History of the city of Burgkunstadt
The Upper Franconian Burgkunstadt was probably founded by the Slavs in the 8th century . The "Urbs Chunstadt" was first mentioned in a document in 1059, which was assumed to be the founding date of the city. From 1323 at the latest, Burgkunstadt received market and town rights. For centuries the place was a more rural castle and country town and belonged to the Bamberg Monastery . Burgkunstadt came to Bavaria with the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of 1803. With the founding of the first shoe factory in 1888, apart from the time of National Socialism , the city's 100 year heyday began, during which it gradually became the center of the Bavarian shoe industry and was nicknamed "Fränkisches Pirmasens ". The founding of the Friedrich Baur mail order company was a further step towards a modern industrial city. Between 1960 and 1990, the city changed from a shoe city to a school city with the closure of all shoe factories and the establishment of an extensive range of schools and educational facilities.
City history
8th century to 1058: first beginnings of settlement
It is unclear when the area of today's town of Burgkunstadt was first settled. A layer of fire discovered in 1995 in the upper town could have been around 1000 BC. However, the first written information about the settlement of the area was not made until 741 AD and is related to the establishment of the diocese of Würzburg . At that time both Franks and Slavs lived in what is now Upper Franconia. Due to ceramic finds in the area of the rock plateau of the upper town, a Slavic-Germanic settlement must have already existed there at that time.
In the time of Charlemagne , the place was already of great importance for trade. The high route from Frankfurt to Eger passed Burgkunstadt. The Main, which was navigable almost to Kulmbach for ships at the time , was also an important trade route.
Between 827 and 851 AD, a “villa kunestadt” was mentioned for the first time in a deed of a donation from Countess Blitrud to the Fulda monastery . However, it is unclear whether it was Burgkunstadt or Altenkunstadt . The place name probably goes back to a Frankish imperial aristocracy around a Kunibert. Possibly it was Kunibert, attested in the Fulda annals , whose possessions reached from the middle Tauberland to the Upper Main . The original document has been lost, but the note in Codex Eberhardi from the middle of the 12th century has been preserved.
Evidence of an early settlement of the mountain with today's upper town was provided by the emergency excavations in 1973 and that of the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation in 1975 at the town hall. Discoloration in the ground showed that there was an extensive castle complex of great military importance there as early as 830 AD. The castle was fortified with a wood-earth wall and a sectional moat and had an area of around 5000 m². In addition to the size, the construction method also indicates the great importance of the castle, which was exceptionally well fortified with three wall towers, a gate system and partly a double moat.
At that time there was already a small settlement at the foot of the mountain. Ludwig the Pious and his son Lothar probably initiated the construction of the castle together with the Popponen . During the Carolingian era , there was only one comparable fortress in the whole of Upper Franconia, Bamberg Castle . However, it is unclear whether the fortress was part of the Sorbian Mark or the Bohemian Nordgaumark .
The weir system was built in three phases by the 11th century. The first system consisted of a roughly 3.5 meter wide, mortarless sandstone wall with a wooden palisade behind it. In the second construction phase, at the end of the 9th century, a 5.5 meter high earth wall was built up, which was 18 meters wide at the base. This second fortification was destroyed during the Babenberg feud or the Hungarian invasions between 910 and 915. During the third construction phase in the 10th century, the fence was raised and a sandstone wall was built on the top of the rampart. A layer of fire in the ground indicates that this rampart was also destroyed in 1003 during the conflict between Hezilo von Schweinfurt and King Heinrich II . In the 11th century the castle was fortified again and the earth wall was replaced by a massive sandstone wall with towers and a moat in front.
Reconstruction of the first wall phase of Burgkunstadter Castle, with parapet (5 m high)
Reconstruction of the second wall phase of Burgkunstadter Castle, with an 18 m wide earth wall and masonry
Reconstruction of the third wall phase of the Burgkunstadter castle, with higher defense and sandstone wall
Reconstruction of the fourth phase of the ramparts of Burgkunstadter Castle with a massive castle wall and the tower, the remains of which are integrated into today's town hall.
The "urbs chounstat" was the center of an extensive area around the castle. The castle district, which extended in the north from the Rodach to Kirchleus , in the east to Schwarzach and in the south to Modschiedel , can be equated with the district of the original parish of Altenkunstadt. In order to protect the castle complex , the traffic routes and the Main crossings, more than a dozen small fortifications, so-called tower hills, were built within the Sprengels .
1059–1429 Development into a municipal town
The first documented mention of Burgkunstadt comes from April 13, 1059. As the prince of the Würzburg Vogts Graf Eberhard, an "Aepelin de Counstat" was named in a legal dispute. He was probably identical with Adalbert von Constat, who was referred to as "urbis comes", burgrave , in 1095/96 .
In 1071, after the division of the Burgkunstadter Zent , which was the oldest on the Obermain until then, the Centen Burgkunstadt / Marktgraitz and Niesten / Weismain.
The castle town "urbs chounstat" was mentioned again on August 6, 1096 in connection with an exchange of goods. Arnolt von Langheim, who is considered the progenitor of von Kunstadt , von Ebneth , von Redwitz and von Rotenhan , exchanged a quarter of the “castrum chounstat” for material goods according to this certificate.
Around 1160 the castle complex was a Hohenstaufen imperial castle , which was mainly used by Friedrich Barbarossa as a meeting point and recruiting point for his Italian campaigns .
In 1160 the castrum cunstat was handed over to the Bamberg bishop Eberhard II and released from the imperial fiefdom. As the important intersection of the Nuremberg-Saalfeld and Lichtenfels-Kulmbach roads had to be secured, the prince-bishopric of Bamberg soon recognized the military value of the fortress. The Bamberg ministerials merged with the old noble families to form knights . At that time, Burgkunstadt already had some unspecified privileges .
At a meeting of the episcopal regional court on August 16, 1250, the castle building of the "Iring von Cunstat" was negotiated, who built the first castle of the Kunstadter noble family in Wildenberg . The court ruling shows that the “de cunstat” owned considerable land in the whole area. The Veste Wildenberg, completed in 1250, could not hold the line permanently. In 1348 it gained greater importance when the cunstat office was moved there after the Cunstat castle was destroyed.
The first parish priest of "Kunstat novo" (this name only appears in the document about the pastor on March 7, 1288 to demarcate Altenkunstadt), the Bamberg canon Konrad II., Was appointed in 1288. The separation from the Altenkunstadter original parish probably took place in 1232. The pastor's responsibility ended at the city limits. The imperial couple Heinrich II. And Kunigunde have been the church patrons since then .
The first documentary confirmation of the town elevation of Burgkunstadt is in the oldest Bamberg bishopric from 1323 or 1327. The Kunstat Castle is referred to as “castrum iam desolatum”, as a now abandoned castle . The bishop owned the deserted castle and the town, which were separated by a moat and a wall. Some later sources indicate that the city was already a high esteemed municipal city with certain city rights around 100 years earlier .
In 1348 the city received permission in the episcopal land register to hold three annual markets.
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The first city seal of Burgkunstadt was struck on a coin in 1350. (See Burgkunstadt # Wappengeschichte .)
The Fronfeste Vogtei was first mentioned in a document in 1364. The administrative district of the Burgkunstadter Vogts comprised 33 localities.
In 1400, Bishop Albrecht von Bamberg gave the city the right to “mulze (malt) and brew”. This is proven by a document dated July 25, 1410, the first document was destroyed in a fire in 1460. The brewing right was valid for 48 full citizens. Since brewing was only permitted for personal use in the other places in the district, Burgkunstadt had a great economic advantage through this privilege. The beer was allowed to be served and sold in restaurants. To prevent excessive brewing, the mayor and councilors set annually how much each citizen was allowed to malt and brew. Failure to comply with this regulation could result in penalties.
From 1417 the citizens' council consisted of two mayors (one each for the upper town and one for the lower town), eight councilors or "councilors" and a town clerk. Burgkunstadt already received the privilege of a formal citizens' council between 1374 and 1399 from Bishop Lamprecht von Brunn . Only the full citizens of the upper town were eligible. They had to pay a fee and swear a citizen oath. The fee for citizens' sons was one guilder and five guilders for "foreigners" who were married in. "Foreign" (referring to the boundaries of the Bamberg bishopric) who had not married a woman from Burgkunstadter had to pay ten guilders. Usually only men were granted citizenship, and occasionally women were also granted it.
For military reasons, the city was divided into four areas. Quarter masters were elected from the citizenry to manage them and command the citizen's contingent in their neighborhood. To this end, each quarter master examined the weapons and equipment of the citizens and led the defense of his wall section in times of war. In addition to their military duties, the quarter masters were also fire department commanders. In the event of a fire, they moved out to the scene of the fire with the citizens who were fit for military service. The respective district master was also responsible for peace and order in the districts.
There were numerous other offices for an orderly community. The holy master administered the property of the parish church and the Klaus chapel . The well master took care of the wells . The builder was responsible for overseeing the entire city's construction, including paths, walkways and bridges. To prevent fires, the light shower checked the stoves and fireplaces in the houses. The bread, meat, beer and wine setters were responsible for monitoring sales and checking the dimensions and weights. Other offices were town clerk , Kirchner , gate closers, guard , shepherd , foresters and bailiffs . Citizens who did not fulfill their duties could be removed from office by the city council.
Burgkunstadt's first schoolmaster can also be dated to 1417 . An earlier school was run by clergymen and, in the 11th century, by the Klausner chapel.
In 1421 the market rights were extended to twelve annual markets and a weekly market , which always took place on Saturdays. If necessary, the market court met with the mayor as chairman. Mostly tradespeople and traders judged in the negotiations on measure and weight fraud.
Prince Bishop Friedrich of Bamberg of the city with the approval of the cathedral dean and the chapter on 27 April 1426 gave all goods, producers and feud in the city denunciation, which until then fief were when city law. As a result, the urban land was freely owned and no longer a fiefdom for which taxes had to be paid. In return, the prince-bishop demanded in 1441 that the city should serve as a fortress.
War 1430–1649
The Hussites plundered the lower town of Burgkunstadter in 1430.
In 1434, in a deed of division of the Barons von Schaumberg, a Jewish school in the suburbs is mentioned that existed alongside the "normal" school.
In order to strengthen the citizens' trust in city politics, Bishop Anton von Rotenhan ordered in 1439 that the city council had to give the quarter masters an annual account of the income and expenses.
In a guerrilla war between the Hohenzollern margrave Albrecht Achilles von Ansbach-Bayreuth and the Bamberg prince-bishop Georg I, the margravial army attacked Burgkunstadt on June 25, 1460. It penetrated the upper town and devastated it. Bishop George I wrote on this: "Kunstat [was] burned to the ground, our people there with women and children murdered [(murdered)] and burned". In order to keep the favor of the Jewish population and the noble subjects, the lower town was spared.
The Klaus chapel, which was destroyed in the Hussite War, had Canon Johann Marschalk von Ebneth rebuilt in 1472. The double-faced Madonna in the Five Wounds Chapel was saved.
1481 was first reported of "shoe hires", that is, cobblers.
In 1517 the Burgkunstadter took over the teaching of Martin Luther and remained Protestant until the end of the century. Then Bishop Neidhardt von Thüngen demanded that his subjects return to the Catholic faith. In contrast, the margrave demanded that the Protestant denomination be retained. Until 1624 there was such a confessional confusion.
In the Peasants' War of 1525, the Burgkunstadter citizens supported the peasants in the struggle for freedom and rights. On Maundy Thursday, April 13th, they deposed Mayor Fritz Eck and the councilors and formed a revolutionary council of 18 men. The following day, the 44 rear inmates were released from their feudal oath and sworn in on the Revolutionary Council . The headquarters of the Revolutionary Council was in the Gasthof Zum Morgenstern on the property of today's HypoVereinsbank in the lower town. During this time the Trieber Klosterhof and the Langheim Monastery were looted by Hans Knoch and Bader Kälblein under the leadership of the renegade bailiff Hans Steudlein . The Ebnether , Strössendorfer and Wildenrother castles were burned down. In Burgkunstadt the Altenburg and the Old Palace were destroyed. This is what the legend of the golden cradle is about .
The troops of the Swabian Federation put an end to the uprising in the bishopric of Bamberg on June 17, 1525. Since Burgkunstadt did not want to surrender, the bishopric ordered the Swabian Federation to plunder the city and kill the crew. In the face of impending defeat, the city capitulated and had to accept harsh conditions. Two people from the upper town, six from the lower town and five from Altenkunstadt were to be executed. Hans Steudlein and the Bader Kälblein were able to flee, the fugitive Hans Knoch was picked up in Forchheim and executed with the sword on August 12, 1525 on the Kronach market square. On August 22nd, the Burgkunstadter had to pay homage in the Weismainer Kastenhof and renew their oath of loyalty. Heavy fines were imposed on the city and the Kunstat office.
From 1544 onwards, everyone who wanted to become a citizen had to pay the Vogt nine deniers (240 deniers corresponded to one pound ), each of the seven lay judges and the town servant one denarius. He was required to have a crossbow or to pay an additional three pounds.
During the Second Margrave War , the city was attacked and occupied by Albrecht Alcibiades in October 1553 . When he left the city, he set the upper town on fire, so that almost all the houses burned down.
In addition to Burgkunstadt, Bishop Georg IV. Fuchs of Rügheim allowed all of Bamberg's rural towns to use the citizens' registration funds for investments in the city budget on June 1, 1560 .
