in the beleaguered city via spies, an emergency reservoir of water could be secured here in underground Nuremberg via the water tunnels . In the Second World War, the Lochwasserleitung was tapped again and supplied the so-called historical art bunker with water.

Commercial use of the beer cellar from 1912

Ox mouth salad manufacturer Harrer

Company history Harrer

After the brewers were able to build above-ground cold stores thanks to the Linde cooling machines, they gradually left the beer cellars. From 1912, the cellars were used by the food company Harrer that there especially pickles stored. The Harrer company, which existed from 1798 to 1979, was not only known beyond Nuremberg's city limits for its cucumbers, but also for its ox-mouth salad . One of the cucumber barrels is still in one corner. To transport the fresh cucumbers to the cellars, a pipe was laid down through which they were sent and then processed further in the underworld. During the Second World War, the company was also allowed to produce sauerkraut in the cellars, although these were also intended to be used as air raid shelters. The production of sauerkraut was approved because sauerkraut was classified as a "war product" due to its high vitamin C content - especially important for marines on the high seas. During the bombing raids, many Nuremberg citizens sat between or on the cabbage barrels and survived the devastation. After the war, the Harrer company had canned food produced in the cellars until 1976 - under working conditions that in the 1970s could no longer be considered contemporary.

Importance of the beer cellar in World War II

Connecting passage between two cellar systems

From October 1940, the construction of public air raid shelters for the civilian population began throughout Germany. In this context, the use of the underground beer cellars in Nuremberg as an air raid shelter for the civilian population was initiated. The existing cellars were connected with up to 40-meter-long branch corridors that could be used as escape routes in the event that large fires raged above or entrances were buried. Additional emergency exits have been set up at six different locations in the moat.

After a series of air raids since 1940, a British bomber squadron destroyed Nuremberg's old town in the evening hours of January 2, 1945. It was not the heaviest, but it was the most momentous attack on inhabited areas; 90 percent of the old town was destroyed at that time. The bunker, which was designed for around 15,000 to 20,000 people, had to offer space for an estimated 35,000 to 40,000 people that night. Thanks to an early alarm, many citizens were able to reach the bunker on time.

Nuremberg was one of the most severely damaged German cities. Nevertheless, those seeking protection survived thanks to their ancestors' thirst for beer. The number of fatalities in the bombing raids on Nuremberg remained very far below those in other cities that were similarly destroyed, such as Dresden , Cologne , Kassel , Dortmund , Hamburg and others.

Historical art bunker

A number of art objects from churches and museums in Nuremberg and other German cities as well as looted art were stored in a special beer cellar in Oberen Schmiedgasse after the first bombing in 1940. In the so-called blacksmith's cellar - now known as the “historical art bunker” - cells were built that were insulated against moisture and cold, heated and air-conditioned with air drying and circulation, could be supplied with emergency power and were connected to a medieval water supply system. This technology from the days of the Second World War is still preserved in the original in the bunker. In the art bunker there are guided tours on air defense, the complete destruction and subsequent reconstruction of the city.

Importance of the beer cellars after the Second World War

In the underground facilities - with the exception of the art bunker, where art treasures were stored up into the 1970s - hundreds of people from Nuremberg who had become homeless lived until the 1950s. During the war, most of the brewer's ventilation shafts were closed to prevent bombs from falling into them. Since this centuries-old ventilation system was not reactivated after the end of the war by opening the shafts, there was serious damage to the cellars: The sandstone was overloaded with seepage water because it could no longer dry due to a lack of air circulation, and whole chunks fell out of the ceilings and pillars due to their own weight . It was not until 1963, when a house was in danger of collapsing, that the basement began to be stabilized with mining equipment, supports and wooden wedges, injected with concrete and renovated. Steel girders and steel corsets were driven into the walls. Since today's houses are much heavier than the half-timbered buildings of the past, the cellars are built through reinforced concrete columns in some places down to the lowest floor and their solid rocky base, on which a hotel with an underground car park stands.

Historic rock passages

Today parts of the beer cellars, the historical rock passages, can be visited. They are a stop on the Nuremberg Historical Mile . Access is via a staircase at the Albrecht Dürer monument on Albrecht Dürer Square in the old town of Sebald. In addition to this cellar, the casemates, the corridors of the castle fortress of the Nuremberg Imperial Castle, the loch water pipe, the secret tunnel for drinking water and the historical art bunker, the bunker for the art treasures directly under the Nuremberg Castle, are further underground facilities for the public as part of guided tours accessible through the Friends of Nürnberger Felsengänge eV .

Other parts are used privately again. For example, the brewery in the Altstadthof stores beer, vinegar and schnapps again in some cellars.

Geotope

The rock passages are designated by the Bavarian State Office for the Environment (LfU) as a geoscientifically valuable geotope (geotope number: 564G001).

Individual evidence

↑ Felsenengaenge-nuernberg.de
^ Willy Heckel: Franconia - Polygott. Langenscheidt 2002, ISBN 3-493-59619-7 .
↑ Everything about the guided tours and overview plan ( memento of the original dated November 30, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. accessed on February 7, 2010 @1@ 2
↑ Nuremberg: Kaiser, Knechte, Kasematten, A city tour in Nuremberg on September 12, 2009
↑ W. Herppich: The underground Nuremberg. Hofmann, Nuremberg, 1987.
↑ Radlmaier / Zelnhefer, Tatort Nürnberg: on the trail of National Socialism, Ars Vivendi, Cadolzburg, 2002
↑ Michael Diefenbacher , Rudolf Endres (ed.): Stadtlexikon Nürnberg . 2nd, improved edition. W. Tümmels Verlag, Nuremberg 2000, ISBN 3-921590-69-8 ( online ).
↑ Bavarian State Office for the Environment, Geotop Nürnberger Felsenkeller (accessed on December 16, 2017).

literature

Walter Herppich: The underground Nuremberg - of "secret passages" and rock vaults . 2nd Edition. Hofmann Verlag Nürnberg, Nürnberg 2001, ISBN 3-87191-301-4 .
Rudolf Käs: Rock passages . In: Michael Diefenbacher , Rudolf Endres (Hrsg.): Stadtlexikon Nürnberg . 2nd, improved edition. W. Tümmels Verlag, Nuremberg 2000, ISBN 3-921590-69-8 ( complete edition online ).