OLEX petrol station at Raschplatz

Around 1923: The expressionist OLEX petrol station on what was then Raschplatz in Hanover in front of the former Palace of Justice , on the left the Hanover District Court

Similar perspective around 1890: The Palace of Justice on Raschplatz and Volgersweg

The OLEX petrol station on Raschplatz in Hanover was the first petrol station in Germany to be built in public space . The location of the OLEX tank system, which was not chosen without resistance in 1922, was what was then Raschplatz on the corner of Volgersweg in (today's) Hanover's Mitte district .

history

After the US- American Sylvanus F. Bowser allegedly invented a hand pump for pumping gasoline from an underground storage tank as a result of the spread of automobiles and sold it in the USA from 1898, the automobile refueling business in Germany continued for decades in backyards . Even after the end of the First World War , while the sale of gasoline was subject to strict state compulsory management, “fuel” sales, for example in Hanover, were still made by innkeepers or pharmacists in canisters ; these were often stored in cellars and represented a considerable fire hazard there.

In the still young Weimar Republic , and even before the peak of German hyperinflation , “OLEX (later BP ) was the first mineral oil company to start building tank systems in the winter of 1922/1923” and initially looked for a suitable location in Hanover. With around 5,000 cars at the time, the city had a “significantly higher car density than Berlin or Hamburg ”. Despite the reduction in the general risk of fire, the possible installation locations in Hanover met with some massive resistance: The police chief found the place at the opera house to be too unsafe. The Commission for Gardening and Cemetery Affairs rejected the Raschplatz as completely unsuitable. And when the municipal building commission then suggested Georgsplatz, “they stabbed a wasp's nest”. For example, the Hannoversche Kurier wrote :

"Incomprehensible! ... in the middle of our 'best room' ...! Even if the need of the city is great and every source of lease is tempting, there are certain things that even the most bitter need must not touch. Urban advertising is already spoiling the streets with its exaggerations ... "

The " Rats- und Realgymnasium " ( Rats- und Realgymnasium ) followed the opposition , referring to the "possibility of the tank exploding", while the banks on Georgsplatz referred to the "stench that will not go away from the area at all".

After the municipal building commission finally decided on Raschplatz, the “area behind the train station ” as the location for Germany's first public petrol station, the Oberpostdirektion, as well as the president of the regional court and the chief public prosecutor, protested: the public is not used to the big city traffic and is therefore special endangered. And the noise caused by cranking the cars is hardly reasonable.

In January 1923, the OLEX company opened its petrol station at Raschplatz: the small, expressionist round building with its pillars and bay windows under a domed roof looked to later observers "like a tank temple " served by a petrol station attendant with an apron and service cap.

literature

Goetz Buchholz : Car-friendly city I / Am Raschplatz Germany's first public petrol station was built in 1923 - not without resistance. In: ders .: Hanover. Stories and History (Subtitle: A dictionary that tells stories ... ). With photos by Karl Johaentges . 2nd edition, Landbuch Verlag Hannover, Hannover 2005, ISBN 3-7842-0591-7 , p. 11f.

Web links

Joachim Kleinmanns : On the history of the gas station construction type in Germany. In: Short texts on the preservation of monuments (1999) on the website baufachinformation.de of the Fraunhofer Information Center for Space and Building

References and comments

↑ from: Echo Continental , 1923, Continental Gummiwerke Hannover AG
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ Goetz Buchholz: Autogerechte Stadt I ... (see literature)
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d J. Kleinmanns: On the history of the gas station building type ... (see the section on web links )
↑ Compare Helmut Knocke : Justice Building. In: Klaus Mlynek , Waldemar R. Röhrbein (eds.) U. a .: City Lexicon Hanover . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2009, ISBN 978-3-89993-662-9 , p. 331.
^ Klaus Mlynek: New Sparkasse building on Raschplatz. In: ders .: 175 years of responsibility in the region and society. The city of Hanover and its Sparkasse 1823-1998. Schlütersche, Hanover 1998.

52.377286 9.744454Coordinates: 52 ° 22 ′ 38.2 " N , 9 ° 44 ′ 40" E

[1] rom: Echo Continental , 1923, Continental Gummiwerke Hannover AG

[Hannover._Geschichten_...-2] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ Goetz Buchholz: Autogerechte Stadt I ... (see literature)

[Fraunhofer_IRB-3] J. Kleinmanns: On the history of the gas station building type ... (see the section on web links )

[4] Compare Helmut Knocke : Justice Building. In: Klaus Mlynek , Waldemar R. Röhrbein (eds.) U. a .: City Lexicon Hanover . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2009, ISBN 978-3-89993-662-9 , p. 331.

[5] Klaus Mlynek: New Sparkasse building on Raschplatz. In: ders .: 175 years of responsibility in the region and society. The city of Hanover and its Sparkasse 1823-1998. Schlütersche, Hanover 1998.