Garden City (Bayreuth)

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Single houses in the garden city

The garden city is a district of Bayreuth on the western flank of the Green Hill . The term “garden city” is misleading insofar as the facility does not correspond to the concept of the garden city .

location

Feustelstrasse

Towards the city ​​center , the district borders the area previously known as “Neuer Weg” at the level of Feustelstrasse . On the left is the spacious area of ​​the district hospital for psychiatry and neurology . The northern border is also the building boundary of the inner city area at the foot of the Hohe Warte ridge . To the east is the festival park with the Bürgerreuther Straße / Siegfried-Wagner-Allee.

history

The district was built from 1936 onwards with the name Hans-Schemm-Gartenstadt . The patron saint, who had already died at the time, was the Bavarian Minister of Education and Gauleiter of the NSDAP . Single houses with gardens were built on an area of ​​600 to 900 square meters. The quarter was designed for the wealthier, especially loyal party members. Architecturally it was - under the direction of Ludwig Ruckdeschel - uniformly according to the requirements of the developer Ostmark self-help GmbH, a non-profit organization of Gaus Bayerische Ostmark with administrative headquarters in Bayreuth.

The same structural specifications and alignment plans applied to the southern section of the district. Therefore, although it was built through private initiatives, it differs only insignificantly from the core settlement. It was seriously damaged in the bombing raids in April 1945 .

Buildings and first residents

The standard building is two-story and has a hipped roof . Reinhold P. Kuhnert suspects that the building type was based on Goethe's Weimar garden house. An air raid shelter had to be created during construction ; a garage was added as standard. The garden mainly had an ornamental function, small livestock was not planned. The living space was about three times that of the houses in other small settlements such as the Laineck settlement . At 15,000–20,000 Reichsmarks, the price for a house with land clearly exceeded that for small settlements in other parts of the city. The main residents of the core area were functionaries of the SA , the SS and the Nazi teachers' association , which had its seat in the city ​​center in the House of German Education . The Hans-Schemm-Gartenstadt was therefore perceived by the public as a party settlement.

Guardian Villa

The exclusive location on the Green Hill, not far from the Richard-Wagner-Festspielhaus , made for an "upscale" development. The most striking example was the house at Parsifalstrasse 2. The then director of the Bayreuth Festival , Richard Wagner's son Siegfried , had to sell the property in 1921 due to financial difficulties. A magnificent villa was built on the site, designed by the architect Karl Kummer and acquired by the Nazi teachers' association for Fritz Wächtler in 1936 . As the successor to the unfortunate Hans Schemm, the Wächtler, hated in the city, who had the building restored in a representative way by 1938, was appointed Gauleiter of the Bavarian East Mark in 1935. On the night after the last big bomb attack on April 11, 1945, in view of the burning city, Wächtler is said to have exclaimed on his balcony: "I feel like Nero in front of burning Rome ".

After the city was taken, the guard mansion was confiscated by the US troops and from 1947 served as the official residence of the American governor. The Officers Club resided there for decades . In 1999 the building was demolished.

Many other houses in the Garden City had also been confiscated from the families of US military personnel. In parts of the district there was an “American atmosphere” until well into the 1980s.

Current situation

Villas in the garden city

The “green” garden city at the foot of the festival hill is now a prominent settlement and has retained the reputation of a “certain exclusivity”.

literature

  • Herbert Popp: Bayreuth - rediscovered . Ellwanger, Bayreuth 2007, ISBN 978-3-925361-60-9 .
  • Reinhold P. Kuhnert: History of the Hans Schemm Garden City since 1935 . Archive for the history of Upper Franconia, Volume 80, 2000.
  • Kurt Herterich: From the Bayreuth castle tower to the festival hill . Ellwanger, Bayreuth 2003, ISBN 3-925361-47-2 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Herbert Popp: Bayreuth - newly discovered , p. 208.
  2. ^ Herbert Popp: Bayreuth - newly discovered , p. 209.
  3. ↑ a b c Bernd Mayer : Heimatbote - monthly supplement of the Nordbayerischer Kurier , No. 8/1992
  4. ↑ 25 years ago: Free State sells Wächtlervilla in: Nordbayerischer Kurier from July 28, 2020, p. 8.
  5. ↑ Bernd Mayer archive
  6. ↑ Kurt Herterich : From Bayreuth Castle Tower to Festival Hill , p. 159.