Ratskeller Salzgitter
The Ratskeller Salzgitter on the market square of Salzgitter-Bad is the oldest building in the city that is still in use today. Originally built to protect the citizens and to store the salt works , it was later used as a town hall and warehouse for the brewery and is now operated as a restaurant and hotel.
Construction of the Ratskeller
The vaults on the ground floor are the oldest components of the Ratskeller . In a document from 1125, there was already talk of a salt place, for the construction of which a salt storage facility was required. It is therefore assumed that the Ratskeller was built at this time, i.e. at the beginning of the 12th century. The building was located to the east of the salt springs of the saltworks salt mine and was surrounded to the north by the Warne marshland and to the west by the swamp around the salt springs, making it easy to defend against enemy attacks. Initially, the building was used as a salt store, later it was also used by the brewers as a warehouse, and some rooms were used as the town hall. The Ratskeller has been operated as a restaurant and hotel since 1854.
The building, built from up to 1.5 m thick sandstone walls to protect against attacks, initially only had one floor with five adjacent barrel vaults and a transverse vault at the rear. There is documentary evidence that the building was raised by one floor in 1522 and that the house received a representative central gable. Most of the building was occupied by the brewers, who used the ground floor as a beer cellar and the upper floor to store hops and mash , and two other rooms on the first floor were also used by the brewers. Three rooms on the ground floor were used by the mayor and councilor as office and meeting rooms, three further chambers were used as archives.
History of the Ratskeller until 1945
There was already a school on the south side of the building in 1522. It was a two-story half-timbered building of around 60 m². In 1866 the school was converted into a wash house and in 1912 the building was demolished.
In a lease from 1748 there is a description of the Ratsschänke of the Ratkeller:
"It consists of the residential building, in which there are two rooms with an iron stove and a Cannen in addition to the vaulted cellar protruding into the brewery house, as necessary for serving beer, as is the so-called gloomy hall above."
The city sold the Ratskeller on September 6, 1854 to the innkeeper Gehrmann from Beinum . The rooms had already been left to the Ratskellerwirt, who had previously operated the neighboring Ratsschenke . This was so dilapidated by the many years of billeting of soldiers that the city had refused a renovation. The new owner of the Ratskeller had the roof renovated and parts of the ground floor renewed. In 1880 the council gave up the rooms in the council cellar and the town hall was moved to the Vöppstedter Tor.
Around 1880 Gehrmann sold the Ratskeller to the innkeeper Güllmann. He intended to expand the house into a hotel. In addition, the building was given a third floor around 1885. Güllmann also bought the rooms on the upper floor, which had previously belonged to the brewers, and had the previous hop floor there converted into a hall. Before the expansion of the hotel rooms on the third floor was completed, he sold the Ratskeller in 1892 to the innkeeper Franz Körner. He sold the house two years later to the head waiter from Oelber , Adolf Dähndel. Dähndel and his wife Paula managed to develop the Ratskeller into a widely recognized inn. After his death in 1936, the widow sold the Ratskeller in 1941, but the subsequent owner was unable to complete the planned renovations due to the events of the war and the company had to file for bankruptcy.
The Ratskeller was in the public eye on July 15, 1937, when the contract to found the Reichswerke Aktiengesellschaft for ore mining and ironworks "Hermann Göring" ("Hermann Göring Works") was signed here.
History of the Ratskeller since 1945
After these multiple changes of ownership, WEVG Salzgitter (owned by the city of Salzgitter) took over the building in 1953 and had the house extensively renovated in the following years. Further major renovations took place in 1969 (heating system, kitchen and conference rooms) and 1972 (restaurant and hotel area), in 1973 the café was opened, in whose rooms the administration of the WEVG was housed until then. At the beginning of the 1980s, the Garßenhof was moved from grid to the adjoining rose garden and converted into a bed block for the hotel des Ratskeller, the inauguration took place on April 1, 1982. The new terrace facing the rose garden and the new winter garden were opened in 2001. The last renovation so far was completed in 2013, a new staircase was built and the hotel and restaurant area was renewed. Wohnbau Salzgitter (about 60% owned by the City of Salzgitter) has owned the Ratskeller since 2010 .
literature
- Franz Zobel and Klaus Karich: 700 years of Ratskeller zu Salzgitter . Appelhans printing works, Salzgitter 1986.
- Heinz Kolbe, Wolfram Forche and Max Humburg: the history of the saltworks salt-love hall and the old salt town . In: Stadtarchiv Salzgitter (Ed.): Contributions to the city history . tape 1 . Salzgitter 1988.
- Heinz Kolbe: Salzgitter Chronicle . Ed .: Cultural Office of the City of Salzgitter. Salzgitter 1983.
- Franz Zobel: The home book of the district of Goslar . Verlag der Goslarschen Zeitung Karl Krause, 1928, p. 1-7 .
Web links
- The Ratskeller. Retrieved February 13, 2016 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Zobel: 700 years Ratskeller , p. 9
- ^ City of Salzgitter, Culture Service (ed.): Salzgitter in the Middle Ages (= publications by the Museum of City History ). Salzgitter 2006, p. 90 ff .
- ^ Kolbe: Geschichte Salzliebenhall , p. 29
- ↑ Kolbe: Geschichte Salzliebenhall , page 66
- ^ Kolbe: History of the Salzliebenhall , page 100
- ↑ Kolbe: Salzgitter Chronicle , p. 100
- ^ Hotel Ratskeller: History of the Ratskeller
Coordinates: 52 ° 2 ′ 49 ″ N , 10 ° 22 ′ 17.5 ″ E