In 1575, Hans Claus von Schaumberg had the destroyed castle of those von Schaumberg rebuilt in the Upper Town of Burgkunstadter.
Due to the religious disagreement, two calendars were used in Burgkunstadt from 1582. The Protestant citizens orientated themselves on the older, Julian , the Catholic on the newer, Gregorian calendar . It was not until 1700 that the Julian calendar was abolished in Burgkunstadt and from then on only the Gregorian calendar was used.
In May 1584, 24 houses in the lower town fell victim to a fire, starting from the house next to the Jewish bathing room (today's inner Kulmbacher Strasse).
From 1590 onwards there was probably no longer an executioner in Burgkunstadt, and the Halsgerichtssprengel Burgkunstadt and Graitz (today: Marktgraitz ) were merged. From then on, the gallows was in the court hall, 500 meters north of Marktgraitz. However, it cannot be ruled out that the gallows between Altenkunstadt and Woffendorf was also used. The street name Galgenberg reminds of the former location.
After Kunigunde Netzer, the town clerk's daughter, had fought with another woman in the market square in 1592 and both of them insulted each other as "whore", she was expelled from the city and her father was dismissed from office. This example shows how harshly minor offenses were punished.
The Weismainer Castner-Urbar from 1596 contains detailed information about the forest and shepherd conditions and the municipal rights and privileges.
In 1598 the bailiff reported that the whole town was now Protestant and that he would be the last Catholic. In the same year, however, the Counter Reformation began in Burgkunstadt .
Also from 1598 everyone who wanted to become a citizen was obliged to have a weapon specified by the city and to present it at the latest one month after being appointed citizen.
There was a schoolhouse with two classrooms in Burgkunstadt since 1606/1607. After it was destroyed during the Swedish invasion in 1633, it was rebuilt in 1656 in the same place next to the parish church.
In order to set up a cemetery for the now not insignificant number of Jewish fellow citizens, the city bought a piece of land below the Ebnether mountain in 1620. The oldest tombstone comes from someone who died in the plague in 1626, the youngest from 1940. The cemetery has been preserved.
In 1624 the pastor reported that the citizens of the upper town and the full citizens of the lower town were completely Catholic again.
The plague broke out again in Burgkunstadt in 1312, 1348, 1448, 1473 and 1626. In that year 195 Burgkunstadter died of the disease, which made up about a third of the population at the time. The dead were buried in a mass grave under a wooden chapel in front of the cemetery. Today the front chapel, built in 1852, stands here .
In 1628 the bishop urged all citizens to take part in the Easter confession. Anyone who did not do this was considered a Protestant and was expelled from the city. This meant the temporary end of the Lutheran congregation. Although the nobility remained Protestant and rarely entered the Catholic Church, its members insisted on their pews in the parish church and let themselves be buried there.
During the Thirty Years 'War , the Burgkunstadter councilors handed the town over to the margraves' troops on March 8 and 9, 1632, although some citizens were against it. Already on March 10th they wrote a letter to the prince-bishop, in which it said: “Your masters have handed over the city to the enemy without the consent of the citizens […] we also ask for Succors (help) and for Kraut und Loth (old name for powder and bullets) ”. However, the margravial army soon left the city.
On Corpus Christi day , June 10, 1632 of the same year, four Swedish equestrian companies, coming from Kronach, plundered the city.
The next major attack took place on October 25th, when a joint army of Kulmbachern, Coburgern and Swedes with around 350 infantrymen and more than 30 cavalrymen attacked the city. The current street name Kriegsäcker in the eastern part of Burgkunstadt suggests that the battle took place there or that the enemy camp was located there. Two stones of atonement have survived from these times, one of which could have come from the Thirty Years War. However, this is controversial as the Gothic shape suggests an earlier manufacture of the stone.
In autumn / winter 1632 Burgkunstadt was occupied for 14 weeks by an imperial company of the Croatian commander Petro de Lafaino .
On January 30th, Colonel Rosen's horsemen attacked the Croatian company in retaliation for their atrocities and drove them out on February 1st.
After occupying Burgkunstadt for a year and five months, the Swedes withdrew completely unexpectedly. On September 7, 1633 imperial troops quartered in the offices of Weismain and Burgkunstadt. Parts of Otto Otts' company were camped in Burgkunstadt for a total of 42 weeks.
In 1634 the plague broke out again in the city. At the end of the year there were 110 deaths. During the plague, there was a kind of quarantine station , the infirmary , at the foot of the cemetery hill , where the infected waited for their death.
On January 16, 1635, a list of all casualties and soldiers of the war to date was made. The list names seven incursions by the Swedes, some looting and arson and 13 deaths. There was also a loss of 4,576 guilders, which was a huge sum at the time.
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A contemporary listing of the casualties in the attack on Burgkunstadt by the troops of the Marchese de Cardio shows what kind of goods were looted.
The poverty of some citizens also led to treason in order to gain a share in the stolen goods. A maid revealed to some soldiers the rock cellar in which many citizens had stored their valuables. The Swedes plundered this cellar and it caused damage of 700 guilders. In 1635, the Swedish war system in and around Burgkunstadt, which had begun in 1632, ended.
The plague broke out again in 1635 with another 38 dead. Overall, half of the residents of Burgkunstadt had died of the plague. Since entire families often died out, many houses and farms were empty and were re-assigned. The plague dead were buried in the sick field. Five linden trees were planted on the graves, and they are still standing in front of the five-wounds chapel at the cemetery , even if some of them are only stumps .
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800 imperial soldiers attacked the not yet rebuilt city from Saalfeld . Although Burgkunstadt was Catholic again at that time, they stole all of the cattle and set fire to two town halls, the brewery, the school, the rectory and the Catholic church. After that there were only 12 houses left in the upper town. The fire damage amounted to 44,868 guilders. Here, too, the list of damage was retained.
Although the Thirty Years' War ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 , the hardship and misery in Burgkunstadt was not over yet. Bread was made from oak flour and tree bark. In addition to feral people and abdicated soldiers, murderers, arsonists and other criminals hung around the streets.
At the end of the war, an inventory of the remaining workhorses was carried out. Of the 48 bourgeois and 49 noble households, some still had the majority of their livestock, others none at all.
On March 2, 1649, the few remaining citizens turned to the Prince-Bishop of Bamberg with the request that the 163 Taler peace money be waived in view of the poverty of the population caused by the war. However, this request was not complied with, the amount could only be paid in two installments.
1650–1887 From the agricultural town to the beginning of industrialization
To ensure the security of the population after the war, Prince-Bishop Melchior Otto initiated the establishment of a vigilante group in Burgkunstadt in 1650 .
In 1653 a Jew was allowed to move to the Upper Town for the first time.
The destroyed school and the church on the market square were rebuilt in 1656.
In 1657 Hans-Ernst von Schaumberg had a Jewish school built in the lower town, which also served as a synagogue for the Jewish population of Burgkunstadt .
After the family of Maineck bailiff Christoph Burckhard was spared the plague during the Thirty Years War, the bailiff redeemed his vow in 1659 to build a chapel. He chose a plot of land in what is now the cemetery, on which the dilapidated animal chapel stood, most of the stones of which had already been removed for the construction of the Altenburg . On September 26, 1666, Dean Dr. Elias Kraus from Weismain held the first mass in the chapel. However, it was only consecrated in 1706 under the name Fünfwundenkapelle, which recalls a tradition from 1658, according to which the five wounds of Jesus Christ appeared to a sick maid and she was healed. Several other miraculous healings contributed to the fact that the church was a much-visited pilgrimage church until the 1930s.
In 1660 the extinguishing water pond on the market square in front of the Catholic church was set in stone. The stone setting remained in this form until 1935.
The beer wars began in 1666. These were to countless, mostly armed feuds to about 1,880, with which the Burgkunstadter to them granted brewing rights would prevail in their district. Four buckets ( hectoliters ) of beer were brought in from the Schwürbitzer brewery for a Michelau wedding party . When the Burgkunstadter Vogt found out, he rang the bell on January 18, 1666. 40 armed citizens marched towards Michelau. Another 32 were added in Marktzeuln, because the Marktzeuln people had an aversion to the Schwürbitzer brewers and drinkers. When they arrived in Michelau, the soldiers drank away as much as possible, the rest were driven to Burgkunstadt. The bride and groom were told that they could pick up the barrels in Burgkunstadt for a fee.
In 1668 an agreement stipulated which towns Burgkunstadt was allowed to supply with beer. This ban on beer extended to Michelau in the west, to Hummendorf in the north and to Schmeilsdorf in the east . South of Burgkunstadt, the beer ban affected the villages of Burkheim , Obersdorf, Reuth, Thelitz, Anger and Wolfsloch (all of which are now part of the municipality of Hochstadt am Main ). Since an application from Altenkunstadter for their own brewing rights had already been rejected in 1488, they were allowed to choose between Weismainer and Burgkunstadter beer.
For unknown reasons, the market rights were reduced by three annual markets in 1669, so that only nine were allowed to be held.
In 1679, a parish hall was built next to the synagogue and Jewish school.
In 1685/1686 mayor bills mentioned "Schuchpfände", a fee for selling shoes on the market square.
In 1689, Mayor Moritzen Stahl commissioned Hans Gebelin and the most important master of Franconian half-timbered construction at the time, carpenter Jörg Hofmann from Zeil am Main , to convert the former keep of the castle into a town hall. Started in October 1689, the renovation and expansion could be completed after only seven months. The invoice of June 25, 1690 shows that the construction cost 571 guilders, 27 kreuzers and half a pfennig. In this invoice, Moritzen Stahl even listed his working hours for creating the invoice, the food consumed during it and the costs for the paper used. The sum corresponds to the equivalent of 35,000 to 40,000 euros.
13 bills between 1631 and 1698 show that an unusually large number of tanners lived in the lower town .
In 1699, starting from Thurnau , persecution of Jews took place in the Bamberg principality , which also affected Jews from Burgkunstadter. On May 23, 14 houses belonging to Jewish residents in the lower town were stormed and looted. The looting escalated when the persecutors wanted to raid the bailiwick and the houses of wealthy Christian citizens. Therefore, Bamberg soldiers moved into the city. Seven farmers were shot dead in the fighting and 70 others were captured. Some of them were sentenced to forced labor in the Forchheim fortress, the rest were deported across the borders. On February 14, 1702, the episcopal councils instructed the Vogt to distribute a total of 50 guilders to the citizens who had taken in Jews during the persecution.
Bishop Lothar Franz von Schönborn issued a baker's and butcher's order for Burgkunstadt on May 5, 1706.
The numerous miraculous healings of the sick in the five-wound chapel were given to Pope Innocent XII in 1699 . reported and made the band famous. Due to the rush of pilgrims in 1703, the chapel had to be expanded into a small church. For this purpose, bailiff Benignus Christoph Burckhard donated 250 guilders, an acre and half a shock (30 pieces) of lumber. The nave was completed in 1719, but the entire extension was not completed until 1752 due to lack of money.
Six houses on Kronacher Strasse were destroyed in a fire in 1714.
In 1717, the prince-bishop's councils restricted the ban on beer to the Bamberg and long-native towns of Weidnitz, Neuses, Horb, Zettlitz, Mainklein, Reuth, Hainzendorf, Burkheim, Obersdorf, Thelitz and Anger. This was due to the fact that several noblemen in the surrounding area had complained to the Speyer Imperial Court of Justice about the "violent and unfaithful" actions of the Burgkunstadter vigilantes in defense of the brewing right.
A hunting and corridor plan by the Thablitzer surveyor from 1747 shows a sketch of the Burgkunstadter parish church. As was common in the past, the church tower is in the east.
During the Seven Years' War , Prussian voluntary corps invaded the city twice and took up quarters there once. In May 1759 the then Vogt Kitzing and the Jewish elders of the lower town were taken hostage and abducted. The destruction and looting of the city could be prevented by the skillful negotiation of the bailiff and his wife as well as the payment of 2230 guilders ransom.
On January 1st, 1764 one of the worst floods of the Main occurred, during which numerous cellars in the lower town were under water, and several ground floors were also flooded.
In 1777 the statue of the well saint Johannes Nepomuk was placed in the middle of the market square to commemorate the rich water vein at a depth of 130 meters. Before that, there was a large wooden cross that was placed in front of the loin gate.
Hofwerkmeister Johann Lorenz Fink began planning in 1783 for the demolition of the old church tower of the Catholic Church and for the construction of a new one at the west end, which was completed on August 1, 1786. Until then, the town clerk's house and work house, which was called the “town hall”, was located on the west side of the church. As a punishment for the participation of the Burgkunstadter in the peasant war, it was ascribed to Weismain as a box fief. Pastor Schlör, however, managed to get the town hall back from the Weismainern and thus enable the construction of the church tower.
In the sphere of the tower roof, a tower button certificate from Pastor Schlör was traditionally placed. He described 1783 as a "year with the best vines". A liter of wine cost 16 kreuzers (a liter of beer 3 kreuzers). By order of the respective landlords, wine has been grown in western Upper Franconia at least since the beginning of the 14th century, and thus also in Burgkunstadt, although it rarely brought in high yields there. Numerous street names in Burgkunstadt and the parts of the municipality are reminiscent of the former viticulture. On the vineyard there are the remains of five Weinhüter caves, traces of terraces and walls and also overgrown vines. The certificate also shows that, due to the harsh winters, there were several famines and therefore high price increases for food.
