Ramp hole
The Rampenloch is a street in the East Westphalian town of Minden in North Rhine-Westphalia , where brothels were almost exclusively located for a long time . Today the street is given a new function as part of urban development.
The history of prostitution in Minden can be traced back well into the Middle Ages . The first written mentions come from this time; It attracted particular attention at the beginning of the 19th century during Minden's Prussian garrison time . The history of prostitution in Minden is so closely interwoven with the history of this street that the ramp hole has become a local synonym for prostitution.
etymology
The etymological origin of the designation ramp hole has not been conclusively clarified. One theory says that the root of the word is derived from a dialect expression for tripe or muzzle of beef (see ramps ), which in turn indicates that the local garbage heap or the city's cover pit was located at the location in the 15th century . With the Rampendahl there is a similar place name in Lemgo .
history
Building history
The corner house Rampenloch 3 dates from 1802 and has remained almost unchanged to this day. Erected as the home of a master mason, it now illustrates the living and housing conditions at the beginning of the 19th century and was therefore included in the list of monuments. In terms of architectural history, it is also interesting that the historic pavement from 1877 has been preserved in the street. The paving, which is unique in Minden today and has therefore also been entered in the list of monuments, consists of cobblestones made of basalt for the roadway, curbs made of sandstone and sidewalks made of clinker stone. Several prostitutes have been homeowners since 1908. After the eastern access to the ramp hole was closed with a partition wall around 1960, the street is now only accessible from Königswall.
Notorious place
The ramp hole, which used to be outside the city limits, has always been a disreputable place that the population avoided. In the Middle Ages , there was a cemetery for women who had been sentenced to death for child murder . At the time, child murder was relatively widespread, as many women found themselves in a double bind when they involuntarily became pregnant: When they had the child, they were stigmatized by society because they had visibly fornication , they were left out of society cast out and their children labeled as bastards . On infanticide was the death penalty , the women were thus for a funeral on a conventional cemetery dishonorable and the city were buried far, mostly in places that were already stigmatized and other disposals were used. Since the time of the Reformation , the public carrion and rubbish pit has been documented at the site, from whose time the name probably comes. In the 16th century a street with a poor settlement was formed. Residents who for various reasons were not allowed to live within the city walls probably settled there, partly because they were not allowed to live within the city limits due to poverty, illness or in the exercise of dishonorable jobs, partly because they are comparable to today's slums of today's third parties World lived on the city's wealthy garbage.
Minden as a garrison town
On November 13, 1806, Minden was occupied by French troops and incorporated into the French Kingdom of Westphalia , in which it remained until 1813, when Napoleon I was defeated in the Battle of Leipzig . The French troops then left the Mindener Land.
During the tenure of the first Minden district administrator von Arnim (1816-1820), the Minden fortress was rebuilt under the supervision of the government of the Minden district . Since Minden was a fortress town, a lot of soldiers were stationed there, far away from their families, and sexual contact with so-called venerable women was taboo per se, as a result of which prostitution flourished as seldom before, as many women had no other option Make a living. This went hand in hand with an impoverishment of the urban population as a result of the long occupation by the French, who had harassed the local population with economic and social restrictions and sanctions. Prostitution remained the only option for a large section of the female population not to go into complete poverty with their families. According to contemporary statements, a lack of education, broken family relationships and illegitimate origins were added as negative factors and made a social advancement per se impossible at that time.
Spread of sexually transmitted diseases
The predominant type of prostitution was street prostitution , as there was no official brothel in the Minden fortress at the time. This was for the army to become a serious problem because STDs spread. In the 15th Infantry Regiment alone, 15 soldiers of the fusilier battalion had contracted venereal diseases in the autumn of 1817 . The Minden fortress commander, Major General Ernst Michael von Schwichow , a native of Pomerania , was entrusted with the redesign and redesign of Minden. He was in charge of the subsequent tasks, such as the redesign and redesign of the city fortress and the resulting new regulations, such as the demolition of houses, building restrictions or the permanent billeting of troops. Since the control of hygiene and the supervision of the troop health fell into his area of responsibility, he was informed by his military doctors about the increased infection rate with sexually transmitted diseases. Schwichow took the spread of the disease very seriously and soon identified uncontrolled prostitution as the main source of infection. Unlike the common moral way of thinking at the time, which responded to confrontation with sexuality and its consequences, with ignorance to rejection or, at best, with sonorous but mostly ineffective pleadings on abstinence, Schwichow approached things more constructively. According to his theory, the only sensible way to stop the infection, or to reduce it to a tolerable level, was the official determination of the source of the infection - the prostitute - and their healing, not just that of the soldiers. The city should bear the costs. On November 3, 1817, Schwichow's order was issued that every infected soldier had to reveal the location and person of the infection:
- If he cannot or does not want to indicate this, he should be courageous, but severely punished after the recovery.
