Pump neighborhood
The pump neighborhoods, also traditional on the Lower Rhine, or pump communities, go back to the time before the residential areas were developed with running water and have pre-industrial cooperative characteristics .
At that time there was a mechanical water pump for each street or community of houses with which the residents could pump up their drinking water and, in the event of a fire, extinguishing water from the groundwater . Before the formation of municipal fire departments , the pump neighbors were also communities that helped each other in fires and carried the water from the pump from hand to hand to the scene of the fire using bucket chains . The pump master (also Pöttmeister ) was responsible for the functioning of the pump . In some regions this task was passed on from house to house at the turn of the year.
As in other cultures today, the pump was a meeting place ; there news was exchanged and problems discussed.
In many pump neighborhoods, on special occasions (moving in, weddings , anniversaries, etc.), the front door of the anniversary is decorated with a self-woven wreath. The neighbors meet for so-called wreaths and tie the wreath as well as decorative roses made of paper and then attach both to the front door of the anniversary. When a neighbor dies, the pump neighborhood often takes over the provision of pallbearers and helpers for a funeral coffee.
With the development of the residential areas, the importance of the pump neighborhoods has been reduced to the social aspect. In today's pump neighborhoods, for example, there is usually a lovingly looked after pump on a specially reserved strip of land, which sometimes even draws real groundwater. But this is only put into operation at the regular neighborhood festivals. The area of responsibility of the pump master has been reduced to the partial aspect of organizing parties.
In many pump neighborhoods, pronounced neighborhood help is still practiced today.
history
In the first half of the 19th century, before the emergence of volunteer fire brigades , many municipalities in Germany formed a fire fighting district , within which the pump neighborhood was practiced. If a fire broke out, certain residents with harnessed horses had to fetch the nearest fire engine immediately . If necessary, fire engines were also requested from neighboring extinguishing districts.
literature
- Helena Siemes, Gerd Philips: Neighborhoods and socializing on the Lower Rhine . Mercator, 2009, ISBN 978-3-87463-438-0 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Franz-Josef Sehr : The fire extinguishing system in Obertiefenbach from earlier times . In: Yearbook for the Limburg-Weilburg district 1994 . The district committee of the Limburg-Weilburg district, Limburg-Weilburg 1993, p. 151-153 .
- ↑ book review (pdf)