Lenzei

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Lenzei in front of the Haagtor, Hohentübingen Castle in the background
In the front right the Lenzei brewery, in the background on the left the Ammergasse and on the right the Haaggasse

The Lenzei is a former brewery restaurant in Tübingen named after the Lenz family .

History of the building

The history of the building is closely linked to its hosts and their families:

Raisin Lenz

In the 1830s, Rosine Lenz opened a pub at Hirschgasse 1 in Tübingen, which was named "Lenzei" after her. Rosine Lenz had five children, her husband Johann Gottlieb Lenz (1781–1828) died early. The house in which the family lived and in which her husband ran a carpenter's workshop had not yet been paid off when he died. Raisin managed to get this debt-free and enabled her two sons to get an education. Gottlieb Lenz, the eldest son, learned beer brewing, and Gustav Lenz went to the polytechnic in Stuttgart.

Gottlieb Lenz

In the 1840s, Gottlieb Lenz founded a brewery outside the city wall in front of the Haagtor 1, which was initially called "Neue Lenzei" and is now colloquially known as "Lenzei". Gottlieb Lenz also died early: 1866. His widow Karoline initially leased the restaurant and brewery to the Kommerell brothers. But she herself remained the owner. In 1875 her son Adolf Lenz and her son-in-law Wilhelm Henssler took over the brewery and restaurant and continued to run it. Until the end of the 1890s, the Lenz family brewed in the three adjacent buildings with the house numbers 1/1, 1/2 and 3.

In 1848 the theological society Herzynia , an association of Catholic theology students, was founded in place of an earlier "Lenzeigegesellschaft". Hercynia Tübingen had a color room in the Lenzei. When Volksbank Tübingen was founded by 26 citizens of Tübingen in 1886, it found its first seat in the Lenzei. The Guestfalia student association was just as happy to be guests there before they decided in 1899 to build their own house on the Österberg .

Adolf Lenz

Adolf Lenz, the son of Gottlieb and Karoline Lenz, and his brother-in-law Wilhelm Henzeler applied in 1897 to the city of Tübingen for permission to "draw water from the Ammer to cool a condenser". Shortly afterwards, in 1900, the brewery was removed from the city's trade tax register because Lenz beer was no longer brewed and the inn got its beer from the "United Stuttgart-Tübingen Breweries" in Waldhörnle. The dubious restaurant tenant Hans Claß was revoked in 1921 because, according to historical records, he was supposed to have operated an illegal brothel: “There are facts that justify the assumption that the Claß couple misused their trade to promote gluttony and immorality. "

That didn't bother the “old gentlemen's association” of the Catholic student union “Cheruskia”, which in 1922 used the “Lenzei” - as a pub with a batch room along with a playroom and reception room on the 1st floor. The number of members increased steadily. Due to the high number of activities, the idea of ​​building a new house became stronger, as the premises in the Lenzei no longer offered sufficient space. The connection era ended in 1936 when the Cheruskia had to be temporarily dissolved and a new house was built on the Österberg after the Second World War.

Gustav Lenz

Gustav Lenz (* 1826 in Tübingen; † 1867 there), the brother of the Lenzei owner, was probably involved in the March Revolution of 1848 in southwest Germany. In May 1848, the 21-year-old traveled from Antwerp to New York in the Spartan tween deck of an emigrant sailing ship .

After his emigration he made his way as a mechanical engineer in New York and reported on his experiences in letters still preserved today to his mother, Rosine Lenz, and to his sister, (Karoline) Marie Lenz (1825–1900), who was Christian Heinrich Erbe in 1851 (1821–1902), the founder of the Erbe Elektromedizin company, married.

The correspondence with his family from 1847 to 1853 shows that Gustav Lenz was not really satisfied in New York. Finding a job in particular was far more difficult for him than expected. "Many Germans have a very sad lot here," writes Lenz on March 20, 1849. "One can count a few thousand such unfortunates here alone, who feed on nothing other than collecting rags and bones on the streets."

In 1851 he announced to his mother, who was still living in Tübingen, that he would return as soon as the “dark cloud” in Germany had cleared of the “political sky”. Since he worked very hard without realizing a real opportunity for advancement, he was not very motivated to “offer my strength to the capitalists for a long time”. Three years later he returned to Tübingen with a mental illness and lived with his mother again.

