Lütsche village
The former village of Lütsche is now a desert near Graefenroda in the Ilm district ( Thuringia ). It was demolished between 1859 and 1865 on the instructions of Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha .
location
The village of Lütsche was in today's Ilm district ( Thuringia ) near the town of Gräfenroda . It was located about 1.5 kilometers southwest of the village in the Lütsche valley .
history
Mill and grinding mill
The Lütsche brook was first mentioned in 1378 in the Registrum Dominorum Marchionum Missnensium - the directory of the annual income due to the Landgraves in Thuringia and Margraves of Meißen in the Wettin region .
The first documented mention of a mill on the Lütsche - the Leutzsch Mollen - on the other hand, dates from 1545. It should form the starting point for the development of the later village of Lütsche. If it was a cutting mill in the first decades of its existence, it was first mentioned in 1587 as a grinding mill, as well as a grinding hut, the construction of which was probably connected with the mill stone quarries on Borzel and Hohe Warte . The "grinding hut" was therefore a common name for the place Lütsche until the beginning of the 19th century. Also in 1587, the ducal Saxon authorities demanded that it be demolished and rebuilt elsewhere due to the theft of wood by “all sorts of loose journeymen and boys” from the mill. It did not take place, but it was sold in the same year, followed by numerous others by 1627. The last change of ownership resulted from the events of the Thirty Years War . In 1624, unknown mercenaries not only burned down the mill, but also wounded the miller Thomas Grübel. In 1627 he therefore sold it to Valten Möller from Crawinkel. But due to the increasing turmoil of the war, this one too left it probably after a few years, which led to its decline. Between 1655 and 1665 the mill ruins finally fell victim to a flood.
Creation of the village of Lütsche
In 1665 Lütsche had two houses with a total of nine residents and a herd of five cattle. However, the development of an actual village only came about during 1699 and 1708, when the existing settlement grew by four more houses. In 1714 a mayor was mentioned for the first time. Two stately cutting mills built between 1700 and 1710 in or directly near Lütsche only existed for a few years or decades. In addition, a new grinding mill was built between 1723 and 1729 by a descendant of the former miller Thomas Grübel, Johann Heinrich Grübel. However, your business was badly presented from the start. The mill competition in the neighboring towns was great and the water conditions poor, as the Lütsche only had enough water in winter and spring. The boycott of the mill by the neighboring Crawinkel was particularly fatal . The community refused, although obliged to have their grain ground in the Lütschemühle. An economical operation was therefore hardly possible. In 1736 Johann Heinrich Grübel went bankrupt and the mill was auctioned off. Nevertheless, it worked for almost 70 years before it finally ceased operations around 1803. Already in 1819 there were hardly any signs of its earlier destination.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, the residents of Lütsche earned their living primarily as hammer and nail smiths and in the forest, for example as charcoal burners . The part-time farming was indispensable. In the summer, for example, we also looked after other people's cattle as an extra income. An expression of a gradually deteriorating economic situation was a first large levy land levy in 1790, from which almost all families in the village profited. As early as 1791, Lütsche was counted among the poorest places in the Duchy of Saxony-Gotha-Altenburg . So the place had no municipal assets at all. In 1800, Lütsche, which was part of the Black Forest Office , also fell under the construction ban imposed by Duke Ernst II in the Duchy's forest offices because of the rapidly growing population there.
Church and school
Lütsche belonged to Graefenroda in church and school. After it had developed into a small town at the beginning of the 18th century, the ducal consistory used it in part in 1709 and then completely in 1728 to help finance the Gräfenroda church and school. Due to the increasing number of schoolchildren, but also to reduce the way to school for Lütsch schoolchildren as well as for the "reason" as a whole - in addition to Lütsche also Dörrberg , the Herrenmühle and the Schwarzburger Forsthaus - the so-called "elementary school" was built in 1802. Her name was derived from her location, as she was at the entrance to the Lütschegrund. In view of the long way to school, the Lütsch children often found it impossible to go to school, especially in winter. In addition, in the summer they often had to help with work because of the great poverty of their families. However, the school absenteeism remained high even after the primary school was established and gave cause for complaint until the end of the town. In 1849, given their poverty, the residents of Lütsch were finally exempted from paying school fees, which in the end they could hardly afford anyhow.
