Heiligenhof (Bad Kissingen)

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It all started in this building in 1952
Heiligenhof Bad Kissingen (front view, 2009)
Heiligenhof Bad Kissingen

The Heiligenhof is a German educational and meeting place in Bad Kissingen and a member of the working group of German educational institutions . As a youth hostel , it is also a member of the German Youth Hostel Association (DJH). The foundation is the Sudeten German Social and Educational Organization . The motto of the house is "All life is encounter" . The task is to provide musical, cultural, political and historical education with a focus on the history of relationships between Germans and their eastern neighbors.

historical development

The Heiligenhof (historical Address: Garitz No. 150, today.. Old Your Str 1) was originally a 3.26 hectares large farm a few kilometers outside the spa town of Bad Kissingen in the district "Heiligenfeld".

In the second half of the 19th century, a brick factory was operated on this area , which also included a residential and administrative building. At the beginning of the First World War , however, the brickworks had to be closed and the buildings gradually fell into disrepair. It was not until 1923 that the privateer Carl Schröder bought the site and built a villa and a pump house for the water supply on it. In 1941, the architect Fritz August Breuhaus de Groot converted this villa for living and office purposes into a stately country house with a representative column portal. The family lived in the house, for which Breuhaus de Groot had even drawn up further renovation plans, until they moved to Cologne in 1950.

With a purchase contract of March 20, 1952 and a down payment of DM 30,000 , which it had received from Arne Torgersen (1910–1987), the then head of Norwegian European Aid in Germany, the Sudeten German social welfare organization, founded on January 5, 1952, took over for a price of 70,000 DM on April 1, 1952, the country house and property and has since run it as the “ Sudeten German home of European youth”. The facility, which had 35 bunk beds from the US Army at the time, was still sparsely furnished at the time, there was a lack of water in the summer, and sanitary and kitchen facilities were inadequate. But it was enough for the children and young people from the Sudetenland. Many suffered from deficiency diseases after their displacement and were therefore sent to Bad Kissingen to relax. Work began in 1952 with four employees and 35 guests. The Sudeten German Social Welfare Office chose Bad Kissingen because of its central location in Germany, Oskar (Ossi) Böse , the first director of the meeting place, is quoted in the commemorative publication 60 Years of Heiligenhof (Bad Kissingen 2011).

In the following six decades, the property was expanded to six hectares through purchase and lease and the building became a complex consisting of the main house, the former country house, and five auxiliary buildings (farm building, staff house, guest houses) with over 220 beds in single, double and Shared rooms expanded. The main building now has 100 beds in four- to six-bed rooms and is also equipped with a kitchen and restaurant, several event rooms, a large multifunctional hall and library . In the outdoor area there is a high ropes course , climbing tower, archery range , forest stage as well as tent, barbecue and sports areas. The total costs for this expansion over six decades were put at around five million euros (2011) . The annual turnover in 2011 was given as around 1.3 million euros. The facility is operated by 16 employees and recorded around 33,000 overnight stays in 2011.

Field of activity

In the 1950s and 1960s the Heiligenhof was used exclusively for youth work . In the 1970s, the establishment and expansion of adult and further education began - initially with a Sudeten German visitor and thematic focus. But soon they opened up to other national minorities with a similar fate. After the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and German reunification (1990), the range of activities in educational work was expanded to include completely new target groups for participants and new topics. A special focus of the current work is the encounters and the exchange of ideas with people from East Central Europe , especially young people.

The tasks and objectives of today's activity are in accordance with the corporate mission statement created in 2005

  • conveying the history of Central Europe , especially Bohemia , Moravia and Sudeten Silesia , the regions of today's Czech Republic ;
  • dealing with all forms of totalitarianism in German and European history and their consequences;
  • participation in the process of establishing or stabilizing the “internal unity” of the Germans after reunification;
  • the strengthening of the free-democratic community in the Federal Republic of Germany and participation in the democratic transformation process in the neighboring East Central European states;
  • Orientation towards the fundamental principles of international law , in particular general human rights , the right to self-determination and the right to a homeland for all peoples and ethnic groups;
  • criticizing and participating in the outlawing of all forms of discrimination against minorities and expulsions ;
  • maintaining the cultural traditions of the Germans from the settlement areas in east- central, east and south- east Europe as well as in the CIS countries ;
  • getting closer to the mentalities and getting to know the neighboring peoples of Eastern Central Europe as a basis for solid understanding with the aim of a partnership of free peoples in Europe;
  • the commitment to amicable coexistence of all peoples and ethnic groups in a European Union with a subsidiary structure .

In the meantime, a wide variety of groups of people who have absolutely no connection with Sudeten German history also meet in the Heiligenhof. This includes school classes, choirs and clubs that spend free time together. Large companies send their trainees to get to know each other or to advanced training seminars during their training. Members of church institutions, staff councils and trade unionists meet today in the Heiligenhof just as naturally as those who have been expelled from their homeland and members of national associations . Originally the Heiligenhof was only a meeting place for young people, today representatives of all age groups are often gathered in the house at the same time.

Today the facility is an adventure education center. The main building has also been used as an official youth hostel for several years.

Trivia

Federal President Karl Carstens also visited the Heiligenhof in 1980 on his Germany hiking tour. His predecessor Heinrich Lübke got lost in the nearby forest in 1964 during a Bad Kissingen spa stay with his wife Wilhelmine . Children from the tent camp finally led the presidential couple in a triumphal procession to the Heiligenhof.

planning

The general renovation and structural expansion of the main house, i.e. the former country house, is planned for autumn 2014, estimated at 1.3 million euros .

  • Heiligenhof front view

  • Aerial view of the Heiligenhof

  • It all started in 1952

literature

  • The Heiligenhof. Education and meeting place in Bad Kissingen. 60 years 1952-2012 , Festschrift, Sudetendeutsches Sozial- u. Bildungswerk (publisher), Wolfgang Lutz printing company, Bad Kissingen, December 2011, ISBN 978-3-00-035894-4

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Torgensen later became Norwegian UN High Commissioner .
  2. ↑ Tobias Weger : “Volkstumskampf” without end? Sudeten German Organizations (1945-1955). Dissertation (University of Oldenburg, 2005), Verlag Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-631-57104-0 , p. 299 ( digitized version ). - Weger's assertion that the Sudeten German Social Welfare Service named its facility after the Roman Heiligenhof by the Silesian writer Hermann Stehr, who was valued by the National Socialists , is verifiably false, as the historical name of the Heiligenhof estate is derived from the Heiligenfeld district .
  3. ↑ 60 years of Heiligenhof 1952-2012. Festschrift. Self-published, Bad Kissingen 2011.
  4. ↑ Edgar Bartl: Almost a home for many. In: Saale newspaper. December 30, 2011.

Coordinates: 50 ° 10 ′ 46 ″  N , 10 ° 3 ′ 54 ″  E