The bloody climax of the beer wars came on July 21, 1783, when the Burgkunstadter learned that the people of Neuses had obtained their parish fair beer from Johann Wilhelm von Schaumberg's Strössendorfer brewery. The corporal Sebastian Hüllweber seized with 36 armed citizens the 120 liter drum and brought it to Burgkunstadt. In addition to rather harmless incidents in Neuses such as insults and fights, there were also thumbs chopped off during epee fights. Ultimately, after many injuries on both sides, the Burgkunstadtern managed to steal the beer barrel. The beer wars ended with this last raid on a neighboring town. In the following years there were only verbal disputes in the event of non-compliance with the Burgkunstadter brewing rights.
When in 1785 the young Burgkunstadter Albert Wagner wanted to open a workshop as a master shoemaker, the sovereign, Prince-Bishop Franz Ludwig von Erthal , refused, as there were already 14 master shoemakers in the city.
On January 20, the main girder of the gallery broke in the Catholic Church, whereupon parts of the main cornice fell down on July 14. Nobody was injured, even though the church was almost full. After these incidents it was decided to rehabilitate it. After the old church tower collapsed in 1802, the services were held from April 28, 1803 to 1818 in the now dilapidated Klaus chapel for security reasons.
In 1801, in a description of Burgkunstadt by the bishopric of Bamberg, the Metzger gingerbread bakery was mentioned, which later relocated its place of business to Nuremberg and founded the Haeberlein-Metzger company ( Nuremberg gingerbread ) there.
In the course of secularization , the Prince-Bishop Christoph Franz von Buseck was forced to resign and the Bamberg Monastery became a Bavarian province in 1802/1803 . This ended the affiliation of Burgkunstadt to Bamberg and the bailiwick lost its function as the seat of the tax collector. In the course of the freedom of trade , the privileges of the upper city full citizens also became meaningless. Religious freedom allowed members of all religions to become citizens of the city. The medical officer of Burgkunstadt, Altenkunstadt and Weismain still had his seat in Burgkunstadt.
The Burgkunstadter pastor Nikolaus Nieser bought the two sandstone figures Maria Immaculata and Johannes Nepomuk, which presumably came from the Bamberg court sculptor Johann Paul Benkert, from the partially burned down and dissolved Langheim Monastery on February 17th, 1803 . You have been standing in front of the Catholic Church ever since.
Minister Maximilian von Montgelas decided that from 1804 the cemeteries could no longer be located within localities. The Burgkunstadter cemetery was therefore moved to the five-wound chapel. Until then, the dead had been buried around the Catholic Church. The skeletons were excavated every three years and placed in the ossuary on the outside of the choir to make room for new graves.
In the spring of 1812 the ruins of the Catholic Church were removed and the foundation stone for the new nave was laid on July 31st . Already on 31 October that found Benedizierung instead of the unfinished church.
On April 19, 1816, the decision was made to demolish the old hermitage , which had been founded around 1000 AD, and the Klaus chapel to our dear women . They were auctioned off with the property belonging to them. The buyer, Johann Zeitler, had to take care of the demolition and hand over a width of six shoes from the property so that Kulmbacher Strasse could be widened. Remnants of the chapel and a statue of Jesus have been preserved in the former front garden of the chapel. A way of the cross, of which two stones from 1518 and 1668 have been preserved, led with seven stations from the chapel to the cemetery. The city's most precious gem , the double-faced Madonna, which is now in the five-wound chapel, stood in the Klaus chapel until it was demolished.
The Pentzertortum, whose name came from the meadow opposite the Püntzendorfer family, was also torn down in 1816.
After the municipal reform in 1818, the upper and lower towns were merged, but the respective municipal property was not combined.
In 1819, 90 trades were recorded, especially leather, textile and wool processing, but tannery as well as cattle and basket trade were important branches of the economy. There were also 36 farms.
Between 1821 and 1831 there were two weekly markets , twelve annual markets and up to 28 cattle markets a year. Despite some fluctuations in the number of markets, the market system remained an important part of the local economy until the beginning of the 20th century.
In 1822 the two Christian schools were combined with the Jewish one to form a cross-religious community school.
As a result of religious freedom , more and more Protestants came to Burgkunstadt from 1825, where they mainly moved into the houses of the Jews on the Weihersbach who had emigrated to the big cities .
In that year the state order was issued to open a pharmacy in Burgkunstadt , as the distances to Bayreuth , Coburg and Kulmbach were too great with a three-hour walk. From a large number of applications, Constantin Voigt received the approval on August 14, 1826 to operate a pharmacy that was built on Wolfsberg (Schindgraben-Kulmbacher Strasse intersection).
Around 1825, the Püls, Pfeuffer and Günther families built a second brewery in the lower town in addition to the communal brewery in the upper town . While the descendants of Joseph Pfeuffer and Peter Günther early 20th century, there still beer brewed heard Johann Püls on 1906th Due to the lack of cooling facilities, it was only possible to brew in winter. After cooling, the boiled beer was brought to the fermentation or storage cellar of the respective owner. Since the two bars were right next to each other, the Pfeuffer and Günther families often argued about serving beer and using the brewery.
The first expeditor and postman was the owner of the Hotel Stern in the lower town on May 28, 1828, Georg Franz Brückner. Above all, he tried to get the mail to Weismain, as the responsible authorities such as the tax office , local court or notary were located there.
From 1830 to 1870 school lessons were given in the back rooms of the Burckhard-Amtshaus (today: Marktplatz 13).
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In 1835 the Lichtenfelser Straße, then known as “Neustraße”, was built, which was mainly inhabited by Jews.
Due to the economic success of cloth makers, a cloth makers guild was founded in 1837.
After 26 years of construction, the Catholic Church was completed with the collaboration of well-known artists and was consecrated on September 12, 1838 by Archbishop Joseph Maria von Fraunberg . The construction costs totaled around 12,000 guilders.
Due to the Jewish emigration at this time, a denominational school separation took place in November 1840. In 1851, the Sack brothers bought a house in Feuerweg (today No. 19) for use as a Jewish school and residential building.
With the construction of the Burgkunstadt - Kulmbach railway line and its opening on February 15, 1846, an important step towards industrialization was taken. In addition to the positive reactions of some dealers, who had better sales opportunities thanks to the railroad, the majority of the population perceived it with restraint or disapproval and referred to it as "the devil's stuff".
In 1847/1848, the Jews of the Lower Town demanded more rights than parishioners and relied primarily on Paragraph 22 of the Jewish edict of 1813 , which stated that Jews and Christians should only form one community and should have the same rights and duties. In a detailed letter of complaint, they named all the injustices they had suffered. On the night of March 12th and 13th, 1848, doors, shutters and windows were smashed into all Jewish houses in the lower town, and there was no looting. This anti-Semitic smear campaign had numerous negative effects on the health of some Jews. Old people died or became sick, some premature births occurred that night, and an above-average number of epileptic and mentally ill children were also born shortly after that night. Some Jewish families fled Burgkunstadt on March 13, fearing further violence, and settled in Bamberg and Nuremberg.
In the course of the reorganization of the Burgkunstadter school system in 1851 the royal district court Weismain created two mixed school classes with Christian and Jewish students.
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In 1852 a small neo-Gothic chapel was built in front of the cemetery to commemorate the plague deaths of the Thirty Years' War, who are buried there in a mass grave .
On May 17, 1860 the town hall was requisitioned and the Altenburg was auctioned off by the royal district court of Nuremberg. The city bought it for 2040 guilders in 1861 from the landowner and royal treasurer Baron von Schaumberg and used it as a hospital for the poor and the sick.
Industrialization began in Burgkunstadt in 1862 with the installation of a five-horsepower steam boiler system in Eduard Lindner's vinegar and mustard factory. Despite the concerns and the city's rejection of responsibility for the employees, Lindner decided to install the machine. In the courtyard of the old German Museum in Munich, Lindner was dedicated to one of the pioneers of steam technology in industry.
On July 28th, the magistrate received a written request from 18 Burgkunstadtern to set up a volunteer fire brigade . The royal district office of Lichtenfels called this in a letter dated August 6, 1864, “an extremely functional and laudable institute, to which full recognition is given”. The city then bought a modern “extinguishing machine” for 800 guilders and, in October, several belts and ladders.
The initial enthusiasm of the local population about the German victories in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 declined in view of the transport of wounded towards the end of the war. The Red Cross set up a hospital in the old castle .
In 1872 the Kronach gate tower was demolished. Originally only two storeys high, it was rebuilt in 1706. There was also a third floor, a baroque onion dome and an outside staircase. For a long time the tower was the residence of church musicians. The city later left the apartment in the tower to the poor and “funny owls”.
After more than 200 years, the vigilante group was dissolved in 1873 . The Lendtor was also demolished in 1873 as it was no longer an obstacle for modern weapons. It used to be called the Unterraithertor. At the time of the city's development, Raith meant something like law, so the Lendtor represented the southern limit of the area of application of city law.
In his will on April 2, 1874, the master baker Konrad Zeitler donated his house in Fliehgasse (today No. 1) as a citizens' hospital for poor, unmarried and worthy people. In his will he bequeathed 7000 guilders to maintain the house.
In 1876 a Jewish school was built in Feuerweg (today No. 19). Two Christian classrooms were set up in the town hall. From 1891 at the latest, Christian lessons took place in the Vogtei until 1938.
The first telegraph Morse code line from Burgkunstadt to Weismain was built in 1877, the first water line in 1881. It carried the water from two springs on Kirchleiner Strasse via wooden pipes to the market square.
With the demolition of the Ortsberg estate in 1882, an entire district of Burgkunstadt disappeared.
1888–1914 industrialization of Burgkunstadt up to the First World War
On January 1st, 1888, Joseph Weiermann, then 25 years old, started machine shoe production in the next room of the Zapf'schen inn (today Gasthof Drei Kronen) and in the neighboring house, the fish weaver's house. This was the beginning of the industrialization of Burgkunstadt with a focus on the shoe industry. The large number of cobblers, tanners and leather processing companies at this time favored their development.
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Initially, the company only produced boy's gauntlet boots with a master craftsman and ten to twelve employees. There were also 15 home workers. A worker received 85 pfennigs in 1888 for the Zwick and floor assembly (for comparison: a liter of beer cost 20 pfennigs). Weiermann justified his daring decision to produce shoes on a large scale in what was then the small Burgkunstadt: “So many people times shoe supplies plus fashion results in a high production figure that the hand cobbler can never achieve. […] So I decided in favor of my hometown because I was able to save a lot on expenses with the support of my parents. ”Nevertheless, the Weiermann factory was not welcomed by all sides. The Reichstag member and then mayor Philipp Brückner and the magistrate's college feared that the Weiermannsche shoe factory would bring “ socialist elements” to Burgkunstadt and that this could lead to an increase in the wages of agricultural workers.
In 1892, Carl Iglauer and his brother-in-law Birkenstein founded a factory to manufacture slippers , which in 1899 moved to the company house of the cloth merchant Oppenheimer (today Lichtenfelser Straße 12). The move was accompanied by a change in production, with the focus shifting to work shoes and field sandals. Not least because of frequent fires (three times in 1922), the Iglauer Schuhfabrik was closed in 1936.
In 1895 the city gave the dilapidated Altenburg to the Wagner charity foundations in Dillingen for demolition. After the demolition, the foundation built what is now the front of the institution. The opening ceremony of the home for “feeble-minded” and needy women took place on November 27th of the same year. In 1903/04 the west wing with the economic buildings was built and in 1912/13 the east wing.
Old documents show that at that time a shoe manufacturer earned around two marks a day in a 60 to 65 hour week.
From 1896 the old bailiwick was used as a mixed Catholic school, from 1900 the Protestant school children were also taught there, with the exception of one class that was housed in the Jewish school in Feuerweg due to lack of space. In the same year the gates at the town hall and the bailiwick were demolished.
Due to the increasing production figures and the resulting lack of space, Weiermann had a new factory built near the train station (now Bahnhofstrasse 28) in 1898.
On August 5, 1898, 13 employees from various shoe factories founded the shoemaker's union Paying Office Burgkunstadt of the Central Association of Shoemakers. Despite considerable personal risks, such as losing their jobs, the union members represented the interests of the then around 120 workers in the Burgkunstadter shoe factories.
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On October 16, 1899, Burgkunstadt was connected to the telephone network. In addition to the public telephone in the post office on Kulmbacher Strasse, there were twelve other telephone connections.
In 1900 the construction of the Protestant school in Burgkunstadt was completed. Until then, the Protestant pupils went to the Strößendorf village school, which had been overcrowded since 1875. The necessary school building could only be realized in 1900 due to various conflicts regarding the catchment area.
The economic importance of the Main at this time, especially for rafting , can be seen from descriptions, letters and other documents between 1880 and 1916. The wood mostly came from the Maineck Forest and was brought in the form of small rafts to the Main weir near Burgkunstadt. There they were connected to larger rafts and often drifted several hundred kilometers downstream.
Rafting on the Main at the Main Bridge near Burgkunstadt / Altenkunstadt
Repairs to the Main weir and the Floßgasse near Burgkunstadt (around 1970)
Plan of the Burgkunstadter weir with Floßgasse from July 1, 1910
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The wooden Main Bridge was torn away by a flood in 1903 and rebuilt shortly afterwards as an iron structure with concrete barbs.
In the same year, Hans Püls founded a shoe factory together with Max Pretzfelder am Mühlbach, which had to be enlarged due to the economic success in 1907.
