Castle Wolfsbrunnenweg
The Schloß-Wolfsbrunnenweg is a street in Heidelberg that begins above the world-famous Heidelberg Castle and runs on a ridge along the Neckar valley to the east to Wolfsbrunnen in the Heidelberg district of Schlierbach .
geography
The Schloß-Wolfsbrunnenweg begins southwest above the Heidelberg Castle as a junction of the Neue Schloßstraße . It initially leads in a large arc to the north-east around the castle garden, and then continues following the course of the Neckar in a north-easterly direction. Around the Boschwiese, the path bends in a curve to the southeast, following the course of the Neckar. It reaches its highest point about 200 meters above zero or about 100 meters above the Neckar valley. The path then leads slightly winding and sloping further to the southeast to the valley section of the Rombachweg and from there it slopes steeply to the east into the valley of the Schlierbach, which is fed by the Wolfsbrunnen, where the Schloß- Wolfsbrunnenweg joins the Wolfsbrunnensteige . The entire length of the trail is about three kilometers.
Settlement history
The path has probably been used since the beginning of settlement. It also formed a north-eastern entrance to Heidelberg Castle and was therefore secured early on with entrenchments , the names of which have been preserved in the field names. In the 18th century, the Schloß-Wolfsbrunnenweg was still of great importance as a traffic route, because at that time there was only a narrow mule track on the banks of the Neckar, where the traffic arteries flow today, and loads had to be transported on wagons on the Höhenweg.
The development along the way came from the west, i.e. from Heidelberg Castle in the direction of the Schlierbach district. One of the first buildings was the Hotel Bellevue , which was built around 1875 but burned down in 1919, adjacent to the palace gardens . The development of the path with residential buildings did not begin until after 1900. In 1908, the biologist Otto Schmeil was one of the first to acquire several orchards or vineyards next to each other and to combine them into one large building plot. Many well-known personalities later lived in this area, such as the industrialist Carl Bosch , the architect and National Socialist armaments minister Albert Speer and the first honorary citizen of Heidelberg, Anna Blum . When the construction of buildings on Schloß-Wolfsbrunnenweg began around 1900, the slopes of the southern bank of the Neckar were mostly still cultivated with orchards and vineyards that had existed there for centuries and lay on both sides of the path. The path, once praised for its view of the Neckar valley, has since largely lost its view due to the houses and the tall forest trees that have grown in the often park-like gardens. The Neckar valley can only be seen at a few points from the Schloß-Wolfsbrunnenweg. The so-called Boschwiese remained as the last larger orchard meadow at Villa Bosch .
After the Second World War, the buildings on Schloß-Wolfsbrunnenweg were occupied for several years by the US Army, who billeted senior officers there. Even after the buildings were returned to their owners, some US military personnel stayed there as tenants. Among them the US General Frederick J. Kroesen , who was attacked by the RAF at Karlstor below the Schloß-Wolfsbrunnenweg in 1981 .
Due to its exclusive location with numerous listed villas close to Heidelberg Castle, Schloß-Wolfsbrunnenweg is one of the most attractive (and most expensive) residential areas in Heidelberg. In Schloß-Wolfsbrunnenweg there are today u. a. the Klaus Tschira Stiftung gGmbH in the Villa Bosch, the Carl Bosch Museum Heidelberg and the Museum am Ginkgo .
literature
- Karl-H. Knörr: Der Schloß-Wolfsbrunnenweg , in: Schlierbach - Pictures of a District , Guderjahn-Verlag, Heidelberg 1995