Wharf house

A quay house is the name given to residential houses built in the parcel areas of Bremen after the Second World War . Due to the housing shortage, the then mayor Wilhelm Kaisen allowed houses to be built in the allotment gardens for permanent living.

history

During the Second World War, 61% of the apartments in Bremen were destroyed. Due to the great lack of housing, Mayor Kaisen allowed the construction of houses in the allotment areas. Before that, people from Bremen hid in 1,000 illegal houses there. Today 500 people from Bremen still live in their parcel houses. There are 18,000 allotment garden owners in the Hanseatic city.

Quay houses against the housing shortage

“To alleviate the housing shortage in bombed-out Bremen, [Kaisen] issued an emergency ordinance. Almost regardless of bureaucratic requirements, everyone should build a house who can. Hundreds of small residential buildings were then built in allotment garden colonies in Bremen. Tens of thousands of people lived in such quay houses in the post-war period. Today, living in allotment areas is largely prohibited. Quay houses are no exception. Ancestral residents ... have the right to continue living in the buildings. “If I were to sell or bequeath the property, the house would have to be demolished,” explains [a resident]. In most cases the municipality of Bremen takes on this task. However, it can sometimes take time for the authorities to take action. One has to act “within the framework of the available budget”, according to an instruction from the building department. There is also no legal right to the city taking over the demolition work. "

- Sebastian Manz : Weser-Kurier, July 13, 2011 quoted from "Kleingärtnergemeinschaft Eiche eV"

A carpenter reports on the construction of his quay house: It was built on a farmer's plowed pasture. A budding architect made architectural drawings. Building materials came from a building material and coal dealer, or they were processed from rubble. He built the house mostly by himself after work, on weekends, on vacation, and other Kaisenhaus builders from the neighborhood helped. It is reported that the city originally only allowed an area of 20 m². Only later did it become 50–60 m². Electricity was there from the start, and water first had to be fetched from a water distributor. Wood and coal were used for heating - propane gas was later used for cooking. A “housing allowance” of 200 DM had to be paid annually to the city.

Demolition of wharf houses

In the quay houses, people have a "right of residence" - they are allowed to live there until they move out or until they die. This right is not transferable. At the beginning of 2013, a quay house in the Bremen district of Woltmershausen was cleared and demolished. Then there was opposition, the left even spoke of a "policy of displacement". The building senator pointed out that the building administration had adhered to current senate resolutions. SPD and Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen agreed that the Senate should present a “concept for living in allotment garden areas” before further houses were cleared or demolished.

Kaisenhaus Museum

On the initiative of the Bremen Women's Museum and the then SPD parliamentary group chairman in Bremen's citizenship, Jens Böhrnsen, and in cooperation with members of the Walle district council, a historic quay house was saved from demolition in 2006 to create a place of remembrance for the history of the Bremen quay houses. At Behrensweg 5 a you can visit an exhibition in the rooms of a former quay house. The opening times on Sundays can be found in the presentation on the Internet.

literature

Kirsten Tiedemann: Bremen's Kaisenhäuser - More than a roof over your head , Volume 16 of the series of publications by the Bremen Center for Building Culture, Bremen 2012, ISBN 978-3-938795-39-2

Single receipts

↑ In 1931 there were around 28,000 parcel residents in Bremen, and by no means all of them were members of existing associations. That was to change when the Nazis came to power two years later: the self-created freedom of living of many parcel residents was targeted by state surveillance. Above all, those allotment gardeners who were previously not registered in any associations, including other maladministration perceived by the Nazis as such, offered grounds for surveillance. It is no coincidence that the narrow, sometimes difficult-to-access paths, the plots of land with several entrances and the advantageous lack of visibility in relation to the city offered space and hiding places for the resistance that the Nazis faced with smear campaigns, raids, arrests and the arbitrary flaring of allotment houses they suspected political material and tried to get over it. Nevertheless, the resistance work was practically maintained until the end of the war. Leaflets were made with linocuts before there were printing machines, typewriters, the rattling of which naturally went under more quickly in the allotment garden area than in the large apartment buildings, hidden in the brick dung heap, and secret meetings were held in the gazebos. In the war, the gardens were also places of practical survival and when the city was largely destroyed, the parcel areas offered the homeless and bombed out the first opportunity to find shelter, at least temporarily. For many, the temporary living in the poorly winterized house became permanent dwelling, and so after the war, legitimized by the Kaisen law, thousands remained in the city's green belt. Source: The history of the quay houses. Retrieved May 20, 2012 .
↑ Here you can read about attempts to “evacuate” the quay houses, which have always existed: The history of the quay houses. Retrieved May 20, 2012 .
↑ Some quay house owners desperately resisted demolishing their house: The city is chasing me out of my quay house. In: BILD. Retrieved May 20, 2012 .
↑ Kirsten Tiedemann, Bremens Kaisenhäuser - More than a roof over your head, Volume 16 of the series of publications by the Bremen Center for Building Culture , Bremen 2012
^ Report on the construction of the house by M. Meints , Chronik Horn-Lehe
^ Wigbert Gerling: Demolition of quay houses stopped. In: Weser-Kurier, March 13, 2013
↑ Answer of the Bremen Senate to the big question of the parliamentary group Die Linke of June 18, 2013: Printed matter 18/969 (PDF; 116 kB)
↑ Internet presentation of the Bremen Women's Museum
^ Website of the Bremen Kaisenhaus Museum

Web links

[1] In 1931 there were around 28,000 parcel residents in Bremen, and by no means all of them were members of existing associations. That was to change when the Nazis came to power two years later: the self-created freedom of living of many parcel residents was targeted by state surveillance. Above all, those allotment gardeners who were previously not registered in any associations, including other maladministration perceived by the Nazis as such, offered grounds for surveillance. It is no coincidence that the narrow, sometimes difficult-to-access paths, the plots of land with several entrances and the advantageous lack of visibility in relation to the city offered space and hiding places for the resistance that the Nazis faced with smear campaigns, raids, arrests and the arbitrary flaring of allotment houses they suspected political material and tried to get over it. Nevertheless, the resistance work was practically maintained until the end of the war. Leaflets were made with linocuts before there were printing machines, typewriters, the rattling of which naturally went under more quickly in the allotment garden area than in the large apartment buildings, hidden in the brick dung heap, and secret meetings were held in the gazebos. In the war, the gardens were also places of practical survival and when the city was largely destroyed, the parcel areas offered the homeless and bombed out the first opportunity to find shelter, at least temporarily. For many, the temporary living in the poorly winterized house became permanent dwelling, and so after the war, legitimized by the Kaisen law, thousands remained in the city's green belt. Source: The history of the quay houses. Retrieved May 20, 2012 .

[2] Here you can read about attempts to “evacuate” the quay houses, which have always existed: The history of the quay houses. Retrieved May 20, 2012 .

[3] Some quay house owners desperately resisted demolishing their house: The city is chasing me out of my quay house. In: BILD. Retrieved May 20, 2012 .

[4] Kirsten Tiedemann, Bremens Kaisenhäuser - More than a roof over your head, Volume 16 of the series of publications by the Bremen Center for Building Culture , Bremen 2012

[5] Report on the construction of the house by M. Meints , Chronik Horn-Lehe

[6] Wigbert Gerling: Demolition of quay houses stopped. In: Weser-Kurier, March 13, 2013

[7] Answer of the Bremen Senate to the big question of the parliamentary group Die Linke of June 18, 2013: Printed matter 18/969 (PDF; 116 kB)

[8] Internet presentation of the Bremen Women's Museum

[9] Website of the Bremen Kaisenhaus Museum