In 1905, the first building in the city was the neo-baroque post office, which was completed in the same year, followed by the train station a year later, and a little later the first residential building. At that time the electricity was supplied by the Kienmühle in Altenkunstadt.
In addition to a half-hour stoppage of work in 1938 in the Obermain and Kreuch shoe factories, the only strike in the history of the Burgkunstadter shoe industry took place in 1910. The Carl Iglauers, Weiermannsche and Mainthal shoe factories went on strike for several weeks. The strike lasted the longest, at seven weeks in the Iglauer factory.
After Joseph Weiermann converted his company into a GmbH in 1906 and founded a stock corporation in 1911 , he retired in the same year and moved to Bamberg and later to Munich. In the same year, Hans Püls separated from the company's co-founder Max Pretzfelder and had a new factory building, which was inaugurated on January 1, 1912, and a residential building built opposite the Joseph Weiermann shoe factory on Bahnhofstrasse. The factory was expanded to its present size in 1925.
In 1912 Max Pretzfelder, Jakob Friedrich Riexinger and the Bayreuth hotelier and financier Anton Levor founded the Pretzfelder & Riexinger shoe factory in Altenkunstadt, which was renamed Gotthard shortly afterwards in homage to the achievements in the construction of the Swiss Gotthard tunnel. Originally the factory was supposed to be built in Burgkunstadt, but since the Altenkunstadt mayor promised to be exempt from trade tax for ten years , the decision was made to build on the other side of the Main.
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On Ascension Day of the same year, the Mainthal shoe factory in Lichtenfelser Strasse burned down. The tannery owner Josef Mehringer then built a new shoe factory on the property, which also burned down several times, but was rebuilt again and again.
In 1913 the state motor mail line Burgkunstadt-Weismain went into operation. The post bus also served as a means of public transport . Due to the First World War and the lack of fuel, the carriage was used again for mail transport a year later.
In 1914, shortly before the start of the war, a total of 731 workers were employed in the Püls, Weiermann and Pretzfelder & Riexinger shoe factories.
1914–1933 From World War I to the economic crisis
When the First World War began in August 1914, 881 of the 1,446 German shoe factories were shut down. The remaining factories included the Burgkunstadter factories, which henceforth mainly produced military shoes for the III. Bavarian Army Corps established. The St.-Josefs-Anstalt was converted into a military hospital , which from November 11, 1914 to March 31, 1919 received a total of 957 wounded soldiers.
Of the four bells in the parish church, the smallest, weighing 130 kilograms, was melted down in 1917, as the larger three were classified as historically and artistically valuable. The city received 585 marks for the bell. The larger, 120 kilogram bell of the five-wound chapel had to be sold to the military administration on August 11 for 526 marks and 50 pfennigs. Another seven bells were added from Gartenroth, Kirchlein and Mainroth.
64 Burgkunstadter soldiers died in the war, seven were missing and never returned home.
From 1921 the city received a central water supply . Construction began in 1919 with the expansion of the medieval fountain on the market square. The pump house was completed at the end of 1920 , so that operations could begin in 1921.
After the war, the numerous shoe factories resumed operations. The Schneyer Adolf Raab founded a sausage factory on the Mühlbach, and the Hühnlein brothers opened a business with leather, shoemaker's articles and agricultural products on Kulmbacher Strasse; later this was also converted into a shoe factory.
The effects of inflation from 1922–1923 were also clearly felt in Burgkunstadt. None of the large local companies went bankrupt , but wages were paid weekly, otherwise inflation-appropriate wages would not have been possible for the workers. The price development of a pair of beef box derby boots has been preserved in old company documents. After it was still at 173 marks in November 1920, it rose from 390 marks in March 1922 to over 523 in May, 6,420 in October and to 14,840 in December.
With the death of the night watchman Johann Barthel in 1923, the centuries-long night watchman tradition in Burgkunstadt came to an end two years later. In addition to his duties as a gendarme , fire alarm and the duty to light and extinguish the gas-powered street lamps, he was also the town's gravedigger. Every hour on the hour, the night watchman had a saying to say on his tours from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. According to the local historian Jakob May, it was: "Listen, Lord, and let us tell you that our bell has struck (time)." Then, depending on the time, an individual verse followed:
- 9 clock:
- “Nine forgot thanks and duty.
- Don't forget the benefit!
- Praise Jesus Christ!"
- 10 O `clock:
- “God taught ten commandments.
- Let us obey him!
- Praise Jesus Christ!"
- 11 clock:
- “Only eleven disciples remained faithful.
- Grant God that there is no waste!
- Praise Jesus Christ!"
- 12 p.m. - midnight:
- “Twelve o'clock is the goal of time.
- Think about mortality!
- Praise Jesus Christ!"
- 1 O 'clock:
- “You are one, a faithful God.
- Give us a blessed death!
- Praise Jesus Christ!"
- 2 O 'clock:
- “Man has two paths ahead of him.
- O Lord, lead me the narrow one.
- Praise Jesus Christ!"
- 3 o'clock:
- “There are three persons in the deity.
- God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
- Praise Jesus Christ!"
- 4 o'clock:
- “You gentlemen are lively and watch!
- The bright day drives away the dark night.
- Praise Jesus Christ!"
On Christmas Day 1923, Pastor Kaeppel held the first Protestant service in the town hall. Shortly afterwards, the first church council was elected and the money needed to build a Protestant church began to be collected through collections and film screenings.
Due to the inflation, the city could no longer afford a paid night watchman after Barthel's death, so that every male citizen over 20 in the period between December 13, 1923 and January 29, 1924 volunteered the night watch in an order set by the mayor Had to take over for one night. Between Barthel's death and December 13th and until June 1925, several citizens voluntarily took over the service for a short period of time. The last remark about a night watchman in Burgkunstadt comes from a document dated June 16, 1925; it can be assumed that the service was given up shortly thereafter.
In 1925, Hans Püls began building an extension for the Püls'sche shoe factory in Bahnhofstrasse. Starting in 1926, around 800 employees produced over 5000 pairs of shoes there every day, making the shoe factory the second largest in Bavaria at the time.
The son of a notary, Friedrich Baur , also founded Baur Schuhversand in 1925 , with the aim of delivering quality shoes to low and low earners at reasonable prices and with installment payments.
Due to the trade tax of the numerous factories, the city administration was able to renovate Bahnhofstrasse and the plan in 1928 .
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Since the end of the First World War, 1. FC Burgkunstadt has become increasingly successful and well known. The Würzburger Generalanzeiger gave the team the title "Wonder Team".
Since the fountain on the market square, built in 1919, could no longer meet the needs of the citizens, a waterworks was built in Kulmbacher Strasse in 1928/1929 , which was in operation until 1966.
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In order to solve the garbage problem, the city council conducted a survey in 1930 about the introduction of a garbage disposal . 44 households voted in favor, 77 against. The justification for the rejection was that you can find a place for your rubbish everywhere, especially the citizens of the lower town meant the Mühlbach. This led to a grotesque picture, especially in the winter months, as the residents of the lower town dumped their rubbish on the ice in the hope that the Mühlbach would take it with them in the spring. Finally, the city council disregarded the vote and introduced garbage disposal on February 18, 1930.
From 1930 the number of motor vehicles increased rapidly, which prompted Rudi Zeitler to set up a car repair workshop with a gas station on Lichtenfelser Straße.
In the same year, the former employee Kaspar Büttner of the Püls company went into business for himself and founded a shoe factory with his three sons in the upper town not far from the market square, which specialized in work shoes, sandals and camel hair slippers. This closed a gap in the market in the Burgkunstadter area.
After the inflation, the economic crisis of 1930 was the next catastrophe for domestic industry, which, in addition to short-time work, also resulted in layoffs. The Püls shoe factory reduced the workforce from around 800 to 400 workers, and the Raab sausage factory had to close. The factory building was taken over by the sausage and canning factory J. & A. Kraus from Weismain in the same year .
1933–1945 National Socialism and World War II
The seizure of power by Hitler also led to far-reaching political and social changes in Burgkunstadt. One of the first was the replacement of SPD mayor Hans Agath , who had been in office for almost 22 years until May 31, 1933, by the dentist and NSDAP politician Dr. Leo Feuersinger. A local NSDAP group had existed since 1930, headed by the dentist Dr. Wendelin Kolb was headed. With the election of Feuersinger, the city council was also deposed and a "city ordinance" was formed from ten NSDAP parliamentary groups. Despite Agath's political convictions, he received honorary citizenship through the National Socialist city parliament. Three streets have been renamed:
- The market square became Hindenburg Square
- The Judengasse (today's Kulmbacher Strasse ) became Adolf-Hitler-Strasse
- The plan became Hans-Schemm- Platz
In 1933 there were still 54 Jews living in Burgkunstadt. As part of the Jewish boycott on April 1 , some shops belonging to Jewish businessmen were looted and destroyed. On May 2, 1933, all trade unions were banned and replaced by the German Labor Front . During the Germany-wide book burning , the documents of the local trade unions and the books of the city library were burned in public. The law for the prevention of genetically ill offspring affected most of the residents of St. Joseph's institution, who were "kept" in closed institutions from July. A high wire fence was built around the property. The public footpath that led through the site was abandoned and the stairs south of the fence, still preserved today, were built instead. The St.-Josefs-Heim had to cover the construction costs of 2000 RM .
On October 29, 1933, the foundation stone for the Protestant church was laid in Rangengasse.
In March 1934, the football club, the gymnastics club and the shooting club were merged to form the Burgkunstadt gymnastics and sports club . The song wreath joined forces with the workers' choir.
Since the housing situation in the city was very poor, 15 small houses were built between 1934 and 1935, and four more were added in 1936. Together they formed the so-called school settlement, as the new adult education center was to be built next to the houses. A house cost between 6,471 and 8,300 Reichsmarks , depending on the size of the property . The average hourly wage for a worker was 78 pfennigs. The homeowners had to undertake by a notary public not to conduct or tolerate any immoral business on the property. This also applied to the sale of alcohol. The conditions also included keeping the entire property and the sidewalk in a clean and representative condition.
On May 8th, the Burgkunstadter city ordinance decided that "[...] Jews in the local markets [...]" were undesirable. Many Jewish entrepreneurs sold their factories and emigrated abroad, but Joseph Weiermann decided to build a modern factory building on Bahnhofstrasse.
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The outdoor swimming pool, a prestige object for the city and National Socialism, was opened on August 4, 1935. No Jew should ever be allowed to enter the bathroom. The outdoor pool was a major attraction not only for the city, but for the entire Lichtenfels district , as it was the only public pool outside of the Main. Before that, the Weidich bathing area with changing rooms was located near Burgkunstadt am Main.
After two Jews from Burgkunstadter received the Front Fighter Medal of Honor at the beginning of 1935 , the attitude towards the Nazi regime initially improved among the Jewish population. This opinion quickly changed when the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor deprived Jews of active and passive voting rights and forbade them to exercise public office. After the introduction of the Aryan paragraph and the associated prohibitions on mixed marriages , another ten Jews emigrated by 1938.
After the completion of the estate of the St.-Josefs-Anstalt, the less disabled home residents were able to do agricultural work and supply the home residents almost independently and inexpensively. The inauguration took place on September 4, 1935.
For the consecration of the Protestant church on October 20, 1935, almost 2,000 people came to the market square and went to the church. The procession was led by 22 evangelical clergymen and the church council. There were also representatives of the government, the mayor with the city ordinance, construction management, dean Frohnhöfer and representatives of the Catholic clergy.
The Protestant church decorated with flags shortly before the consecration.
The parade to the church consecration led by Dean Roth, Oberkirchenrat priest and Pastor Kohler from Strössendorf.
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In 1935/35 Ludwig Zeuch opened the Bank-Lichtspiele cinema in the former concert hall of the Hotel Fränkischer Hof am Weihersbach (today: Weihersbach 5). Traveling cinemas were showing films there in the 1920s. Since Zeuch did not return from the war , his wife Rosa continued to run the bank cinema. She had a new, modern cinema, the Lichtburg, built a few doors down . For a few years the Gloria-Lichtspiele operated by Michael Popp still existed in the former concert hall of the Hotel Fränkischer Hof. Because of the competition and the increasing spread of television, the Lichtburg closed a few years after the Gloria Lichtspiele in 1968.
Due to the economic success of Baur-Versand, Friedrich Baur had a new, three-story company building built opposite his house in 1936.
In 1937 the National Political Education Institute was relocated from Naumburg to Burgkunstadt for a few months .
In 1938 Baur-Versand bought the former Iglauer shoe factory. The Jewish company owner Stephan Iglauer had given up the factory in 1936 due to the increasing difficulties caused by the Nazi regime and later emigrated to the USA .
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The new school building was inaugurated on October 30, 1938 as the Fritz Wächtler School . Until then, teaching was carried out in the former bailiwick for decades. In the last few years until 1938, classes were taught there in shifts due to lack of space, and the eighth grade was canceled. The school building was built by government architect Bergler from Ansbach , financed by government agencies, the city administration and donations from local companies.
In the basement of the school building, a public bath with nine bathtubs, three shower cubicles and a 37 square meter school bath with 25 shower devices and a paddling pool was set up.
