Rhön Club

Rhönklub e. V.

Club data
founding	1876
Address / contact	Peterstor 7 36037 Fulda
president	Jürgen Reinhardt
Members	23,000 ( 2015 )
Internet
Homepage	rhoenklub.de

The Rhönklub e. V. ( RK for short ) is a transnational home and hiking club in Bavaria , Hesse and Thuringia based in Fulda . It is entered in the register of associations of the Fulda District Court (VR 483). With around 23,000 (as of 2009) members in 88 branch clubs, it is one of the largest German hiking clubs in the Association of German Mountain and Hiking Clubs .

aims

It was founded on August 6, 1876 in Gersfeld with the aim of opening up the Rhön as a hiking area. Today's objective is to preserve the valuable natural and cultural landscape of the Rhön from an ecological point of view, in particular:

the preservation of rare plants
the care of native animals and the general protection of creatures
the preservation of valuable cultural assets
the maintenance of local customs
the preservation of the down-to-earth songs
consciously speaking the dialect
efforts to preserve old cultural assets

history

founding

Signpost: hiking trails of the Rhön Club near the Fulda spring

On August 6, 1876, at the suggestion of the Fulda doctor Justus Schneider (1842–1904) in Gersfeld, the Rhön Club was founded. Since mountain clubs had already been founded in other regions of Germany, he made the decision to call for the establishment of a Rhön club.

The invitation to the founding meeting was as follows:

“Even if the Rhön is indisputably one of the most beautiful mountains in Germany, it is still relatively little visited by strangers. The travelers consider the mountains to be inhospitable, rough and cold and shy away from visiting because of the alleged lack of traffic routes and comfortable inns. As friends of the mountains, we consider it our duty to counteract the alleged and real abuses that prevent tourists from visiting and try to achieve this by forming a Rhön club. The task of the same should be to improve the mountain paths, to erect signposts, to create viewpoints and resting places, to train guides and to influence the improvement of the inns, then also to work and promote the visit of the Rhön through word and writing. The Rhön Club should try to recruit members in all places in the Rhön and its surroundings; the funds are to be obtained through regular contributions, the amount of which is left to the discretion of the same. We therefore want to organize a general party to Gersfeld, as the most central place possible, on August 6, 1876. There, those who appear should constitute themselves as a general assembly and elect a definitive committee to which the management of the association will be entrusted. We invite you to this game and ask you to work among your friends to participate in it and to join the Rhön Club. The time and location of the meeting will be published in the papers. In the afternoon there will be an excursion to the great Nallen. "

- Invitation to the founding meeting in 1876

Although the Rhön has always been a "divided" country, far more Rhön friends from 16 locations came to Gersfeld than expected. The Rhönklub was founded with great enthusiasm, Justus Schneider became the first president and Fulda seat of the association. The representatives of the 16 cities and villages present promptly founded "Sections" (today branch associations) .

The number of "sections" and the number of members grew steadily. It was a special concern of the President to serve all residents of the Rhön. Belonging to the three countries of Prussia , Bavaria and Thuringia posed considerable problems, and the Rhön Club still connects the residents today.

Death Memorial

Memorial on the Heidelstein in the Rhön

The idea for the memorial to the dead on the Heidelstein was born in 1923 and was inaugurated in the same year. Every year in September the deceased of the Rhön Club is commemorated there as part of the “Heidelstein Celebration”.

Early years

In 1926 the Rhön Club had 70 branches. A large network of hiking trails had been built, and Rhön club huts were built on the mountains. The elementary school teacher Karl Straub first published a Rhön calendar on behalf of the main board of the Rhön Club in 1929, which is still published annually today.

World War II and the post-war years

When the Second World War broke out , Oswald Milker took over the management of the club and he saved the Rhön Club during the Nazi era. In 1941 he had to rename himself “Rhönbund” and the independent club life came to a standstill, but he survived.

In the immediate post-war period , all association activities in Germany were suspended. As early as 1946 the first issue of the Rhönwacht appeared as a simple double page. The association as a whole had only 3,000 members. 16 branch associations in Thuringia were banned in the GDR as "fascist associations". The "iron curtain" separated the club. East refugees came to the Rhön, and the association gave them a new home.

The fifth president Josef Hans Sauer created the post of main culture warden. The Rhönklub should not only be a hiking club, but must also strive to preserve the traditional cultural assets of the Rhön homeland.