Other owners

There were further changes of ownership in 1906, when Bachnersche Brauerei AG Tübingen-Stuttgart took over the building and in 1912, when the United Breweries (VB) Stuttgart-Tübingen succeeded it. The managing director and co-owner at this time was Wilhelm Henssler. His son Hermann Henssler, who apparently learned the art of brewing beer at Lenzei, went to Tsingtao - at that time in the German protected area - before the First World War , where he worked as a cellar master and brewing manager in the Germania brewery. He spent more than 10 years in Asia - partly in Japanese captivity - before he returned to Germany, initially to Tübingen. In 1912 there was a turbulent situation in the Lenzei when the attempt by Tübingen and Reutlingen workers to found a youth education association for the Tübingen workers was prevented by police intervention.

Gustav Nufer

Gustav Nufer, a former carpenter, was the landlord of the "Lenzei" during the war and after the war. Nufer had previously run the “Haagtor” inn in Haaggasse 34, Tübingen, since 1919. He bought the “Lenzei” and got the concession because he was officially renouncing the liquor license in Haaggasse. Nufer ran the "Lenzei" with "Bürgererküche" until 1956 with an involuntary two-week closure in September 1941 after serving "ten to twelve HJ members" with alcohol and cigars. After a party in the Tübingen Gasthaus zum Schlachthof around midnight, the “youthful Hitler Youth” had moved to the “Lenzei” and were entertained there.

From 1956 to 1964 the restaurant on Haagtorplatz was run by Gustav Nufer's daughter Ella Alix and her husband Jean. The family then leased the restaurant to Richard Lorenz or Dieter Kehrer, who offered home-style cooking, and later to hosts such as Antonio Russo who specialize in Italian cuisine.

movie theater

Café Haag and Kino Atelier in the former Lenzei

A cinema was opened in the adjoining rooms of the Lenzei guest house as early as 1919. In 1924, Robert Metzger is listed as the first operator of the “Kammer-Lichtspiel-Theater” with almost 200 seats. Her successor was Maria Arhelger Metzger for only a few years from 1930. The cinema was closed from the mid-1930s to around 1950. From around 1953 to 1968, Mathilde Mayer was again the operator of the cinema. During this time the cinema was called Filmtheater Am Haagtor . The United Lichtspiele Lamm continued to run the cinema for a few years from 1968 to 1971; the number of seats was reduced to 165. After this brief period, the cinema remained closed until 1986.

Stefan Paul

Since 1984 Stefan Paul, the owner of the Arsenal film distribution , has been the operator of the newly named Kino Atelier with approx. 90 seats. It is the sister cinema of the Arsenal cinema in Tübingen.

The former restaurant of the Lenzei was set up by Stefan Paul as "Café Haag" in the style of an American diner and initially had avant-garde toilets, which were not retained. The cinema tickets are available at the café counter. A visit to the cinema allows a look into the projector room.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lenzei on TÜpedia.
  2. ↑ Gustav Lenz letters , in Liane von Droste : In between the ocean. Biographies, memories and letters from Germans in America after 1848 ; ISBN 978-3-9815658-0-5 .
  3. ↑ a b c Matthias Stelzer: Brewery, brothel and community kitchen - The “Lenzei” on Haagtorplatz has an eventful history. ( Memento from September 30, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ Tübingen students in the Kaiserreich :, A social historical investigation, Martin Biastoch, Franz Steiner Verlag, 1996, p. 128
  5. ^ Tübinger Blätter, year 73, 1986 (Bürger- und Verkehrsverein Tübingen eV), advertisement on page 58.
  6. ↑ Those were the days: when half of the Tübingen students were studying theology ( memento from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ a b Not just glamor and glory. Old letters from America emigrants document everyday life.
  8. ↑ Reading and talk with Liane von Droste, Glienicke. ( Memento from September 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ↑ The dream of a new life.
  10. ↑ Between hope and disappointment. “Die kleine” - magazine for the best years of life. January / February 2013. Page 22. (PDF; 15.2 MB)
  11. ^ Klaus Ehm: United Breweries Stuttgart-Tübingen AG ( Memento from September 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  12. ↑ Andrea Bachmann: Tübingen: simply great! 100 reasons to be proud of this city , Wartberg-Verlag 2016
  13. ^ Arbeitertübingen: on the history of the workers' movement in a university town, Hartmut Boger, DGB Tübingen, Schwäbische Verlagsgesellschaft, 1981, "Der Juggendbildungsverein der Tübinger Arbeiterschaft", p. 86ff
  14. ↑ Stuttgarter Zeitung, “A for Arsenal and Atelier” by Michael Petersen, January 23, 2012.
  15. ^ "From Atlantis to Urania - Filmtheater in Baden-Württemberg" by Herbert Spaich, Bleicher Verlag, Gerlingen, 2003.
  16. ^ Film theater history in Germany and Austria

Coordinates: 48 ° 31 '13.1 "  N , 9 ° 2' 58.7"  E