In September / October 1938 the Jewish shareholders of Joseph Weiermann Schuhfabrik AG had to sell their shares to three German entrepreneurs under pressure. In the course of the aryanization of the company, it was renamed Obermain-Schuhfabrik AG , and the JWA symbol for Joseph Weiermann Aktiengesellschaft was reinterpreted as Immer Wertarbeit . Like Joseph Weiermann, many Burgkunstadter manufacturers and business people suffered from anti-Jewish legislation. The intestinal wholesaler Banemann, the Iglauer shoe factory, the agency company Kraus, the haberdashery Possenheimer and Rothschild and the peddler Stefan Thurnauer had to close, the Lindner vinegar factory was "Aryanized" and a Hengstenberg branch, the Arthur Thurnauer wicker factory, was expropriated .
Due to the emerging Kneipp sandal fashion , sales of the Hühnlein shoe factory increased both at home and abroad. Under the brand name Passat , Hühnlein exported these “ Jesuslatschen ” to the Gold Coast and Nigeria and opened a Nigerian branch with Hamburg exporters. The annual production in 1938 was 1.2 million pairs of sandals.
For a few hundred years there had been a Jewish poor fund in Burgkunstadt, which was set up primarily to provide food and shelter for begging Jews who had passed through, but which later operated across denominations. It was financed by local Jews or those who had emigrated from 1933. In a letter dated October 11, 1938, the Ministry of the Interior forbade the city and the local population to “accept gifts or wills from Jews”.
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During the “ Reichskristallnacht ” from November 9th to 10th, 1938, the synagogue in Adolf-Hitler-Strasse was looted and devastated on the instructions of the NSDAP district leadership. Because of the narrow development, the synagogue was not burned down. Further damage followed on November 10th by school children. On the same day the Jewish population agreed to give the prayer house free of charge, the Jewish school with barn for 1,000 Reichsmarks and the meadow in front of the cemetery for 100 Reichsmarks to the city. The money was invested in a fund for needy Jews and the "sale" of the objects was specified in a notarized purchase agreement on November 17th. In order to “protect them from popular anger”, all Jewish family fathers were imprisoned in the bailiwick from November 10th to 12th. Together with five Jews from Altenkunstadter, five of them were then taken to the Lichtenfels district court prison and finally to the Hof prison. A newspaper report appeared in the Lichtenfelser Tagblatt on November 12th about the “donations” and “sales” of the synagogue, the school and the cemetery meadow: “[...] The synagogue, the old Jewish school and the Jewish barn in Auffahrtsstrasse were acquired on Friday the city of Burgkunstadt. The buildings will serve more useful purposes in the future. Today, Saturday afternoon at 2 a.m., the party formations will already begin with the demolition of the synagogue and thus erase a sad point from the cityscape forever. [...] Anyone who wants to lend a hand will be welcome ”. "For traffic-related reasons" the synagogue was completely demolished by the end of the year and replaced by a green area.
On November 15, all Jewish schoolchildren were banned from class. Since Leo Banemann and Stephan Iglauer had received the Front Fighters Badge of Honor in early 1935, they were released from prison on November 29, the other Jews only two weeks later. After they were released, everyone (mostly) had to sell their businesses, houses and properties to “ Aryans ” for a ridiculous price .
After Adolf Hitler had announced "the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe" on January 30, 1939, six more Jews managed to escape.
The Nazis used every little thing to harass and punish the remaining Jews. When the Jewish boy Max Nebel spat into a milk can on March 2nd, his father was locked up and a curfew was imposed on the Burgkunstadter Jews. This rather harmless incident was exaggerated in the local press as “Incredible meanness - Jewish kid spits in the milk, German people should drink it”. The very next day it was reported nationwide, and even the Nuremberg Gestapo intervened. Max Nebel was the only Jew from Burgkunstadter who survived a concentration camp imprisonment .
On June 20, 1938, the Dammäcker Burgkunstadt development area was set up in 1938 to build 20 houses there. Just like the school settlement , it should be an exemplary, well-tended and well-planned settlement that was only reserved for "worthy" Germans.
The building trade in Burgkunstadt boomed due to the numerous new construction of streets, settlements and monumental buildings. 1939 Diroll'schen Natursteinwerke employed about 300 people and provided the Kleinziegenfelder dolomite among others, the construction of the Nazi Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg and the Reich Chancellery in Berlin .
With the purchase of the former Woffendorfer Schuhfabrik Schonath & Behringer, the workforce at the Hühnlein shoe factory increased to 500, making it one of the largest in Northern Bavaria.
The Baur mail order company's social concept of selling shoes cheaply met with strong rejection from the NSDAP government. From 1939 at the latest, Baur-Versand was no longer allowed to publish advertisements in newspapers, and there were an unusually large number of tax audits. From the beginning of the war , 35 of the original 45 employees were withdrawn, so that only two men and eight women had to take on all the work.
After their houses and land had been sold, the remaining Jews lived frightened and in confined spaces in old, run-down houses. Although it was very dangerous to help the Jews as "Aryans", they provided some of the Burgkunstadter with food and other small items.
Second World War
The Second World War began with the attack on Poland on September 1, 1939 . In contrast to the Franco-Prussian War and the First World War, the enthusiasm of the population was limited and only emerged from absolutely convinced National Socialists. “As part of civil air protection measures” , all schools in the Lichtenfels district were closed between September 1st and 11th .
As early as August, many soldiers who had fought in the First World War had been called up. The volunteers and conscripts followed in September. Production in the domestic shoe industry had to be reduced, and the production program determined the Reichsstelle für Lederwirtschaft . The introduction of purchase coupons for shoes and their redemption posed a major problem for Baur-Versand. Despite a customer number of over 500,000 throughout Germany, the shipping department therefore specialized in delivering to the shoe retail trade. Since the Burgkunstadter shoe factories were underutilized by the state-ordered production of civilian shoes , they tried to get additional orders from the Wehrmacht , the police, the technical emergency aid or the Red Cross or to switch production to slippers and wooden shoes .
On September 23, 1939, the Jews were forced to hand over their radios. The date was chosen to humiliate them, as one of the highest Jewish festivals, the Feast of Atonement ( Yom Kippur ), fell on this day .
From February 6, 1940, the Burgkunstadter Jews no longer received any clothing brands, and from May 4, they were subject to a curfew from 8:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m.
Because of the French campaign , the two Pirmasens shoe factories Philipp Neupert & Orsewa and Roser & Schwarz were evacuated and forcibly quartered at the Obermain shoe factory . Due to the existing orders of the two shoe companies, which had to be fulfilled by Obermain, the working week increased to 40 hours. After the end of the French campaign, the shoe factories returned to Pirmasens.
The Jewish owner of the Altenkunstadter Gotthard shoe factory was expropriated and his shoe factory was sold to the Pirmasens manufacturer Otto Kreuch; the company was renamed Gotthard-Schuhfabrik Otto Kreuch KG .
The first aerial bombs fell by English planes on the night of August 27-28, 1940, northwest of the St. Joseph Institute.
In the years from 1933 onwards, tensions between the St. Joseph Institute and the Nazi government intensified. On May 2, 1941, the long-planned evacuation of the institution was contractually agreed. The home school was closed on May 26th after it had already been subordinated to the Fritz Wächter School in January. The home was completely cleared. Around 150 residents were transported by bus to other homes and psychiatric clinics , where some of them were murdered in the “ euthanasia campaign ”; 53 were released home. Only 23 residents and staff stayed behind to keep farming going. In the course of the deportation to Kinderland on June 12, 1941, 65 women and 226 children from Hamburg were quartered in the institution that had been converted into a National Socialist welfare home for mother and child .
In June 1941 20 Burgkunstadter soldiers had already died; Hopes that the war would end soon fell among the population.
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From September 15, all Jews over six years old who still lived in the city had to wear a Jewish star. In addition, they had to hand over their remaining typewriters, bicycles and electrical devices and were not allowed to leave the city without a special permit. The food stamps have been minimized.
On March 17, 1942, the remaining twelve Jews from Burgkunstadter and everyone else in the Lichtenfels district were informed that their evacuation to Poland was imminent. The Fuehrer had provided land for them in the General Government there, which they had to cultivate. On April 24th, they were brought to Bamberg by train together with the 13 Jews from Altenkunstadt at the train station. They were deported with other Jews from the area on April 25 in a freight train to Nuremberg and from there with Jews from Central and Lower Franconia on April 28 to the Majdanek concentration camp in eastern Poland . In the following days most of them were taken to the Belzec and Sobibor extermination camps , where they were murdered in the gas chambers in the summer of 1942 . This action ended the 700-year history of the Jewish community in Burgkunstadt.
On March 29, 1942, a town hall bell and a morgue bell, which together weighed 120 kilograms, were removed and melted down for the armaments industry.
About a year after the opening of the NSV maternity home, the eviction order was issued on July 24, 1942. The Hamburg social welfare office took over the home and used it as a Hamburg care home for old and sick Hamburgers in order to protect them from the increasingly violent bombardments of the Hanseatic city.
After the deportation of the Jews, the city bought the Jewish cemetery for 1200 Reichsmarks at the offer of the Reich Association of Jews in Germany . In particular, the Reich Institute for the History of the New Germany was very interested in the cemetery in connection with race theory and asked the city to precisely catalog all objects and gravestones. The official justification was to ensure “from a genealogical and anthropological point of view” for a “complete record of Jewish families and clans” in order to gain and deepen scientific knowledge for the fight against Judaism from “their position in German popular life in the past” . The city agreed, however, due to the setbacks in the Battle of Stalingrad , these investigations never came about.
As more and more workers from the local shoe factories had to go to the front, the jobs were filled by prisoners of war Russians, Lithuanians, Poles, French and Vlaslov soldiers . Despite these Eastern workers , the working hours in the Burgkunstadter shoe factories had to be increased in order to meet the orders.
From 1944 onwards, numerous war-related changes took place in Burgkunstadt and the surrounding area. In the summer of 1944, the Obermain shoe factory was given a green camouflage to deceive enemy aircraft. Since the bombing of German cities were violent, they camped some artifacts from the Germanic National Museum in Nuremberg into the castle Strössendorf one. Karl Eugen Fischer and his company P. Haffner & Cie, which he had taken over , settled in Burgkunstadt in autumn 1944 with 2000 employees in order to escape the war-torn Saarland . In Burgkunstadt, the production of steel cabinets and safe systems was converted to military equipment. The Haffner factory moved into the building of the Obermain shoe factory, which outsourced its machines to the other Burgkunstadter shoe factories.
The living conditions for the population deteriorated enormously in 1944. In December, a “normal consumer” only got 1700 grams of bread, 250 grams of meat or meat products, 125 grams of fat, and 125 grams of sugar or jam per week. Every three weeks there was also 325 grams of food and 62.5 grams of cheese. Black slaughter or black market trade was punishable by death.
From 1945 the situation of the domestic shoe industry became even worse. The largely destroyed infrastructure meant delays in transporting the raw materials; Because of numerous air raids, production had to be interrupted several times a day.
From March onwards, the influx of refugees from Eastern European countries also increased. In addition, there were more and more unarmed, neglected soldiers. This made it increasingly clear that the war would soon end. To prevent the Allies from marching in, the remaining 16- to 60-year-old men formed the Volkssturm . He dug trenches in Lichtenfelser Strasse and built anti-tank barriers out of tree trunks.
The Easter season was quite turbulent and several church services had to be broken off or were severely disrupted by constant aircraft noise and exploding bombs. On April 8, 1945, White Sunday , the Wehrmacht began to blow up all bridges in the area as part of the Nero order. The Burgkunstadter Main Bridge and a smaller one further west were blown up on April 10th. Also on April 10th, they wanted to clear out the food train “locked in” by the blasts in front of Burgkunstadt. The contents of the 26 wagons, filled with beef and pork, sausage, oil sardines, salt, pepper, sugar, rice, wine, Bulgarian tobacco, sauerkraut, fat, cooking oil, legumes, etc., should actually be distributed to the population in an orderly manner. However, the train was looted before unloading could begin. The Lichtenfelser Tagblatt appeared for the last time on April 10th, the power went out from April 11th, so that one could no longer hear the radio and was cut off from the outside world. After the train, the local population and the forced laborers began to plunder all the larger factories and businesses.
When the residents learned on April 12, 1945 that the American armored spearhead was standing in front of Horb , the parish priest Dr. Johannes Kist rode his bike to the Americans around 4 p.m., so that he could negotiate the conditions for a non-fighting surrender of the city. These read:
- Delivery of weapons of all kinds to a specific location.
- Delivery of all cameras and binoculars.
- White flags or cloths had to be hung from all windows.
- All front doors had to be provided with a list of the house residents.
- All conditions had to be met immediately.
Although Himmler had ordered on April 3, 1945 all men in a house with a raised white flag to be shot, large white flags were hung even at the parish church.
A 20–30 man strong group of the Wehrmacht nevertheless took up position at the vineyard, above Lichtenfelser Strasse, to bombard the Americans with machine guns and bazookas . However, through the persuasion of some Burgkunstadter the soldiers could be deterred, so that some of them complied with the surrender conditions and surrendered their weapons, and the rest disappeared northwards.
After most of the weapons, cameras and binoculars had been deposited at the Sparkasse in the afternoon, the Americans arrived in Burgkunstadt at around 7.15 p.m. The soldiers took the more valuable items with them, smashed the rest and withdrew. It was not until April 13th around 6:30 a.m. that dozens of American army vehicles drove through the lower town towards Kulmbach . In the afternoon, a large collection of American vehicles stood on the Main meadows east of the city. Four German Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters headed for this target . In a brief skirmish, one of the aircraft was shot down and crashed into the forest north of Mainroth. The father of the 20-year-old pilot Waldemar Klüpfel had a stone built with the propeller of the aircraft for his son at this point. The aviator's grave is maintained by the Mainroth soldiers' comradeship and serves as a memorial.
