Rommelspütt

The Rommelspütt has been a locality since at least 1598 , which today is in the city center of Wuppertal - Elberfeld . Their name probably goes back to a well or a water point at this location; According to legend, it is said to have been a children's fountain . At the end of the Weimar Republic, the area was the scene of numerous clashes between left-wing and National Socialist groups. Today a street with the same name runs here.

history

The Elberfelder Neumarkt on a city map from 1849. The area originally called Rommelspütt (Rummelspütt) is located east of the market square (today Gathe street between Hofkamp and Robertstraße).

The oldest tradition of the location of Rommelspütt comes from a plan by Elberfeld from 1598, on which the house of the Teschemacher family was entered. From the 18th century onwards, slum quarters slowly emerged outside the historic town center of Elberfeld on Bachstrasse (now the Gathe ) to the north near the Rommelspütt . A growing proletariat, mostly textile-processing craftsmen, settled here, whose living conditions became even more difficult in the course of industrialization .

In the spring of 1921, the staff of the local police force, newly established for Elberfeld , was relocated to the Hotel Reichshof in Neustraße , as the street Rommelspütt was called at the time.

In the early 1930s, the Rommelspütt was the scene of numerous political disputes and riots. Here, at the foot of Parade mountain , there was a mixture of Amüsierkneipen, brothels and bars that served the workers' parties as meeting places or meeting places; In addition, numerous communist-oriented families lived here. The area bordered the so-called Petroliumviertel , the Mount of Olives , another stronghold of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) , and was a center of the proletarian milieu. In addition to criminals, pimps and prostitutes, party communists, functionaries of the League against Fascism and the youth association met here, as well as KPD dissidents around the “Red General von Elberfeld”, Alfred Steinhage , who ran a beer hall there. The newspaper of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) was located one street away. Not far from this area, on the so-called “carpet” in Poststrasse, were the “traffic bars” of the National Socialists and the paramilitary fighting organization of the NSDAP during the Weimar Republic , the Sturmabteilung (SA) . The area around the Rommelspütt exerted a “downright magical attraction that was perhaps only comparable to the fascination of the fairgrounds in the metropolitan cities”, especially for young people. The first demonstrations on the Rommelspütt in Elberfeld ended in 1932 with a large number of broken windows and a subsequent mass arrest of 200 people. The activist Oswald Laufer also took part in a “rioting of left-wing circles on the Rommelspütt” in 1932, as it was later called in the ruling by the jury, as one of the spokesmen of about a hundred anti-fascists who attacked a small group of the SA and chased them up Wilhelmstrasse. Laufer was later sentenced to four months in prison for violating the peace.

The day after the seizure of power , on January 31, 1933, the Wuppertal NSDAP mobilized a torchlight procession that went through the entire valley axis. Protection police with caribeans ready to fire had moved in to cordon off the streets, especially the Rommelspütt . The members of the anarchist black crowd and the young communists were numerically too weak for a direct confrontation with the armed SA people, so they pushed cheering sympathizers on the marching procession of the SA several times from Rommelspütt to Luisenstrasse on the roadside, which was then followed by the SA -Security guards were beaten up.

Today, the Rommelspütt street in Elberfeld-Mitte - starting from Neumarktstraße - runs at the level of Willy-Brandt-Platz as a pedestrian zone to the right of Friedrichstraße, which opens next to the town hall . After about 50 meters downhill, it passes under a building complex through a driveway and continues from there for about 20 meters to the north with an access to Morianstrasse and for about 60 meters south to Hofkamp. In 2017, the area previously reserved for pedestrians will also be opened to cyclists on the connecting route between the Klotzbahn and Rommelspütt. Should the coexistence prove itself, the political bodies will make a final decision.

Reception of the fountain in legends

Etymologically, the field name Rommelspütt stands for Rommel's fountain, from the Latin puteus or the Italian pozzo , Upper German Pütz or puddle .