In 1976 the Rhön Club had 71 branches with over 15,000 members. Alfons Lühn , the sixth president, increased the number of members. He implemented an amendment to the statutes, according to which greater importance could be attached to nature conservation.

After his departure in 1989, Regina Rinke , a woman from the Bavarian part of the Rhön, took over the management of the Rhön Club for the first time.

reunion

In 1989 the political change took place, for the Rhön Club the unity of Germany meant the opening to Thuringia. Spontaneously, new or old Rhönklub branches emerged in 19 locations in Thuringia. The first foundation took place on December 6, 1989 in Oberalba. On December 28, 1989, the branch association Dermbach was re-established, which in 1876 had already been one of the founding associations.

German Hiking Day 2008 in the Rhön

From June 26th to 30th, 2008, the Rhön Club in Fulda and the Rhön hosted the 108th German Hiking Day under the motto "Hiking & More".

structure

Memorial stone "Rhön Klub Branch Club Hammelburg 1876–1988" in the Sodenberg-Gans NSG

The 88 branch associations belong to the main association. As early as the beginning of the 20th century, the Rhön Club had divided the area of the Rhön into Gaue to simplify administration. There was a north-east district, a north-west district, a south-east district and a south-west district. Later it was decided to rename and named the crooks after the rivers of the Rhön. With the elimination of the Werragau (located in the former GDR), the Ulstergau was founded after the war . In 2008 the Gaue were renamed into regions. In 2011 the Saale and Sinn regions merged to form the Saale / Sinn region. So there is now the Werra region, Fulda region, Saale / Sinn region, Ulster region .

Refuges

Rhönklubhütte Oberbach (2019)

In the first years and decades after their founding, the Rhön Club and its branch associations built and leased six large mountain houses and more than 30 huts in all parts of the Rhön, which are intended to invite hiking and nature lovers to linger and rest. The large houses offer overnight accommodation - from simple accommodation to rooms with shower / bath and toilet to holiday apartments -, restaurants and children's playgrounds.

There are the following houses and huts in the Rhön:

Lichtenburg castle complex
Dermbacher Hut
Emberghütte
Fulda house
Karl Heise Hut
Kissinger Hut
Melkerser hiking hut
Meininger Hut
Milseburghütte
Neustadt house
Öchsenberghütte
Rauschenberghütte
Rhönklubhütte at the Eichenzeller watch tower
Rhön Club Hut Eiterfeld
Rhön Club Hut Oberbach
Salzunger Hut
Schweinfurt House
Rother Kuppe hiking home

Waldheim sneezing

Hiker's hut on the Pleß

Wurzburg house

Rhönwacht

The first publication of the club magazine “Die Rhön” (meanwhile “Rhönwacht”) fell during the term of office of the second president Karl Wegener. This magazine has been published quarterly since 1912. Its publication was only briefly interrupted by the two wars. Because there is a website of the music group "Rhoenwacht", which distributes right-wing radical songs, the magazine was renamed DIE RHÖN - WANDERN & MEHR in 2008 .

President

From	To	Surname
1876	1904	Justus Schneider
1904	1913	Karl Wegener
1913	1939	Hugo Pfeiffer (Counselor)
1939	1961	Oswald Milker
1961	1976	Josef Hans Sauer
1976	1989	Alfons Lühn
1989	2011	Regina Rinke
2011	2013	Ewald Klüber
since 2014		Jürgen Reinhardt

Awards

The following branches of the Rhön Club received the Eichendorff badge :

1987 Mellrichstadt branch
1987 Weyhers branch
1988 Branch Association Bischofsheim-Kreuzberg
1988 Gersfeld branch
1988 Hünfeld branch
1988 Poppenhausen branch
1989 Hilders branch
1997 Vacha branch
2006 branch association Bad Königshofen
2011 branch association Kassel
2012 Wüstensachsen branch association
2013 Hofbieber branch association

literature

Rhönklub (Ed.): Schneiders Rhönführer. Official leader of the Rhön Club. Verlag Parzeller, 2005, Fulda, ISBN 3-79000-365-4 , p. 96 ff.

Rhönwacht ( Rhön Club magazine) (2006, issue 2, April to June)

Jürgen Reinhardt: 140 years of the Rhönklub - 140 years of organized hiking , Buchenblätter 23/2016 (supplement of the Fuldaer Zeitung ) Online (accessed on December 4, 2016)