From this April 13th and in the following days there were no more trains and road traffic came to an almost complete standstill. There were isolated skirmishes in the area, as Wehrmacht soldiers who did not want to surrender were still hiding in the woods. In the days immediately following Burgkunstadt's surrender, the Americans imposed a curfew . The population was only allowed to leave their homes from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Although American soldiers patrolled the lower town to monitor the curfew, the soldiers did not intervene when the Eastern workers plundered the shoe stores of the Friedrich Baur and Otto Hühnlein companies. To the Eastern European workers, the Allies' passive attitude had the effect that they would approve the looting and cover it, which led to further looting in and around Burgkunstadt, which, in addition to the factory stores, extended to the pantries and dining rooms of some companies. A local guard founded with the permission of the Americans and the respective factory guards were soon able to stop the looting.
The voluntary medical column was also affected by the looting. The depot was completely cleared and the car was stolen. A little later the completely cannibalized car was found again near Weidnitz and brought back to Burgkunstadt. In the following weeks, all medical operations had to be carried out on foot with a mobile stretcher, in some cases as far as the Hochstadter hospital.
All residents of Schönberg, Bahnhofsstrasse and the school complex had to vacate their houses within 30 minutes to accommodate American soldiers for the next two weeks.
So that the food supply did not come to a standstill, the curfew was relaxed for all farmers from April 17, so that they could work in the fields from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Mayor Hans Dumrauf was deposed on April 21. The military government appointed the Traunstein dentist Dr. Berger.
On April 24, 1945 there was electricity for two and a half hours for the first time since April 11, which was generated by the steam engines of the Obermain and Püls shoe factories.
On April 25, most of the Eastern workers and Vlasov soldiers were evacuated, and the many evacuees from Hamburg, the Ruhr area and Frankfurt am Main also made their way home in the following days, despite hardly any transport options.
On May 8th at 11:01 p.m., almost four weeks after the surrender of Burgkunstadt, the Second World War ended with the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht . Including the new citizens (refugees, displaced persons, etc.), 242 Burgkunstadter soldiers died on the fronts. Many more were missing. Of the Jews who were born in Burgkunstadt or who had lived for a long time, 84 died in the labor and extermination camps.
1945–1964 From hardship to economic miracle
The first train on the Lichtenfels – Kulmbach line after the end of the war ran on May 16, 1945.
After the end of the war, the flow of refugees increased, so that finally around 940 refugees were in Burgkunstadt. They lived in the houses of the Burgkunstadter and were looked after by them. Support was provided by the St. Josef Institute, which served over 8,500 meals from July to December 1945.
In the summer of 1945 the black market flourished . In addition to food, pictures of Hitler and other souvenirs from the Nazi era were exchanged. Another payment method was the “ham and cigarette currency”. For comparison: for a ham or two kilograms of butter you received a one- carat diamond. Occasionally one could also pay with the almost worthless Reichsmark (RM) (examples: 1 kg butter for 400 RM, ladies stockings for 450 RM, 1 kg of coffee for 1000 RM, a bicycle for 4500 RM). Hobbyists and technology savvy made use of the car junkyard at the train station, where the Americans had piled up defective German army vehicles. In addition to motors and radios, there were also copper pipes for distilling schnapps .
Since the city's power supply through the overland control center was working again from June 11, 1945, production at the Obermain shoe factory was able to resume at least to a limited extent. On August 30, the factory was the first Bavarian shoe factory to receive a preliminary production permit from the Americans, which was expanded to a final one on October 1. The war losses were a big problem for the shoe factories; There was a shortage of workers in every company, with the Hühnlein shoe factory being hardest hit. In addition to junior boss Kurt Hühnlein, 94 other young men had died, and another 31 were missing.
After the St. Joseph Institute was effectively closed in 1942, the sisters returned on June 4, 1945 and looked after both refugees and the disabled. After negotiations with the Americans, on August 5, 1946, the facility was given permission to look after the needy and was officially reopened on August 12.
In autumn 1945, the Fischer machine factory built the 40-meter-long and 7-meter-wide Main Bridge from cannon barrels and once again enabled smooth traffic between Burgkunstadt and Altenkunstadt. The factory was involved in the construction of other bridges and distributed furnaces made from cannon barrels to the population. At that time, around 95 percent of the workforce at the factory consisted of Eastern workers, most of whom settled in the region due to the good working conditions.
In the course of the year, the Obermain shoe factory reinstated all workers released from the Wehrmacht and from captivity, so that the workforce rose from 168 workers in July 1945 to 262 in January 1946. Around 1,000 pairs of shoes were produced in a 35 to 48 hour week.
From the summer of 1945, the Americans began to denazify Germany . All National Socialists were removed from the administration and the economy, pictures and uniforms destroyed, all Nazi laws repealed and Nazi organizations banned. Streets got their former names again. Some prison sentences and fines were imposed in Burgkunstadt, and the city administration had to dismiss almost all civil servants and employees.
On January 28, 1946 there were the first free city council elections since 1933. All city councils belonged to the re-admitted SPD or the Christian Social Party (CSP), which only existed in Burgkunstadt and which joined the CSU a little later . Fritz Gäßlein replaced Felix Berger as mayor on January 29th. In June 1946, however, Gäßlein's election was canceled and Hans Weber was mayor until August 1946. After only two months Weber was deposed and Hans Agath, who was mayor before the Third Reich, held the office until December 1947.
On August 26, 1946, the school moved from the Bailiwick to the school building built in 1937/1938. Because of the shortage of teachers, teaching was inadequate.
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... of a primary school child:
That was just enough to survive, but not to get full. |
Burgkunstadt was not so badly affected by the general lack of food because of the rural surroundings, but the daily food intake only rarely exceeded 4200 kJ (= 1000 kcal). The adjacent table shows the planned daily ration for a primary school child. Malnutrition often resulted in diseases such as TB , whooping cough , paratyphoid fever or oral rot .
The extremely cold winter at the beginning of 1947 worsened the situation of the population as there was hardly any heating material. As a result, the black market flourished again and significantly more was stolen than usual.
From April 1947 a meal with 350 kcal was served for the primary school children (school lunch) in the primary school.
After a very hot and dry summer, from December 28th to 30th, 1947 the Main overflowed its banks in such a way that the flood reached the plan in the lower town; In the factories on the Main meadows, the water was sometimes meters high.
After the currency reform on June 20, 1948, compulsory management in the shoe factories was lifted so that they could again deliver to the territory of the British and French occupation zones , which brought about a great economic and production boom. In 1948 a total of 1.4 million pairs of shoes were produced in the Püls, Obermain, Gotthard and Hühnlein shoe factories, with the price rising by 67.8% from DM 15.85 to DM 26.60 within six months, from June to November . The price increase was slowed down by the “everyone's shoe program” introduced by the Allies. The shoe factories received grants to keep the final price lower. Friedrich Baur was also able to start shipping shoes again.
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After all bells except the one donated by Hans Püls in memory of his deceased son Ludwig had been removed and melted down for weapons production at the end of the Second World War, Pastor Johannes Kist managed to collect the enormous sum of 19,592 DM despite the currency reform, so that at the beginning of 1949 three bells (38, 16 and 8 hundredweight ) could be poured and consecrated on September 1st of the same year.
In order to alleviate the housing shortage, the city, the district and the non-profit housing company Burgkunstadt und Umgebung (GEWO) built the Dammsiedlung with a total of 25 apartments, some in multi-family houses, in just over a year.
Fueled by a new fear of war due to the Korean War that broke out on June 25, 1950 , the population started buying hamsters from which the shoe factories also benefited, so that their production was already fully booked for the rest of the year from summer onwards.
At the beginning of 1951, Friedrich Baur gave the volunteer fire brigade an Opel Blitz , which was converted into a team transport vehicle. A more modern fire engine was purchased in 1957 with a TLF 16 ( Magirus-Deutz ) tank tender . In 1951 two more apartment buildings with eight and ten apartments were built.
Waldemar Schneider, who comes from Ratibor ( Upper Silesia ), and his wife opened a shoe shop for second-class shoes in the Rothschildhaus, built in 1850, in 1952, which they bought in the surrounding shoe factories and in Rhineland-Palatinate . Due to the very low prices, long queues formed in front of the two shops in Burgkunstadt, especially on religious holidays. Even from West Berlin , entire bus groups came regularly to go shopping, as the bus costs jumped back and forth with a purchase of around 400 DM and you still saved money compared to buying shoes in Berlin.
After Friedrich Baur bequeathed Ebelsacker am Wolfsberg and DM 200,000 to build an apartment block to the Gewo, the groundbreaking ceremony for the 56-apartment building project took place on June 23, 1952. The topping-out ceremony took place on October 18, 1952 Settlement named as a tribute to this "unique social act" as Dr. Friedrich Baur settlement. By the end of the year, 32 apartments had already been occupied, and a further 61 were completed throughout the city. 161 apartments were built between 1949 and 1952, 119 of which were publicly financed.
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On October 4, 1953, Gerdi Feuersinger, the daughter of Leo Feuersinger, named the type 38 school glider of the Burgkunstadter glider group Kordigast, which was manufactured in 2500 hours, with the name Stadt Burgkunstadt. At the beginning of the 1960s, however, it crashed, whereupon manned gliding was banned in the Burgkunstadter city area, as you had to fly over the surrounding houses when taking off and landing.
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The economic upswing that began in the post-war period meant, among other things, that long-distance truck transport increased, which in particular affected the structure of the houses on Kulmbacher Strasse and the quality of life of the residents. Due to the maneuvering work with oncoming traffic, long traffic jams often formed and, despite the inner-city location, some fatal accidents occurred. Up to 400 vehicles drove through the lower town of Burgkunstadter at peak times. This was remedied by a bypass road that was only two kilometers long (part of today's B 289 ). In order to obtain the earth material for the route, a 500 meter long and 25 meter wide flood basin was created to prevent flooding. After a year of construction, the road was put into operation on November 27, 1954.
In 1953, the city acquired a 9,000 square meter plot of land on Wolfsberg to build a new gymnasium on; During the planning phase, however, it was decided to build a multifunctional hall with space for around 1000 visitors, the largest in the region. Construction work on the town hall began in 1954. After around two years of construction, the “monumental building”, which cost 1.2 million DM, was inaugurated on May 26, 1956. In the following years, the town hall developed into a cultural and social attraction for all of Upper Franconia. On July 18, 1965, among others, the then Vice Chancellor and later Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt came to a rally in the town hall.
In August 1954, the Main Bridge, built from cannon barrels, was torn down and replaced by a modern reinforced concrete bridge from the Bamberg construction company M. Brandt, which was completed in 1960.
Due to enormous storage difficulties, Baur-Versand acquired two houses opposite Friedrich Baur's house in Bahnhofstrasse in 1955, had them demolished and erected a 34-meter-high warehouse and administration building there, which was completed at the end of 1956.
After the city had been assured of grants from the Bavarian Ministry of Culture , the state secondary school in the east wing of the city hall was opened on September 2, 1958 .
A donation of around DM 200,000 by the Baur family to the city of Burgkunstadt enabled the renovation of the five-wound chapel and the figure of the double-faced Madonna. The chapel was rededicated on July 27th.
In the course of minor renovation work on the Baur high-rise building in 1958, the Mühlbach was piped at this point and the newly gained area was converted into a car park.
In the fall of 1958, the extension of the elementary school was completed, which was assigned to the middle school. Mainly due to the disproportionate distribution of the students among the available rooms, this decision met with fierce resistance from the management of the elementary school. After negotiations, it was agreed for the school year 1959/60 to use the new building jointly by the middle school and the Catholic students of the elementary school, which is separated according to denominations.
The St. Josefsheim Church was completed within a year and was consecrated on February 24, 1960 in the presence of the Archbishop of Bamberg, Josef Schneider .
In the course of the green area design on the plan, the Lichtenfels artist Karl Potzler was commissioned to build a fountain with a shoemaker boy figure . However, the fountain caused violent protests when it was unveiled on August 3, 1960. In the opinion of the Burgkunstadter, the figure with the broad head, the stiff posture and the flat feet was more of an insult than an appreciation of the Burgkunstadter shoemakers.
In February 1961, BayWa opened the new warehouse and administration building with workshop and machine show opposite the train station. With the branch, especially the hinterland up to the Jura and the Kulmbach area should be better supplied with goods.
Friedrich Baur's wife, Kathi Baur, had the old people's home built on the outskirts in 1964 and donated it to the Bamberg Diocesan Charity Association.
In order to supply the new development areas with water, the city decided on March 17, 1964 to build a new waterworks and a municipal building yard on the Bones. After around two years of construction, the waterworks on Kulmbacher Strasse, built in 1928, were closed and the new one opened.
Also in 1964, Friedrich Baur financed the renovation of the outside facade of the Catholic Church. In the course of these measures, the organ and the stalls were also renewed.
1965–1990 From shoe town to school town
The development into the school center of the western district of Lichtenfels began with the construction of the state secondary school on June 8, 1965, which was renamed Realschule during the construction phase as part of a nationwide regulation . After a little more than a year of construction, the school was officially opened on October 1st, 1966. On October 18, the Kathi-Baur retirement home St. Heinrich with chapel was opened by Archbishop Dr. Josef Schneider inaugurated.
Despite the increasing competition from Asia, the Obermainschuhfabrik was running at full capacity, so that in 1965 it opened several quilting workshops. The same was true for the Püls shoe factory.
