Kelbra Brewery
The new Kelbra brewery was located on Jochstrasse 3 in the town of Kelbra (Kyffhäuser) in Saxony-Anhalt . The actual brewery operation was stopped in 1926 and the brewery building was demolished in 2006. Several outbuildings and the listed chimney have been preserved.
location
The property extends from Jochstraße to Gartenstraße. Today there are two-storey large basement rooms on an area of approx. 1,200 m². The actual brewery building was demolished in 2006.
Historical brewing rights
The brewing rights in Kelbra were on certain properties. The counts ruling over Kelbra gave it for a certain fee. The order of brewing was fixed for one year. The respective property was marked with a wipe of straw. You can still see a sandstone hole at Mittelstraße 10 next to the entrance door to take the straw wipe. The brewing right lost its value at the beginning of the 19th century - many property owners were no longer interested in brewing beer. The coppersmith Eduard Joch took advantage of this fact and bought the brewing rights in the town of Kelbra for 100 thalers. In 1842 he introduced lager, which was widely drunk. In 1845 he bought the Storkauer Hof for 700 thalers and converted it into a brewery. Two years later he received the permanent license to brew beer. The production multiplied very quickly, so that the space was soon no longer sufficient.
In 1861 he bought two acres of land from the town of Kelbra on the then undeveloped "Gebreite" south of the village. Here he built a new, larger brewery with external dimensions of 120 × 22 meters and deep cellars over two floors. The basement floor is 8 meters below the site. The chimney was built in 1869 and the first steam brewery in the region was inaugurated.
The lower cellars served as ice cellars, which were needed for cooling during beer production. The outer, high cellars were filled with ice from above through deep cellar shafts. The ice blocks were fetched from the artificially created ponds in Thürungen and Sittendorf . Unemployed craftsmen broke the ice in winter when it was at least 20 cm thick. The Schröter haulage company brought the ice blocks to the brewery in heavy carts.
1880-1945
Eduard Joch died in 1880 and the brewery was taken over by his brothers. From 1887 to 1926 the brewery continued to operate as a stock corporation. Was brewed here u. a. the Kyffhäuser Pilsener . A monument in the promenade and the "Jochstraße" named after him still remember the founder of the brewery. From 1927 the brewery was stopped. The buildings served the Engelhardt brewery from Halle as a bottling plant.
During the Second World War, the brewery served as a branch for the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp near Nordhausen from 1943 to 1945 . During this time, concentration camp inmates had to lay a siding to the Kyffhäuser Kleinbahn , to supply materials for the rocket production of the V2 and to transport the finished parts away. One death from malnutrition is known from this period ; numerous prisoners died in the bombing raids on Kelbra in April 1945. SS-Unterscharfuhrer Walter Christoph acted as camp leader.
Post-war and GDR times
When it rained 93 liters per square meter in Kelbra and the surrounding area on July 16-17, 1945, the rainwater ran down the "Gebreite" at night, was dammed by the embankment of the Kyffhäuserkleinbahn and flowed along the track to the former brewery. There it ran into the cellar and stood there for several days. After the cellars dried out, beer, fruit, vegetables and, for a short time, fish were stored in barrels. A machine elevator was installed to end the laborious manual handling of the barrels via a cable winch. But this elevator has already been dismantled. The existing weather shafts provided fresh air.
Since the 1970s, the cellars no longer had any economic importance, whereas the large barn of the VEB stamping shop Kelbra moved in. In the upper cellars, heating was installed for the stamping shop and coal and wood were stored. In the early 1970s and 1980s, the heirs of the "Bierbrauerei zu Kelbra", the Rudloff family, sold parts of the former brewery's property to state-owned companies such as the stamping, SERO and the house to LPG due to inheritance disputes.
present
After the fall of the Wall, the city of Kelbra brought the entire site back together by purchasing land. Except for the eastern part, it is now owned by the city. In recent years, the desolate superstructures have been torn down, the cellars have been sealed and the chimney has been renovated as an industrial monument.
Small openings in some of the cellar walls can still be seen today. These walls were broken open because parts of the lost Amber Room were believed to be here after 1990 .
Members of the Friends' Association for Local History lead interested citizens through the basement to the day of the open monument or by appointment and explain the origins and the varied use of the huge basement rooms.
The regional farmers' market takes place on the property every four weeks.
The former stables and the large barn are used by the city's building yard as storage and garages. The house is still inhabited, but is in need of renovation.
Individual evidence
- ↑ https://www.mz-web.de/sangerhausen/brauereikeller-bewegungte-geschichte-in-kelbra-8134640
- ^ Jens Christian Wagner: Kelbra satellite camp. In: Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (eds.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 7: Niederhagen / Wewelsburg, Lublin-Majdanek, Arbeitsdorf, Herzogenbusch (Vught), Bergen-Belsen, Mittelbau-Dora. CH Beck, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-52967-2 , p. 315f.
Coordinates: 51 ° 26 ′ 3.2 ″ N , 11 ° 2 ′ 32.3 ″ E