Barn windmill Saalow

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Exterior view of the barn windmill

The barn windmill in Saalow (also known as barn mill ) is a windmill in which the drive wind flows directly through the mill building and not, as is common practice, around the mill. The building from the 19th century, therefore sometimes classified as a “wooden wind turbine ”, was originally built in today's Dresden district of Podemus . It is unique in the world of its kind.

Location

The building with the address Dorfaue Saalow 19 is located in Saalow, a district of the municipality Am Mellensee in the district of Teltow-Fläming in southern Brandenburg . It stands next to the town house there in the center of the village.

Structure and functionality

Inside view of the barn windmill

The barn windmill is a square, two-storey half - timbered building that, when locked, initially resembles a simple barn . Are located on two sides of the building two octagonal wooden barn doors with directly underlying wind turbines from spruce wood . The larger wind turbine on the west side has a diameter of 4.70 meters. It has two comb wheels , the front of which drove the shotgun gear and the rear served as a brake . The smaller wind turbine on the south side, which has a diameter of 3.85 meters, was used as a drive for the bag lift . The completely preserved grinder of this grain mill is located on the upper floor. Common beech and English oak predominate in the types of wood used for construction . The inside of the mill contains some folk art decorations.

To get the mill going, you open the two barn doors. The four wings of the larger gate serve as guide surfaces for the incoming air. The wind drives the wind turbines embedded in the building walls, flows through the interior of the basement and leaves the building on the opposite side through two openings. If the two gates are closed again, the rotation of the completely covered wind turbines ends . It is not proven and it is very questionable whether this construction worked effectively.

Todays use

Exterior view with the gate closed

The barn windmill is maintained and managed by the association “Scheunenwindmühle Saalow e. V. ". He runs a small museum in the building on behalf of the municipality and offers tours and guided tours on technical and cultural-historical aspects. The mill serves as an idle display system.

Every year on Whit Monday on the occasion of the German Milling Day , the barn windmill opens in addition to the opening times on Sundays.

The Saalower Mühlenweg was also set up in Saalow. The start and finish point of this nature trail, marked with a green dot and a white four, is at the Mellensee-Saalow adventure station. The Mühlenweg also leads past the completely preserved Saalow Paltrock windmill . Due to the presence of these two mills, Saalow is considered a real mill village.

history

Barn windmill after decommissioning at its original location in Podemus , around 1970

The barn windmill is originally a Saxon invention. In 1864 it was built by Johann Traugott Leberecht Schubert in today's Dresden district of Podemus . Schubert was a carpenter and farmer, lived between 1820 and 1889 and was a tinkerer with artistic ambitions. He owned a small three-sided farm in the farming village of Podemus and wanted, as was common at the time, to grind the fodder for his own cattle in his own "grist mill". In contrast to his neighbors, who bought a simple shotgun tunnel, he built his gristmill into a small barn using the wind tunnel principle. However, Schubert did not produce flour with it. The necessary devices, which remained from his mill, were well advanced, but were never completed. He had painted the original blades, better known as turbine blades, in two different colors. When the wind turbine rotated quickly in a good "shot wind", the two changing colors created a slowly rotating stroboscopic effect.

The mill stood on a stone foundation almost at ground level for a total of 110 years in the small town in the Meissen highlands . In 1914 it received an electric drive and remained in operation until 1957. After that, the barn could hardly be used because of the built-in components, except as a storage room. The owner therefore wanted to tear down the barn mill in order to build a garage in the same place. When he obtained the necessary permits, the preservation authorities learned of the unique facility. In this way it could be measured and photographed thoroughly in good time. Employees of the Institute for Monument Preservation Dresden created the basis for a later reconstruction. The Museum für Volkskunst Dresden and members of the Kulturbundgruppe Oberwartha then dismantled the individual parts and hid and cataloged them in order to preserve them for future use in a museum. The barn windmill was regarded in the GDR as a “unique monument to the history of production, created by a farmer and decorated with folk art”. According to an agreement between the preservationists and the property owner, the majority of the mill components remained stored on the same property. Some parts moved to Moritzburg Castle .

The lease with the landowner expired in 1980. So the folk art museum tried by circular to get interested parties for a re-establishment. The then owner of the Saalow Paltrockmühle, Bernd Maywald, succeeded in transferring the property from the Dresden district to the Zossen district in 1980 and bringing it to Saalow. He was already active in the conservation of mills, both in relation to his own mill and with the Kulturbund. In 1986, under his leadership, efforts began to build the system into an existing Saalow barn. Construction was well advanced when various reasons led to the abandonment of this project. This circumstance later proved to be favorable, because the result was the complete reconstruction in a better location: easily visible in the center of the village, on the foundations of a former barn. In a year of construction the mill from 1992 to 1993 in Saalow was more than 100 kilometers north of its original location rebuilt . This was done after appropriate municipal resolutions under the direction of an architect and Bernd Maywald as a specialist consultant. Adapted to the chosen location next to the community center, the new mill barn was partially reversed, not least for the purpose of better presentation. During the reconstruction, however, the old drawings and photographs were used as a basis, the technology that was still preserved was reinstalled and the interior design was as detailed as possible.

The later care and maintenance was taken over by the association “Scheunenwindmühle Saalow e. V. ". The barn windmill has been accessible to tourists since 1995 and is a special and noticeable part of the Saalow village development.

literature

  • Günter Nagel: Mühlenimport nach Werder and Saalow , In: Die Mark Brandenburg , Issue 53, Marika Großer Verlag Berlin, 2004, ISBN 978-3-910134-32-4 .

Web links

Commons : Scheunenmühle Saalow  - Collection of images

Coordinates: 52 ° 12 '  N , 13 ° 23'  E