Oppenheim cellar labyrinth
The Oppenheim cellar labyrinth is an approximately 40 kilometer long system of cellars, corridors and stairs on up to five levels below the city of Oppenheim .
Emergence
Oppenheim am Rhein received market rights in 1008 and was raised to the status of a Free Imperial City in 1226 . In the city the Rhine trade route crossed to the south z. B. to Speyer and Strasbourg and north to Frankfurt and Cologne with cross streets to Paris in the west and Prague in the east. As the holder of the stacking right , the city was able to oblige all passing merchants to stack their goods and thus offer them for sale.
Due to the geographical conditions, there was hardly any space above ground without losing a militarily advantageous location, and since no one wanted to build or store goods in front of the protective walls, the loess subsoil was used to create ever deeper cellars.
Loess , an ice age deposit of clay and sand , is easily degradable, but stable. From the 14th century onwards, Saxon miners dug cavities and lined them waist-high with rubble stones. The wooden falsework attached to it was filled with mortar. Depending on the epoch, round or pointed ceilings were worked out. In the cellar system there is a temperature of 17 degrees and 70% humidity, which can be increased to 85% by visitors.
Break of tradition after the city was destroyed
After the aboveground city was completely destroyed in the Palatinate War of Succession in 1689, the houses and streets of the city were laid out differently than given by the cellars. After the Second World War , the system was almost completely forgotten and the top cellars were increasingly filled with rubbish and rubble.
The lack of ventilation and the ingress of water led to sudden burglaries in the 1980s / 1990s, for example when a police patrol car broke underground in a crater in Pilgersberggasse in 1983 .
Rehabilitation after the beginning of decay
Since the stability of houses and streets was endangered, renovation work began in the mid-1990s under the direction of mining engineer Holger Hessmann, by digging out rubbish and rubble, a laborious work mainly with spades and pickaxes . If the system is well ventilated, it stabilizes itself. Shotcrete is applied at critical points . Even if the acute danger has been eliminated, many years of work are expected (as of 2007).
tourism
During the main summer season, up to 600 tourists in groups of 20 people are guided through a section of the maze every day. By 2007, 40,000 tourists were counted in the Oppenheim underground.
Due to the large number of visitors, a second cellar labyrinth was opened in spring 2012.
gallery
One of the aisles
Showroom
Showroom (other viewing direction)
Information board exploration
Information board in the cellar labyrinth
Information board renovation
literature
- Thomas Ehlke: The underground city of Oppenheim - From the shadow world to the adventure space . Cologne: Hermann-Josef Emons Verlag 2003. In March 2007 an updated edition was published, expanded by 16 pages.
- Nicole Schmidt: Hunter of the hidden cavities. How geologists discovered the secret of the city of Oppenheim and ensured the stabilization of this unique historical cellar labyrinth . In: Frankfurter Rundschau of December 31, 2015/1. January 2016, pp. 28–29.
Web links
- Information about the Oppenheim cellar labyrinth on the website of the city of Oppenheim
- Article about the Oppenheim cellar labyrinth , published in Wirtschafts-News Magazin
Individual references, footnotes
- ↑ a b Peter Thomas: Rescue of the "City under the City" , NZZ of July 30, 2007, page 8
- ^ Statement by geologist Dr. Michael Thomä in the TV show ZDF-History , archived by the support team in the ticket: 2013040910008355
- ↑ Mirko Smiljanic on Deutschlandfunk from February 5, 2012: Unter Oppenheim am Rhein - Tour through underground labyrinths