Dissolution of Lütsche
While Lütsche still had 50 inhabitants in 1813, its population had grown to 74 in 1834 - a population increase that was accompanied by increasing impoverishment. It made itself felt in the requests for luge land levies that started again in the same year and that lasted until the end of Lütsche. The poor economic situation was mainly due to the increasingly one-sided working life. From the beginning of the 19th century, only a few residents worked as craftsmen, for example carpenters or bricklayers, while the majority earned their living as lumberjacks and millstone breakers, i.e. jobs that could only be practiced seasonally. In winter, therefore, you had to help yourself with additional income, such as making pine soot kegs . More lucrative, even if the ducal forest authorities were increasingly reluctant because of the high consumption of wood and were therefore temporarily prohibited, was the production of so-called roof chips, which were used in the construction industry and were particularly popular in the constantly growing cities in the area. For both additional earnings, the residents resorted to stealing wood.
How much the economic situation in Lütsche had deteriorated within a few years since 1814 was also shown by the idea first expressed by the Ducal Chamber in 1819 that Lütsche should be repealed due to the thefts of wood and game there, favored by its remote location. After the ducal house of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg died out in 1825, this plan was only seriously taken up by the new ducal house of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha . After Duke August lifted the building ban imposed by his father in the forest authorities in 1822, the ninth and last house was built against the resistance of the chamber in 1825/26.
Only a little later, in 1831, the state government again restricted construction activity in Lütsche. From this measure she hoped that the population would voluntarily move to the neighboring towns and gradually enter the town, which not only did not happen in the following years, but also inevitably contributed to a further deterioration in the housing situation due to the increasing number of residents. The rejection of a building application in 1838 and the steadily increasing wood theft from Lütsche therefore prompted Duke Ernst I in 1839 to decide to dissolve it in the medium term. Now, on the one hand, the sale of construction land, sledding land and construction timber has been officially prohibited, and on the other hand, the responsible authorities have been instructed to encourage those willing to build to settle in neighboring towns. However, since 1831 this project had proven to be futile several times. In addition, the authorities in charge tried to put a stop to the unrestrained population growth. The high and constantly increasing proportion of children and young people was responsible for this. In the years that followed, up to 1844, the state government therefore attempted to reduce the number of young people by placing them in apprenticeships or service positions, but this failed mainly because of their unwillingness to leave the place. Only a few were willing to learn a trade in foreign places. Even then, due to the poverty of their families, the school fees had to be borne by the state in all cases. At the same time, the state government forbade marriage and the associated early establishment of families, unless sufficient earnings could be proven. The attempt to remove the two families most responsible for wood theft from Lütsche was also doomed to failure.
In addition to the further deterioration of the already extremely precarious economic situation, which took place in the pre-March period, there was also the failure of the previous dissolution policy with all its hardships, especially the increasingly unsustainable housing situation. In 1848 the number of inhabitants had risen to 94, so that in 1850 more than 20 people lived in two houses. In the course of the revolution of 1848/49 these, now from Duke Ernst II - he had succeeded his father, Ernst I, in the government in 1844 - and the state ministry for which they were responsible then attracted criticism from the responsible middle and lower administrative authorities themselves . However, they did not achieve the abandonment of the building ban, but only the surrender of a larger area of tobogganing land for agricultural use in 1848. In 1852, the penultimate mayor of Lütsche, Heinrich Elias Ernst Catterfeld, who was elected in 1848, tried the catastrophic economic situation by establishing a wooden box production Better to turn around, a project that failed due to the lack of financial support from the state government.
