Floating Rhine circus
The Swimming Rhine Circus was a traveling circus based on a ship in the 19th century ; At that time a novelty in Germany and accordingly famous.
history
In 1869 the German-American impresario Theodore Lent came from New York City to the Rhine , to Speyer, and brought with him from America the idea of a swimming circus, which had been known there for a long time, but was here new . At that time there were large wooden boats on rivers in the USA with the appearance of a Mississippi steamer and a large, roofed circus arena - some with and some without their own drive. They were floating hippodromes with a permanent crew that went on to new venues after a few performances.
Theodore Lent applied for the construction of such a circus ship to the Speyer city building authority. Its chief authority, the architect Max Siebert , who later became Bavaria's chief construction officer, not only approved the project, but also designed the ship, based on American models. It was 270 bay in length . Feet (about 80 m), a width of 70 bay. Feet (approx. 21 m) and a load capacity of 50,000 quintals. The arena held 2000 spectators in three galleries and it had its own gas lighting .
In March 1870, the Gehrlein company began building ships in Maximiliansau , near the French border. The launch could take place on June 18 of that year, but the superstructure and interior fittings still had to be completed. Even before this happened, the Franco-Prussian War broke out and the half-finished boat was towed in front of the Germersheim Fortress in September 1870 , as it was considered to be potentially dangerous and a hindrance to the anticipated fighting. On October 26, 1870, it tore itself loose in a storm and stranded on a sandbar. After the end of the war, Theodore Lent had to have it towed to Maximiliansau at his own expense and without compensation in order to complete it. The whole project cost over 40,000 guilders, not including the additional costs incurred by the war and the circus operation.
Lent financed the circus ship from income that was paid to him for the exhibition of his former wife Julia Pastrana († 1860). She had suffered from hypertrichosis , was famous as the "ape woman" and he had her preserved after her death and exhibited in various places as a sensation. Around 1863 Lent found another woman with hypertrichosis named Maria Bartels near Karlsbad , who resembled Julia Pastrana. He married her and also included her in his show, pretending to be Zenora Pastrana , the sister of the dead. This appeared, along with many other artists, in the floating Rhine circus and could be viewed there.
The circus began its performances along the Rhine in June 1871 and was one of the great sensations of that time. The ship had no drive of its own and was towed by steamers. In July 1871, for example, B. the steamer "Donnersberg", the Bavarian-Palatinate steam towing shipping company , from Mannheim to Worms . On March 17, 1872 there was a fatal accident during a performance in Emmerich when a trapeze artist from the “Palmer Brothers” fell .
After about 6 years of operation, there were fewer and fewer visitors, Theodore Lent went bankrupt and sold his company.
A showman named "Agoston" (August Böhm from Oldenburg) bought the ship and continued to operate it as a circus on the Rhine and the tributaries. He too finally gave up his business after a wooden gallery in the arena collapsed in 1879 and he had to compensate the injured.
The circus ship was auctioned in Duisburg harbor. The architect Jakob Kühnen from Uerdingen bought it, had it towed to the local port and used it to build a farm in nearby Kliedbruch around 1880 . The property was popularly known as the "Bold Circus" . It was destroyed in a bombing raid in June 1943 and the owners perished. At that time, the last remains of the floating Rhine circus that were built there disappeared.
literature
- Journal of the Bavarian Architects and Engineers Association , Munich, Volume 3, pp. 52–54; (Digital scan)
- Der Bayerischer Landbote , Munich, No. 80, of March 29, 1871; (Digital view)
- Wolfgang Kauer: The floating sensation of Speyer: In the spring and summer of 1871 a huge circus ship anchored in front of the cathedral city, planned by the Speyer building officer Max Siebert , in: Die Rheinpfalz , Speyerer Rundschau, No. 102, from May 3, 2002; Find tip
- Jennifer Fortmann: The hidden stories of the Kliedbruch , in: Westdeutsche Zeitung , from December 3, 2014 (digital view)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Rumburger Zeitung: Local paper for northeastern Bohemia , year 1871, p. 137; (Digital scan)
- ↑ Birgit Peter, Robert Kaldy-Karo: Artist life on forgotten ways: a search for traces in Vienna , LIT Verlag Münster, 2013, pp. 105–124, ISBN 3643504993 ; (Digital scan)
- ↑ Mainzer Abendblatt , No. 174, of July 27, 1871; (Digital scan)
- ↑ Schwäbischer Merkur , No. 173, of July 27, 1871; (Digital scan)
- ↑ Freisinger Tageblatt , No. 70, of March 26, 1872; (Digital scan)