Park cave

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Tunnel at a depth of 12 m
Former air raid shelters in the tunnel system of the park cave

The park cave is a system of tunnels and routes under the park on the Ilm in Weimar . The entrance is on the edge of the Ilmpark in the immediate vicinity of the Franz Liszt House or the cafeteria of the Bauhaus University Weimar not far from Belvederer Allee . The exit is at the so-called bottleneck of the park. The park cave is part of the Weimar Classic Foundation . It is both a listed building and a nature reserve .

Plant and use

In the years 1794 to 1797, Duke Carl August had these rock cellars and tunnels built originally for the purpose of using them for an underground brewery with storage of the porter beer he valued as well as for the discharge of waste water. However, the planned brewery was never realized. Until 1805, travertine was mined in the tunnels for road construction. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe had already collected fossils here as a 20-year-old . 105 objects from his extensive geoscientific collection came from the Weimar travertines, which were quarried in the tuff quarries west of Belvederer Allee, which are now overbuilt . Later the park cave served as a walkway and as a warehouse for beer and charcoal.

In the “ Third Reich ”, the twelve-meter-deep cave system was originally intended to serve as an air raid shelter for the Gau leadership under Fritz Sauckel . In the Second World War , the tunnel system was then expanded and also served as an air raid shelter for the population of Weimar . While the Great Park Cave has been preserved since the war, the Small Cave and the tunnels west of Belvederer Allee were filled in at the end of the 1970s.

In 1992 work began on securing and developing the cave system for the purpose of setting up an underground museum. Since 1997, the underground passages have been open to the public again as the Park Cave Museum via the staircase behind the Liszt House, which was built in 1945 and has since been filled in. The underground museum provides information on geology , the development of the tunnel system and the history of Weimar. In the cave system there are travertine rocks , where numerous fossils have been found. Events on geological and other topics often take place in the park cave.

  • Ilm gravel in the park cave

  • Travertine rock close-up

  • Exit in the Ilmpark

literature

  • Marie-Luise Kahler: "Park Cave" Weimar. Chronicle, ed. from the Weimar Classic Foundation. Weimar 1997.
  • Gisela Maul: Weimar Park Cave Museum. Edited by the Weimar Classic Foundation. Weimar 1999.
  • Walter Steiner : "Large Park Cave" under the park on the Ilm. Excursion point 4, In: Excursion guide to the geology of Weimar and the surrounding area (Ilmtal between Weimar and Ehringsdorf). Geological excursions in Thuringia, Jena 2003, pp. 23–28.
  • Ders .: The park cave of Weimar. Sewage tunnel, air raid shelter, underground museum. Published by the Weimar Classic Foundation, Weimar 1996.
  • Ders .: Geology, The geological structure of the underground in Weimar (= Weimar writings on local history and natural history, issue 23), Weimar 1974.

Web links

Commons : Parkhöhle Weimar  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 50 ° 58 ′ 29.9 ″  N , 11 ° 19 ′ 51.8 ″  E