Lütsche's increasingly chronic dependence on public support in the form of money and food, but also the unchecked deterioration in the social and economic situation, led the state government to seriously initiate the dissolution of Lütsche from 1856 onwards. After she had vaguely expressed the idea of relocating the entire population to America for the first time in 1848, she now concretized this project. Due to the numerous imponderables and the poor economic situation in the United States, cited by the people of Lütsch, all residents declared their opposition to this project. The generous financial aid that Duke Ernst II was willing to guarantee could not change that. At the same time, a possible relocation of the inhabitants to other places in the duchy was considered. This project also failed, in spite of the financial support also promised to the communities, since Ichtershausen was the only place in the entire duchy to accept part of its residents. The reason for the negative attitude was the poverty of the Lütscher, in some cases also their bad reputation as well as the bad economic situation and lack of living space in most places.
After the final failure of the emigration project in 1858 - at that time there were 128 people living in Lütsche - Duke Ernst II ordered the purchase of the Lütsch houses and the associated land by the domain treasury - the one with the administration of the considerable ducal lands entrusted authority - to. This bore 75 percent of the estimated costs of 6,607 thalers, while the state treasury took over the remaining 25 percent. The purchase of the Lütscher real estate and the demolition of the houses began in 1859, but dragged on until 1865. There were several reasons for this. The sales proceeds of the mostly highly indebted and fragmented Lütscher real estate - mostly two or three families owned a mostly dilapidated house - had to be used to acquire a new home law, for which a certain proof of assets was necessary depending on the size of the place concerned. In addition, the sellers had to use their proceeds to procure a new home law for their children's families, and the completely wealthy residents also needed a new home, which often resulted in lengthy negotiations. Numerous residents used this opportunity to get the most favorable terms possible for themselves and often turned out to be tough negotiating partners. But even with the redeemed purchase sums, it was often difficult to find a place that was ready to accommodate Lütscher residents. Despite the fulfillment of the necessary conditions of admission, several places refused and had to be instructed in the last instance by the ducal state ministry. The costs originally estimated at 6,607 thalers were therefore more than twice as high at 13,490 thalers.
The first three houses were sold and demolished in 1859, two followed in 1860, and one each in 1861 and 1862. The penultimate mayor Catterfeld did not sell until 1864, while the complete sale of the last house dragged on from 1861 to 1865. Almost all of the residents of Lütsch settled in the places of the then district office of Ohrdruf , but especially in the neighboring towns of Gräfenroda, Dörrberg and Frankenhain as well as Ohrdruf itself. One family chose Dessau as their new place of residence, while only one family emigrated to the United States during the actual phase of dissolution. Only after the liquidation had already taken place did another family follow from Dörrberg in 1867.
The last few years of Lütsche were overshadowed by disputes within the community. In 1858 they led to the election of the mayor Ernst Catterfeld and the re-election of Friedrich Zöllner as mayor, who, however, resigned his office in 1860. In the last years of Lütsche, the Gräfenrodaer mayor exercised this function.