In addition, in nearby Paderborn, a trial against a prostitute and a carpenter caused a sensation: On June 13, 1817, the 17-year-old prostitute Caroline Klütemeyer was tried by the Paderborn Royal Higher Regional Court for "hurling", which means nothing more than street prostitution, and the day laborer Wilhelm Heidemann charged with toleration of a “whore economy” in his house, which means nothing other than that he had rented rooms to prostitutes similar to an hourly hotel . However, the court acquitted the accused, as it was of the opinion that the practice of prostitution “dissolute women” was not prohibited as long as it was carried out under state supervision in the appropriate bars.
Since there was no officially permitted brothel in the Prussian fortress of Minden, the Paderborn judgment was understood as an indication to work towards the targeted and controlled establishment of brothels. As a result, Schwichow turned to the Royal Ministry of the Interior with an urgent request to have such a brothel built in Minden in which prostitutes should work under controlled conditions. The city should also pay for the costs. The request was granted because the Ministry of the Interior was able to determine that in a garrison town like Minden, full of unmarried soldiers, there was a need to regulate prostitution.
Control of prostitution
Since one wanted to displace the street prostitution as far as possible from the Minden cityscape, a brothel (“whore economy”) should be assigned to the prostitutes. Schwichow arranged for the Minden city administration to visit the registered and therefore known prostitutes on November 29, 1817 and give them the choice: Either they continue to work under a weekly health inspection, under which they themselves had to pay for their healing in the event of a diagnosed illness , or they have been banned and punished for violating it. Another requirement was that married prostitutes had to present a permit from their husbands in order to be allowed to continue working legally.
The first brothel was initially a semi-official provisional arrangement, as the official regulation dragged on until 1823, because there was resistance from the population and the district administrator pointed out that the town with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants was too small for a brothel. On December 27, 1823, the Ministry of the Interior finally approved an official soldiers' brothel - with regard to the need to regulate prostitution in a garrison town. This approval was combined with ministerial criticism of the choice of words of the Minden authority, which Freudenhaus had used as the name for a brothel:
- Incidentally, I cannot approve of the term brothel used by the royal government, because bad things cannot and must not be ennobled by changing names, and the intended mention is not appropriate, since brothels only too often become the source of long suffering and remorse.
Contrary to Minden city legends, the first brothel after the city's decree was not built in the Rampenloch, but at today's Heidemann house No. 575 (later Königswall 87 ) and was used there for prostitution from 1817 to 1846. After the brothel landlady's death, the restaurant on Königswall was closed in 1846. In the period that followed, the Minden brothel frequently changed locations before prostitutes settled down at the ramp hole. For example, there were brothels at today's Deichhof or again on Königswall from 1900 to 1910 or in today's Soodgasse and Weingarten. However, this hardly reduced street prostitution. Not only the ramparts at Simeonstor appeared in advertisements as a point of contact, but even the guard at Wesertor. Closing the brothels was therefore considered in 1839/1840, as street prostitution had only decreased for a short time, as the mayor noted. The commanders of the various troops in the fortress were themselves divided, partly in favor of dissolution, partly in favor of continued operations.
However, the military doctors have been able to assert a significantly lower number of sexually ill patients since the brothel was built: 46 cases in four years. The regimental doctor of the 15th Infantry Regiment attributed this on the one hand to the morality of some soldiers, but also referred to the opposite cases: When the unit was stationed in Wesel , where there were three "common and cheap" brothels, 22 men were stuck with sick brothels in three months Prostitutes. The Minden brothels remained, however, and moved to the Rampenloch at the end of the 19th century, which was then used as brothel street.
