Prince Ludwig Home

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The Prinz-Ludwig-Heim was a building on Wasserburger Strasse in Traunstein . It was the first merchant rest home in the Kingdom of Bavaria and the second in the German Empire .

history

Around 1910, Traunstein campaigned for wealthy pensioners to settle here; At that time the spa town had a population of less than 10 000 people 1822 spa guests and 8337 “passers-by” counted, who already had numerous tourist facilities such as baths, tennis courts and restaurants.

In 1909, Mayor Georg Vonficht took up his post, which he would hold until 1935. In the year after Vonficht took office, the German Society for Merchant Recreational Homes was founded in Wiesbaden , whose first president was the industrialist Joseph Baum . From this came the memorandum A social problem of the merchant class , which caused a great response: His company set itself the goal of "male and female commercial employees and less well-off self-employed merchants without regard to confession, membership of a party or another association for little, The remuneration at home does not significantly exceed the allowance for a stay in a convalescent home ”; The merchants' homes were to be financed by foundations from large companies and annual contributions from the beneficiaries. The concept was successful; A six-figure sum was soon available for the construction of the first homes. The municipal council of the city of Traunstein dealt for the first time in March 1911 with the idea of ​​proposing a location for a recreation home in Traunstein to the company; in July of the same year they learned that 270 applications had been submitted and that Traunstein had been shortlisted. However, the company not only demanded the offered free building site, but also the development with water and sewer connections, the waiver of community levies and a waiver of charging future users the visitor's tax . In return, Traunstein demanded that the house should have at least 100 beds and that local entrepreneurs should benefit from the construction and operation. The contract came about in the same year when construction costs were 370 000 marks set. The cornerstone of the rest home was laid on November 19, 1911. The protector was Prince Ludwig of Bavaria , after whom the home was named.

Ludwig III. of Bavaria as king

The Prinz-Ludwig-Heim was built within ten months by the Munich construction company Heilmann & Littmann ; 26 Traunstein companies were involved in the trades. Because the construction of a narrow-gauge railway from the Empfing station to the construction site was not approved, the material had to be transported to the construction site by cart. An area of ​​1175 square meters was built over, the enclosed space measured 17 575 cubic meters. The rest home was four stories; the main front faced south. The Prinz-Ludwig-Heim with its 77 guest rooms and 110 beds stood between Wasserburger Strasse and the Traun high bank.

Cutlery engraving from the Traunstein officers' home

The Prince Ludwig Home was inaugurated on October 6, 1912. If the laying of the foundation stone had already been celebrated extensively, the inauguration was celebrated with even more pomp. Again, the namesake of the home, a son of Prince Regent Luitpold of Bavaria , was present, as well as more than 60 guests of honor, who arrived in the late morning with a special train from the court marshal from Munich. Vonficht and Baum rode through the city in the prince's carriage; On the town square, the protector of the home was greeted by the school youth with a poem, the citizens, clubs and associations stood in a trellis, the song board and the spa band as well as numerous speakers made their appearances. One of the stops of Protector Ludwig von Bayern on that day was a visit to the Wartberg breeding station. The city donated 19 bottles of champagne for the festive dinner. The special train with the guests of honor left Traunstein in the late afternoon. A little later, after Luitpold's death on December 12, 1912, Prince Ludwig became Prince Regent and in 1913 the last King of Bavaria, but the convalescent home continued to bear the name of Prinz-Ludwig-Heim.

The first vacationer, who had to pay a daily rate of 2.80 marks for accommodation and meals, arrived in October 1912. Both the business community in Traunstein and the guests were satisfied with the facility, which served five meals a day.

But the home was soon withdrawn from its original purpose: from autumn 1914 onwards, it was used as a military hospital during the First World War . After the hospital was closed in 1919, it was used again as a merchant's rest home from October 1, 1920. However, such facilities were controversial in the post-war period, as there were already difficulties with supplying the permanent residents. After hyperinflation ended in 1923, conditions returned to normal. In the years 1924 to 1930 the number of merchant recreation homes of the society rose from 23 to 43. The German Association for merchant recreation homes was brought into line in the Third Reich . Only "Reich citizens in the sense of the Reich Citizenship Act of September 15, 1935" were accepted into the homes. The resignation was "suggested" to Mayor Vonficht. In the year of his resignation, a barracks for the Reichswehr was built near the rest home, followed by an officers' home. In 1936 Traunstein became a climatic health resort and in 1938 a Kneipp health resort . The city tried to acquire the convalescent home in 1937 as a center for the Kneipp spa, but failed. An attempt to encourage the Reichspost to buy the home was also unsuccessful.

During the Second World War , the Prinz-Ludwig-Heim was once again used as a hospital for wounded soldiers. This hospital was closed again on July 15, 1940, but was reopened on October 1, 1941, this time as an officers' hospital. From 1943 the home was used as a surgical hospital with 120 beds; in February 1945 there were more than 300 patients in the house. The neighboring officers' quarters served as a sub-hospital in which around 100 people were cared for.

After the American troops moved into Traunstein on May 3, 1945, all the hospitals were converted into prisoner-of-war camps. The occupying power used the Prince Ludwig Home themselves for a short time before they occupied it with Polish foreign workers. In 1946 the building was annexed to the municipal hospital: it first had to be renovated and was opened on December 1, 1946 as a hospital for internal diseases. At that time, the city of Traunstein was still using the building on a rental basis and paid 3000 Reichsmarks a month for it. She bought it in 1953 at a price of 430 000 DM from the German Society for Merchant Recreation Homes. From October 1, 1960, the Prinz-Ludwig-Heim housed a nursing school, which, however, moved out again in 1962.

Since the home was not particularly suitable for use as a hospital, a new building was planned from 1959, which, however, could not be completed until 1971. The use of the Prinz-Ludwig-Heim was debated for a long time; Among other things, the establishment of a Caritas nursing home was considered , but this did not come about due to cost reasons. The Arbeiterwohlfahrt , which had shown interest at short notice, also jumped out, a working group from Traunsteiner Bürger, who favored use as a Kneipp spa, was also unable to implement its concept and a sale to the operator of several cancer clinics also failed. In 1968 in Traunstein the construction of a secondary school was considered more important than the development of the spa town. First, a strip of land on the south side of the Prinz-Ludwig-Heim was cleared for the construction of a state secondary school, which was the first step towards building the school center on Wasserburger Strasse. The last patients were transferred from the Prinz-Ludwig-Heim to the new hospital on August 1, 1970. After that, the former rest home was empty. It became the property of the Traunstein district on November 30, 1971 . In January 1972 it was decided to demolish and from February to the end of March 1972 the Prinz-Ludwig-Heim, one of the most striking buildings in Traunstein, was demolished.

In 2012 an exhibition in the Reiffenstuel secondary school in Traunstein reminded of the history of the home.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Walter Brumm, The Prince Ludwig Home in Traunstein. Exactly 100 years ago it was inaugurated , in: Traunsteiner Tagblatt , October 6, 2012 ( online )
  2. ↑ 100 years of Prinz-Ludwig-Heim , in: Passauer Neue Presse , November 22, 2012 ( online )

Coordinates: 47 ° 52 ′ 51.7 ″  N , 12 ° 38 ′ 9 ″  E