Location description
“The main part of Lütsche was up the valley, to the right of the path on the mountain slope. The first houses stood on the right at the beginning of the fir forest and the last also on the right in the Waldenge. Opposite in the meadow was the Schulzenhaus and, on the other side of the Lütschebach on the Waldsberg, the hut of the old Börner, who was a cartelist and a well-sought maker of love potions. The center was formed by the mill , which was probably driven by the Ensebach, and the bowling alley, which is still visible to the right of the path next to the former mill. At the entrance to the village you can still see the remains of wild roses and gooseberry bushes ... "
Legend and reality
Numerous legends surround the story of Lütsche, which are primarily due to the intensive literary examination of its destruction. In the story When the Sun Sinks, August Trinius mainly focused on the scenic beauty of the area. The Neudietendorf writer and left-liberal politician Herman Anders Krüger contributed to the creation of the legend . In his novel Verjagtes Volk published in 1924, he placed the destruction of Lütsche and the tragic death of his penultimate mayor, Ernst Catterfeld, who was shot while poaching in 1867, at the center of this literary monument. Idealizing the village and its inhabitants, he reckoned with the u. a. as a deer and not as the father of the state, Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. After the destruction of their village, he lets the Lütscher make life difficult for him by haunting his best hunting ground in the Dörrberger forest. The opinion that is still common today that the main reason for the dissolution of Lütsche was allegedly excessive poaching has its origins there. The main reason for this measure, however, was the theft of wood, which from 1819 increasingly came into the focus of the ducal authorities. In contrast, poaching only played a subordinate role. The alleged connection to the maskers from Rennsteig, a band of robbers, which was also put into the room by the expelled people, as well as the statements that the inhabitants of the village led a particularly free life and could or could marry without restriction are also legends. only the poorest of the poor lived in Lütsche, who had not been able to acquire homeland rights elsewhere.
After Herman Anders Krüger, Julius Kober - völkisch-national-conservative writer from Suhl - also sought the literary debate on this topic. In the foreword of the 1934 play The Last Schulze von der Lütsche - a Thuringian Forest Tragedy , he tried to interpret and co -ordinate the history of the place in the National Socialist sense.
In addition to the rampant theft of wood, the official disinterest in the economic situation of the place had a particularly negative effect. As early as 1831, Lütsche was classified by the authorities as a place with no perspective. From the financial support provided by the state for the development of the largely underdeveloped economy in the Thuringian Forest, it benefited at first, and then only inadequately, when its fate had long been decided. The theft of wood therefore inevitably had to play an important role in the working life of the village. Even more disastrous, however, was Duke Ernst II's exaggerated sense of ownership, who was nicknamed "Rabbit Ernst" because of his hunting allures in the Thuringian Forest. With the “constitutional” destruction of Lütsche - this village described by an official entrusted with the dissolution in 1858 as a “pitiful hiding place for wood thieves and poachers” - he, one of the richest German federal princes, ultimately pushed through his material interests without compromise. The elimination of immense misery, however, only came second. In its form, more reminiscent of an absolutist sovereign, this policy does not fit the official image of the progressive, liberal sovereign that still exists today. The Liebenstein bailiff pointed out the double standards of ducal policy as early as 1848. He determined that if the same standards were applied, Dörrberg, which was also overpopulated and suffered from similar lack of prospects, would have to be dissolved. Since wood theft hardly played a role there, this place did not move into their focus.
Surroundings
The last bear in Thuringia was shot in the 17th century near the Lütsche village center - at Bärenstein . The robbery castle , the burned-out stone on the Lütsche-Flößgraben and other sights bear witness to the rich history of the landscape.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ H. Kellner: The missing village of Lütsche
Literature / sources
- Loth, Albrecht; The history of the village of Lütsche, its destruction 1859–1865 and their background, diploma thesis, Gotha 2005
- Hansjürgen Müllerott (eds.), GJ Brückner, H. Kellner, H. von Minckwitz: Sources for the history of the village of Lütsche , Thuringian Chronicle-Verlag, Arnstadt 1999, ISBN 3-910132-67-7
- H. v. Minckwitz: The Lütsche and its dissolution , in "Das Thüringer Fähnlein" issue 7, 1936
- W. Stephan: What documents and eyewitnesses from the former village of Lütsche have to say in the “Arnstädter Kulturbote”, October 1954 and January 1955
- Editorial office of Kulturspiegel: 100 years ago the dissolution of the village of Lütsche began , in "Kulturspiegel" in 1959
- Herman Anders Krüger : Verjagtes Volk , Georg-Westermann-Verlag, Braunschweig 1924, reprint: Rockstuhl, Bad Langensalza 2010, ISBN 978-3-86777-145-0
Coordinates: 50 ° 44 ′ 30 ″ N , 10 ° 46 ′ 48 ″ E