After the lengthy planning phase, the mechanical-biological central sewage treatment plant, which cost 2.3 million DM, went into operation on June 30, 1966. At that time it was the most modern sewage treatment plant in Upper Franconia and also treated the water of the Altenkunstadt community.
The next school building was the elementary and vocational school for disabled girls of the St. Josef Institute with an attached teaching pool.
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The last 400 meter long open section of the Mühlbach in the city center was piped in 1967 and converted into a road. This also enabled parking spaces and back entrances to be created for the newly created commercial buildings, and the particularly strong odor nuisance caused by the Mühlbach in summer ended.
The peak of the Burgkunstadter shoe industry was in the mid-1960s. Around 2,300 workers from more than 50 villages made 12,000 pairs of shoes a day, including women's and men's shoes, as well as children's , oversized , ice skating and ski boots . At this time, the city was given the nickname Franconian Pirmasens or Klein-Primasens .
At the end of the 1960s, the post-war construction boom subsided significantly. Under the influence of the shoe industry, the number of houses had almost quadrupled between 1918 with 210 and 1968 with 811.
Construction of the new gymnasium and small swimming pool with sauna next to the secondary school began on April 15, 1970. The 1.5 million DM hall was named after sponsor Kathi Baur. The swimming pool in the hall, which was completed in 1972, served primarily as a teaching pool for the surrounding schools in the following decades.
In 1970 the end of denominational schools was accompanied by a reorganization of the school system. The pupils of both denominations were now taught together, and the surrounding villages and communities also sought to enroll their pupils in Burgkunstadt. The first municipality to make this decision was Neuses am Main in 1963, the other current districts of Burgkunstadt followed suit until 1970. Nevertheless, the city council did not want to approve a comprehensive association school, as this would have required a new school building or the relocation of some classes to the city hall.
From the school year 1970/1971 onwards, all students in the city area, with the exception of Mainroth and its districts, were taught in Burgkunstadt. For the Mainrother, lessons took place in the local school, which was newly built in 1965. The class average there was 38.9 students. For the Mainrother high school students the lessons took place in Burgkunstadt.
On April 6, 1971, the city council decided to build a main and a secondary soccer field on the Mühlwiese.
In the course of the Bavarian municipal district reform , Weidnitz was incorporated into Burgkunstadt on July 1, 1971.
In order to meet the increased demand, Baur-Versand had a large warehouse built on the Mainwiese between the train station and the Main Bridge, which was connected to the railroad tracks. This also went hand in hand with the expansion of Bahnhofstrasse to the Main Bridge.
Also in 1971, the 450-year-old Hotel Stern on the inner Kulmbacher Strasse was demolished. At the time of the Peasants' War of 1525, the resistance movement around Bader Kälblein and Hermann Knoch and the renegade Prince-Bishop Hans Steudlein gathered in the inn, which was then called Morgenstern . The first post office in Burgkunstadt was also housed in this building from 1828 and, from the 20th century, the largest ballroom in Burgkunstadt, which had long been the city's cultural center, was attached. After the demolition, a HypoVereinsbank building was built there.
On April 1, 1972, Neuses am Main joined Burgkunstadt as the second municipality. The Obristfeld belonging to Neuses was incorporated into Redwitz . The population of Burgkunstadt grew to 5133 citizens.
In 1972 the Upper Franconian sausage and canning factory J. & A. Kraus closed . In addition to the Weismain plant of the formerly extremely successful company (Wehrmacht supplier, exports to America , England , South America and Africa ), Burgkunstadter was also affected. The city bought the building complex and exchanged it with the Günther brewery for a piece of land needed for soccer fields. Between April and October 1976 the building, some of which was over 100 years old, was demolished and the 28 meter high chimney was blown up.
On February 26, 1973, Burgkunstadt attracted media attention across Germany. On the previous Saturday, February 24, the city forester Josef Barnickel, who also supervised the Jewish cemetery on behalf of the Israelite State Association , discovered that around 600 tombstones had been torn from the ground and overturned. This resulted in property damage of around DM 50,000. In addition to an act of revenge for the downing of a Libyan plane by the Israeli military a few days earlier, the LKA suspected that the cause was also a right or left-wing extremist attack by domestic or foreign activists. The grave robbers were caught on February 27th . It was about three young men between 19 and 24 years of age who had sneaked into the Jewish cemetery at night under the influence of alcohol as a test of courage . When they discovered how easy it was to knock over the tombstones and how easy it was to knock sparks, they turned into a 75-minute destructive mania, for which only two of the three received suspended sentences .
After almost two years of planning and construction, the third elementary school extension with a language laboratory and sports field, costing four million DM, was completed in autumn 1973, which had become necessary due to the strong increase in the number of pupils .
Shortly after the Büttner shoe factory, the Otto Hühnlein GmbH shoe factory closed on June 30, 1974. The 80-year-old company boss Otto Hühnlein justified this with the worsening economic situation and the lack of a biological heir. A social plan with assets of one million DM was available for the 198 dismissed employees , which was paid out according to the length of service.
After the Baur tennis hall with bowling alleys and outdoor courts was completed on June 21, 1974, a new, representative building was added in the east of the city with the 8,990,000 DM expensive Progymnasium and the integrated extension of the Realschule. The high school was inaugurated on September 28th. As architect Scherzer emphasized, the city had finally changed from a shoe city to a school city.
In the same year the road to today's Hainweiher district was expanded and paved.
In the state and local elections in 1974, Ebneth and its two districts decided with 107 to 17 votes for the incorporation into Burgkunstadt, which took place on January 1, 1975.
After the Mainroth municipal council had already voted 7: 4 for incorporation into Burgkunstadt on August 28, 1975, but the residents of the towns of Rothwind, Fassoldshof and Eichberg , which belong to Mainroth , had spoken out against it, the incorporation was initially abandoned. On January 1, 1977, Mainroth came to Burgkunstadt, but without the aforementioned localities that joined Mainleus . On the same day, Gartenroth , Kichlein, Theisau and their districts came to Burgkunstadt, which caused the population to increase significantly again.
After the positive annual review of the Püls shoe factory (turnover in 1975: 18 million DM), the news of the closure came as a surprise to many. The orderly processing of all pending orders was guaranteed, so that the company continued to produce until July 1976, but a total of 400 people lost the work for which a social plan was available. In the FAZ , company owner Robert Püls justified his decision with the poor sales situation due to the increased import pressure. Herbert Gräser became managing director of the successor company Globetrotter Schuhfabrik GmbH, named after the men's collection of the Püls company. On January 1, 1976, he also became a member of the board of directors of the Obermain shoe factory with sole power of representation. Almost 300 of the 400 Püls employees were taken over by the Globetrotter factory.
On June 23, 1977 the foundation stone was laid for the Protestant kindergarten not far from the Protestant church. The building cost 664,000 DM and was opened on November 12, 1977 after just six months.
The incorporation of the surrounding localities brought with it increased administrative expenses and personnel requirements. Since the town hall had become too small for this, an extension was planned. In addition to a steel and glass construction, the use of the Kuni-Tremel-Eggert-Haus and a connecting wing were up for discussion. Ultimately, the city council decided in favor of the 1.5 million DM steel-and-glass construction by the Nuremberg architect Professor Gerhard Scherzer. The town hall was reopened on July 1, 1978 after extensive restoration for 815,000 DM.
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Brewing in the Kommunbrauhaus on Brauhausweg, which became a cooperative brewery at the end of the 19th century, was discontinued in 1967 after 567 years. In 1977 the brewery was sold to the locksmith Döring and served as a warehouse for several years until it was demolished.
On December 10, 1977, the construction of a police station with 26 officers was finally rejected. For centuries, until 1938 and from 1956 to 1961, there had been at least one, sometimes even several, police officers . Most recently there was a house on Schönberg with a state police station with an official apartment and later with a sobering cell . The prison cell was housed in the so-called police servant's house next to the town hall, which was demolished for the extension of the town hall. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the police station house and the apartment of the city policeman were also located in the police station .
In order to be able to widen, expand and asphalt the street to the housing estates near the Protestant church in the eastern part of the city, three houses and a barn were demolished in March 1978 on Rangengasse. Underground cables were laid in the entire lower town, including in the upper town by the end of 1979.
When the factory chimney of the Obermain shoe factory was blown up on June 5, 1978, another landmark of the local industry was removed.
Between 1963 and 1978 several archaeological excavations took place in the area of the former castle complex. During the excavation of an excavation pit to expand the St.-Josefs-Anstalt in 1963, on the site of the former fire station, ceramics and traces of fire were found in the soil layers in addition to a strong medieval wall (excavation number 6.1 and 6.2 on the map). A high medieval castle wall and late Merovingian - Carolingian pottery shards, similar to those found in Burglengenfeld , were discovered during excavations on the site of the St. Joseph Institute (No. 6.7). The most important find, a spherical pot from the 8th / 9th centuries. Century was discovered in 1973 during an emergency excavation in the kitchen construction of the institution (No. 6.9).
In 1975 the remains of a Gothic wall with ornaments were discovered south of the town hall in a five-meter-long and deep search cut (no.6.6), which either belonged to the Margaret Chapel mentioned in a document or to the hall of the residential tower, on the bottom of which is today's town hall. About 2.5 meters below the ground, remains of a wood-earth wall were found in the same place, which could be dated to the 30s of the 9th century. Further excavations did not bring any noteworthy findings (see map).
The information newspaper Burgkunstadt aktuell was distributed for the first time on January 1, 1979. It appears several times a year and, in addition to information from the city administration, is also a kind of event calendar.
A two-meter-long rusted, 17 cm thick heating pipe in the nursing home caused major complications. On May 21, 1979, a water-oil mixture came out of the taps in the entire city area, because heating oil had already flowed into the earth through the rusted pipe and contaminated the well near the old people's home. The well was switched off and the old, long-unused one on the market square was temporarily connected to the waterworks. In addition to the city, the district office, police, health department, water management office and fire department ensured that all immediate measures and the flushing of the pipes ran smoothly. For 195,000 DM, a 121 meter deep well with a high extraction rate of 7.5 liters per second was drilled in the northeast of the city by 1980.
The construction of a two million DM rescue center with several large garages, workshops and classrooms and a hose tower for the Red Cross and the fire brigade had already started in 1979 on a plot of land in Lichtenfelser Strasse , which was inaugurated on September 12, 1980. In 1991/92 the complex was expanded to include the only respiratory protection training facility in the district to date .
After a renovation period of 27 months, the town hall was returned to its intended use on October 11, 1980. During the work, one also found the invoice for the town hall building, drawn up by the then mayor Moritz Stahl, and in the floor of the entrance hall a previously unknown coin, the Bamberg silver denarius with the image of Heinrich II and the inscription HEINRICVS DI. GRA. REX (Heinrich, king by the grace of God) and on the reverse the mint BABENBERC ( Bamberg ). Scientists disagree about the meaning of the coin, but it is believed that it is either a commemorative coin on the occasion of the founding of the Archdiocese of Bamberg or an anniversary coin on the occasion of Heinrich's 40th birthday on May 6, 1012.
On March 12, 1981, Burgkunstadt was the first town in the district to receive cable television .
The third and last factory chimney in Burgkunstadt was blown up on June 1, 1981. The 30 meter high chimney, built in 1911 and belonging to the Gotthard shoe factory, was the last symbol of the city's industrialization.
After around two years of planning, construction of the triple gymnasium at the grammar school began in the spring of 1982 . After 16 months of construction, it was completed in the summer of 1983 and cost seven million DM.
The first old town festival took place on June 17, 1982 in the entire old town area and in the lower town. Due to its size and several thousand visitors, it was referred to in the press as a “festival of superlatives”. The net proceeds of DM 22,280.10 were donated to the city's two kindergartens. Due to the positive balance and the response from the population, the festival committee decided to organize an old town festival on a regular basis (from 1993 onwards it was agreed every three years).
1983 saw the end of the shoe industry. The Obermain shoe factory registered short-time work and was only able to sell the pair of shoes with an average loss of DM 19. The population feared the closure of the factory and the loss of around 500 jobs, but this did not happen for the time being. Still, 126 workers were laid off this year alone.
On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the volleyball department of the 1861 Burgkunstadt gymnastics club, a friendly volleyball match between the German and South Korean women's volleyball teams was held on June 16, 1984 in the triple gym .
In 1988 the 100th anniversary of the Burgkunstadter shoe industry was celebrated twice. On July 4th, the then Bavarian Prime Minister Franz Josef Strauss came to the Obermain shoe factory, which is now again profitable, and gave an eulogy for the company as executors of the wills for the legacy of the Baur couple. The actual celebration took place in the town hall at the beginning of September. After the company had taken over the Swedish shoe factory Aristokrat Sko Industrie AB a few months earlier, managing director Joachim Perlik announced that he wanted to gain a foothold in France , Austria and Great Britain . At the end of September, employees were paid an additional DM 100,000. The Obermain donated 25,000 DM, and Baur-Versand 50,000 DM for the shoemaker's museum, which is currently under construction.
The city of Burgkunstadt took over the sponsorship of the 3rd company of the 12th tank reconnaissance battalion stationed in Ebern on November 14, 1988 until the site was closed. In return, the unit carried out arms shows in Burgkunstadt and took over clean-up operations at the Jewish cemetery.
The school development of Burgkunstadt came to an end with the expansion of the Progymnasium into a full grammar school . In the school year 1990/1991 there was an eleventh grade for the first time, the first Abitur examination took place in the school year 1992/1993.