20th century and present
Sources
The source situation is difficult, since sources and literature about the ramp hole and prostitution in Minden in the 20th century have not yet been scientifically satisfactory; the time before and during the Prussian garrison is actually best documented. Notes on Fremdarbeiter- and Wehrmacht brothels and prostitution in the war and inter-war period and the role of prostitution during the Nazi period is sparse and poorly understood, whether prostitutes concentration camp Ravensbruck concentration camp or the relatively nearby branch of the Neuengamme concentration camp or the women's concentration camp KZ Moringen were compulsorily obliged by the National Socialist city government of Minden to also have to work there, or civil women also worked there during National Socialism, is absolutely unexplored. Another particular problem is that survivors, both prostitutes and customers, are hardly or not at all willing to testify about their experiences, as they fear the fear of social stigmatization in addition to the torments they experienced. References to prostitution in the post-war period can only be found indirectly via secondary sources, such as a report by a British soldier formerly stationed in Germany or in the memories of a student at the Petershagen grammar school from 1950 to 1956:
- We drank in the company club, sinking as much beer as we could and then in groups made for the perimeter wire of the barracks, avoiding the Provost staff led by Vic HOLE, the Provo Sgt in his black tracksuit. We then made our way into the town avoiding the Redcaps, and then settled in various bars in and near 'Rampenloch strass' until we could drink no more, then attempted to get into the Barracks (By a different route of course) to get an hours kip before pattern parade. We always knew who didn't make the return journey by the numbers being 'Beasted' over at the guardroom the following morning, happy days.
- [...] what kind of plaster was Minden! That was the world, the big world with all the bells and whistles, especially that ramp hole that they only talked about behind closed doors, had done it to them, even though the pocket money and that 50s obsession were only furtive looks allowed.
It can be assumed that British soldiers might have visited the ramp hole, since Minden was a troop base of the British zone of occupation after the Second World War .
Current developments
Press reports document that the red light scene fell into a crisis after the final withdrawal of the British Army of the Rhine in 1994. In 2008 the Rampenloch celebrated its centenary as a brothel street.
The last brothels closed in 2018. The city of Minden then bought a large part of the houses and will assign the street and the surrounding buildings new functions as part of urban development. To this end, a first interest process will start in January 2020, which should lead to a new use in several stages.
Artistic reception
A play is dedicated to Bordellstrasse, which premiered in 1998 on the Tucholsky-Stage in Minden.
See also
literature
- Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe (Ed.), Fred Kaspar, Peter Barthold (Ed.): City of Minden, Part 4: Old Town, Part 3: The profane buildings. (= Architectural and art monuments of Westphalia, vol. 50.) Klartext Verlag, Essen 2000, ISBN 3-88474-634-0 .
Web links
- Homepage www.rampenloch-minden.de
- Report in the online edition of the weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT about Minden
Individual evidence
- ↑ https://amtage.de/minden-preussen/preussens-frei-liebe/
- ↑ http://www.ktg-minden.de/prepro/vp.htm ( Memento from February 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Fred Kaspar: The ramp hole. Monument newspaper from September 13, 2009, published by the LWL Office for Monument Preservation in Westphalia
- ↑ cf. Heinz-Peter Mielke: Social phenomena in a fortress town in the 19th century. in: Volker Schmidtchen (Hrsg.): fortress, garrison, population: historical aspects of fortress research. Wesel 1982.
- ↑ Ministry approved brothel amtage.de, accessed on July 20, 2017
- ↑ http://www.gedenkstaette-moringen.de/geschichte/frauen/frauen.html
- ↑ http://history.farmersboys.com/Postings/Germany/Minden/minden2.htm
- ↑ http://gymnasium-petershagen.de/festschrift/express-u.html ( Memento from October 14, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Thomas Zutphen: RED LIGHT: Silent nights in Minden. In: Focus Online . December 18, 1995, accessed October 14, 2018 .
- ↑ Mindener Tageblatt of December 28, 2019: "Start in round one. First project phase on the future of the ramp hole begins. Rough project sketches are sufficient until March 6, after which details are required."
- ↑ homepage Ramploch Minden , accessed on August 12, 2013.
Coordinates: 52 ° 17 ′ 24 ″ N , 8 ° 54 ′ 48 ″ E