According to Friedrich Salomon Krauss , the name of the street has its origin in a Bergisch legend:

“In Elberfeld they [the children] come from the“ Rommelspütt ”, [a well] which has run dry for a few years. In the last century, the childminder gave every child who came into the house to see the newborn (a common custom at the time) a cake, a pretzel, or some other little something that was specially baked for this purpose. It was then said that the little child had brought them with them when they were pulled out of the Rommelspütt. At that time this was called “a Teefgen” (toe) from the child [sic]. (According to the handwritten chronicle by Elberfeld von Merkens.) The view that the children come from this or that well (Born, Pütz etc.) is very common in the Bergisch region. "

At Otto Schell it is said:

“Until recently, a spring gushed out of the wall that closed off the former Wülfing property from the Rommelspütt. The newborn children in Elberfeld were brought from this source. "

Olaf Link stated:

“There were also numerous children's fountains, of which the Rommelspütt in Elberfeld in particular should have been well known. That sterile women should be 'in the pots' in order to be able to give birth was still a frequently heard advice around 1890. "

After Hans Günther also came

"... according to the ancient beliefs of children [...] the little citizens of Elberfeld from the 'Rommelspütt', that mysterious fountain that came to light at the foot of the Engelnberg , and from the depths of which there was a fairytale rush when unbelieving boys bowed down, to explore the semi-darkness with big eyes. [...] If a child from the Rommelspütt had made a town house happy, then the boys and girls from the neighboring houses came with a shy step to see the little earth citizen and at the same time to receive a pretzel. "

Popular custom was fought as a superstition by the “ Reformed Consortium ” in Elberfeld.

Literary processing

Otto Hausmann addressed the Rommelspütt in his ballad Ritter Arnold von Elverfeldt or Der Rommelspütt from 1893.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Journal , Issues 37–38. Bergischer Geschichtsverein , 1904. p. 328.
2. ^ Gerhard Birker, Heinrich-Karl Schmitz, Wolfgang Winkelsen: Otto Hausmann. From the father of "Mina Knallenfalls" to the poet of the singing brothers. In: Wuppertal biographies. Contributions to the history and local history of the Wuppertal. Volume 17, Volume 37. Born Verlag, Wuppertal 1993. ISBN 3-87093-065-9 , pp. 65-83.
3. ^ Michael Magner: Wuppertal-Elberfeld: Briller district and north city. Sutton Verlag GmbH, 2003. p. 7.
4. ↑ Michael Wiescher: The police barracks on Lichtenplatz. A reflection of German police history. In: Bergischer Geschichtsverein
5. ^ ^{A b} Antifascism in Wuppertal. 1929-1933.
6. ↑ Oswald Laufer. In: gedenkbuch-wuppertal.de
7. ↑ Wilfried Radewahn: The Paris press and the German question: taking into account the French press policy in the age of the Bismarckian Empire (1866-1870 / 71). Peter Lang, 1977. ISBN 3-26102-226-4 , p. 140.
8. ↑ Ulrich Klan , Dieter Nelles: There is still a flame: Rhenish anarcho-syndicalists in the Weimar Republic and under fascism. Nevertheless-Verlag, 1986. ISBN 3-92220-972-6 , p. 160.
9. ^ Eike Rüdebusch: Verkehrsversuch am Rommelspütt In: Westdeutsche Zeitung of September 2, 2016
10. ^ Emil Schatzmayr: North and South: Geographical-ethnographic studies and images. As a contribution to understanding, at the same time as a travel guide. Bruhn, 1869. p. 101.
11. ^ Friedrich Salomon Krauss : At the original source. Folklore Monthly. G. Krämer Verlag, Hamburg 1894. p. 162.
12. ↑ Otto Schell : Bergische Sagen. 1897, p. 207.
13. ↑ Olaf Link: How things used to be in the Bergisches Land. Sutton Verlag GmbH, 2007. ISBN 3-86680-127-0 . P. 10.
14. ↑ Hans Günther Also: Comedians, Calvinists and Kattun. Verlag Lechte, 1960. pp. 24, 25.
15. ^ Wilhelm Kosch : German Literature Lexicon , Volume 15 Hauptmann - Heinemann. Walter de Gruyter, 2010. ISBN 3-11023-691-5 , p. 225.