Despite the positive balance from 1988 and the good product quality, the Obermain shoe factory stopped production on March 31, 1990. It was founded in 1888 as the first Burgkunstadter shoe factory under the name Josef Weihermann shoe factory. It was the last of the Burgkunstadter shoe factories to close after 102 years. The time of the Burgkunstadter shoe industry was finally over, a shoemaker commented on this event with the words "It's all over, and it's a shame that it's true".
1990–2011 Rapid changes
In 1990 the 300th anniversary of the town hall was celebrated; the Raiffeisenbank had a silver and a gold commemorative coin minted for it.
Even before the dissolution of the GDR , Burgkunstadt entered into a town partnership with Ehrenfriedersdorf in Saxony . Especially in the early days, numerous associations made connections with the corresponding ones in the twin city; Products from the Ore Mountains were sold in markets.
After the renovation of the house on the market square and the collection of exhibits had already started in 1985, the Shoemaker Museum was opened on March 9, 1991, and in 1997 it became the German Shoemaker Museum.
Due to the increasing number of students, an extension was added to the grammar school in 1994. The speech was given by the then State Secretary of the Bavarian Ministry of Culture , Monika Hohlmeier .
In 1995, two more 160-meter-deep wells were drilled in the forest west of Kirchlein to supply water, producing nine and ten liters per second respectively.
Between 1995 and 2001 several archaeological excavations took place in the old town area. In 1995 and 1998, two layers of fire (1000 BC and 10th / 11th centuries AD) were found in the extension of the St. Josefs Home, which is now managed by the Regens Wagner Foundation , but in which no noteworthy finds were found could be made. On the other hand, late medieval pottery from the 13th and 14th centuries was found in a fire layer from the 15th century, which was discovered in 2001 at the Catholic parish office.
In October 1996, Burgkunstadt, Altenkunstadt and Weismain formed a working group for communal cooperation, which, however, seldom worked because of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. With financial support from the association founded in 1995, the city was able to completely refurbish or partially rebuild the outdoor pool from 1998 to 2000. It consists of a 25-meter swimming pool, an adventure pool with a water slide, a children's paddling pool with a small slide, a large chess field and a sand playground. The construction costs for this project amounted to more than two million DM. The ceremonial opening of the Kunomare took place on June 10, 2000 with a water ballet performance and other attractions.
After the old sewage treatment plant was demolished, the joint mechanical-biological-chemical sewage treatment plant of Burgkunstadt and Altenkunstadt was built on the same property in 1999. The major project cost DM 13.5 million and was subsidized by the state at 28.95%. Since its completion on April 1, 2001, it has been operated by the Oberfranken company disposal technology .
On July 16, 2000 the inauguration of the Protestant parish hall took place. The building and costing 1.2 million DM was realized. a. thanks to the enormous contribution of the parish and a donation of 304,760 DM. The parish hall also has an open-air stage with a semicircular, terraced auditorium, reminiscent of an ancient Roman theater .
In 2003, the Bailiwick, built in the 14th century, was sold to the Friedrich-Baur-Stiftung for a symbolic price of one euro , and by summer 2006 it was renovated for over three million euros and expanded as a cultural center.
On January 1, 2005, the high school and the secondary school were transferred to the Lichtenfels district, as the city could no longer take over the sponsorship for financial reasons. However, this had the disadvantage that the district did not want to continue to operate the swimming pool in the Kathi-Baur-Halle, so it was closed. In October 2005, the DLRG local group Burgkunstadt took over the indoor swimming pool at its own risk and expense, as the municipalities of Burgkunstadt, Altenkunstadt and Weismain had promised financial support for swimming lessons in their schools. However, the lease was terminated by the district administration in January 2009, but the swimming pool was not finally closed until February 15, 2010 after renewed negotiations.
In March 2007 the city administration moved to the old bailiwick, as the town hall had to be completely renovated again after only 30 years due to structural damage.
The commemoration on April 14, 2007 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the death of the writer Kuni Tremel-Eggert caused a lot of excitement , as she had also written several National Socialist and anti-Semitic novels.
For the 2007/2008 school year, the secondary school was expanded to become an open all-day school with the Geschwister-Gummi-Stiftung from Kulmbach as the sponsor. The pupils were given the opportunity to have a meal at school, do their homework with supervision and play in a common room in the afternoons.
In 2008, the police rang was extensively renovated, as there were around five meters of medieval rubble from the Thirty Years' War under the street and a landslide threatened to occur. The sewer system and water pipes were also renewed there. The renovation cost a total of 910,000 euros.
On December 31, 2008, a big New Year's Eve celebration took place on the market square for the city's upcoming 950th anniversary in 2009. After the church bells rang at the turn of the year, a musical fireworks display was lit. a. the number 950 in the city colors red-white-blue appeared in the sky. Impressions from the fireworks for the 950th anniversary of Burgkunstadt:
The exhibition of archaeological finds from the last decades opened on March 14, 2009. The exhibition was supplemented by several lectures by various experts and historians spread throughout the year.
On June 4, a railcar of the type was 612 of Deutsche Bahn in the name Burgkunstadt baptized.
On June 28th the district garden day took place in Burgkunstadt. The municipal building yard had made the city coat of arms out of colored gravel on the mountain southeast of the city hall and planted the number 950 with flowers underneath.
As a partnership-like relationship has existed between Burgkunstadt and the Polish city of Gostynin for many years , Burgkunstadt's First Mayor Heinz Petterich and Jan Kazimiercz Krzewicki, Gostynin's Mayor, signed a declaration for a future town twinning in September 2009.
The town hall was inaugurated on October 17, 2009 after two and a half years of renovation work. In contrast to the renovation in the 1970s, the facade was designed in the original colors, which could be determined from paint residues under the top layers of paint.
The BayWa warehouse opposite the train station, built in 1961, was demolished in November 2009. Only the offices, the agricultural machinery trade and the workshops have been preserved.
At the end of the anniversary year there was also a big New Year's Eve celebration on the market square.
For the victims of the earthquake in Haiti , a donation of 7,860 euros was collected at a benefit concert with musical composer Udo Langer and regional bands on February 5, 2010, which was transferred to an orphanage in Haiti via the Franciscan monastery Vierzehnheiligen without any deductions .
Due to the increasing number of pupils at the Realschule and the Gymnasium and the closure of the Kathi-Baur-Halle, there were often bottlenecks in physical education in both schools. Construction of a fourth sports hall, which is attached to the Obermain triple gymnasium, began as early as May 2008. The construction costs amounted to around 1.68 million euros. In addition to first-aid rooms and changing rooms, the sports hall also has a fitness room and a 110 m² climbing wall, which costs around 50,000 euros and has six routes and different levels of difficulty. The new hall was handed over to its destination in February 2010.
After the government of Upper Franconia approved the modernization of the secondary school in September 2009, the basement walls were insulated that same year so that work on the facade could begin in spring 2010. The project was estimated at 1,565,000 euros. The work was completed in July 2011.
After several years of planning, the city of Burgkunstadt, five years after Altenkunstadt and Weismain, signed a town partnership with the Breton community of Quéven at a ceremony on May 5, 2011 . On June 24th, a delegation from the city of Burgkunstadt visited the new twin city together with the DFG-Obermain, where a “twin city tree” was inaugurated and a second ceremony was held. For Burgkunstadt, this represents the first international city partnership.
Signing or renewal of the town twinning certificates on May 5, 2011 in Burgkunstadt.
Inauguration of the town twinning tree in Quéven.
Twinning ceremony on June 24, 2011 in Quéven.
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List of Burgkunstadter mayors
Mayors were installed in the city from at least 1364, from 1387 they are known by name.
In the Middle Ages, the mayor was appointed by the eight-member citizens' council. On assuming office, the new one made an oath to the old one to properly carry out his office. Sometimes there were two mayors in office, from 1745 even four. They held the office in pairs and replaced each other in the management of official business every quarter. However, it is unclear how long before and after 1745 this regulation existed.
The table provides information about the mayors of Burgkunstadt since the 14th century. Due to a lack of documents, many mayors and terms of office could not be proven, so that the table is partially incomplete.
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List of Burgkunstadter city names
Up until the end of the 19th century there was no uniform spelling in Germany . This also led to the fact that numerous spellings of the city name of Burgkunstadt existed, especially in the Middle Ages. The only clues were often old documents or your own hearing.
The following fold-out table shows the known spellings of the name.
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According to the Bavarian Main State Archives , the earlier suffix -stat or -statt did not have the same word meaning as city.
City legend
The legend of the golden cradle was written and printed by Isak Thurnauer in 1888, but most likely goes back to a much older story. Some teachers interested in folklore added recent historical findings such as the involvement of the Burgkunstadter in the peasant war. In the 120 years or so since its creation, the legend has often been changed in terms of content and form. There is also a stage adaptation in the form of a Heimatspiel, which was performed several times in 1949. The treasure described in the saga has not yet been found, although it, like the protagonist of the saga, the knight Kuno, is historically undetectable and its existence is considered unlikely.
“It was in the year 1525. The castle of the knight Kuno zu Burgkunstadt, festively decorated, greeted down into the Main valley. The flags fluttered in the wind on three watchtowers. May trees adorned with flowers were planted on both sides of the castle gate. The squires carried garlands and wreaths and adorned the exterior of the castle. A son had been born to the knight Kuno. A Nuremberg 'pepper sack' sat in the dungeon and had to procure a golden cradle as a ransom. Everything had worked out, and at midnight there was pure joy in the castle hall when Knight Kuno proudly showed his boy and his golden cradle. But the disaster had already taken its course: The armed peasants seized the opportunity and stormed the castle.
Above all Bader Kelblein, who cheered the farmers vigorously. Soon the ladders were on the castle walls. The most dashing people were already standing on the top rungs, and heavy axes pounded the stone walls with force. The fire pipes rattled, the bullets pounded on the walls, and knights and squires bowed their heads. They were by no means geared towards combat. Here and there a piece of wall collapsed with a crash. If one of the attacking peasants sank, hit by boiling oil, others swung themselves onto the ladders. The next day the castle was in the hands of the farmers.
Among the many dead, however, was the knight Kuno not. Bader Kelblein searched busily for him and finally found him in one of the watchtowers.
'Where is the golden cradle?' asked the bath. Then the wounded Kuno stood up proudly and said: 'And if you promise to give me life, I will not say so. So make it short! '
A last kettle with oil was in the courtyard. 'Who is this cauldron for?' asked Kelblein. Knight Kuno laughed roughly and said: 'For you Kelblein!' 'Forward, stoke,' ordered the bather. 'You see, he wants to stew in the oil'. Kuno didn't change his face and didn't ask for his life. An hour later there was a shapeless lump by the kettle. In the courtyard, groaning loudly in pain, the other knights wandered about with their noses cut off and eyes gouged out. But the peasant crowd moved on to storm other castles in the vicinity.
Bader Kelblein stayed in the castle and looked for the golden cradle. She could not be found, the cradle and neither the knight's wife with the boy. Mother and child were lying in an underground corridor that had collapsed during the hard fighting and buried people and their cradle. "
literature
- Rudolf Barth: History of the Burgkunstadter shoe industry - sewn, glued, nailed . 1995; OCLC 802342757 ; available in the German Shoemaker Museum.
- Rudi Fetzer: Borkuschter Mosaik - A slightly different city history . 1st edition. City of Burgkunstadt, 2009, OCLC 471947389 ; available in the Burgkunstadter town hall.
- Josef Haas: History of the city of Burgkunstadt . 2006, OCLC 276168838 ; available in the Burgkunstadter town hall.
- Johann Baptist Müller: Burgkunstadt - A Carolingian castle town . 1984, Colloquium Historicum Wirsbergense .
- Franz Wenzl: Burgkunstadt - Pictures from bygone days (illustrated book). 1987, 2nd edition 1998, ISBN 3-89264-101-3 .
- Franz Wenzl: Burgkunstadt - Pictures from bygone days II (illustrated book). 1st edition 1991, ISBN 3-89264-634-1 .
- Franz Wenzl: The districts of Burgkunstadt - pictures from bygone days (illustrated book). 1st edition 1988, ISBN 3-89264-247-8 .
- Hans Wolf: City history of Burgkunstadt . 1969.
Web links
- The history of Burgkunstadt on burgkunstadt.eu
- The Jewish history of Burgkunstadt on alemania-judica.de
Individual evidence
- ^ Hans Losert : 950 years of Burgkunstadt . MS Powerpoint presentation, Landschaftsmuseum.de, accessed on April 13, 2010.
- ^ Excavations at the town hall between 1973 and 1975 , Landschaftsmuseum.de, accessed on April 15, 2010.
- ↑ a b c d Annual report of the city of 2009 (PDF), burgkunstadt.de, accessed on October 4, 2010.
- ^ Annual report of the city of Burgkunstadt from 2010 (PDF), burgkunstadt.de, accessed on July 27, 2011.
- ^ A b Newspaper article about the new sports hall in Burgkunstadt infranken.de, accessed on October 5, 2010.
- ↑ a b Annual report 2009 of the district of Lichtenfels (PDF; 6.2 MB), lichtenfels.bayern.de, accessed on October 5, 2010.
- ↑ a b Newspaper article about Richard Kerling's lecture on the “golden cradle”, ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) obermain.de, accessed on October 4, 2010.
- ^ The saga of the golden cradle, burgkunstadt.de, accessed on October 3, 2010.