Teusserbad
Teusserbad is a residential area in the town of Löwenstein in the Heilbronn district in northern Baden-Württemberg . The place, located at a spring in the Sulmtal , was once a small spa and today consists essentially only of the Lautereck moated castle , some buildings that have emerged from the former bathing establishment and the bottling plants of the Teuss mineral springs .
history
Teusserbad's early history is largely unknown. The Romans, whose road ran from Kastell Böckingen to Kastell Murrhardt near the source, may not have used the source yet. The Germanic peoples knew the source for sure. Around 1100, Löwenstein Castle was built a few hundred meters west above the source , but there is no evidence of any use of the source from here either. When the Counts of Löwenstein sold their entire property to the Electoral Palatinate in 1441 , Teusserbad is not yet mentioned in the detailed description of the county. Likewise, Teusserbad does not yet appear in the sources when, in 1504, the Württemberg army camped for several days in the Sulm valley near the source during a siege of the castle and town of Löwenstein.
Teusserbad was first mentioned during the Peasants' War in 1525, when Jäcklein Rohrbach was staying in Lowenstein and Teusserbad to attract supporters there. The place was known as Wildbad , so as a cold spring bath. A bathing facility with a restaurant there must have been built between the siege in 1504 and Rohrbach's stay in 1525. The Wildbad near Löwenstein was known nationwide as early as the middle of the 16th century . In 1565 Johann Gvintherius praised the healing properties of the Löwensteiner Fountain. In 1568 Martinus Rulandus also described the healing properties of water. A list of the Löwenstein possessions from 1592 describes the Teusserbad as a wild bath with old and new homes . The buildings included a small building above the spring and a chapel with a cellar. In 1593, the bath at Leuwenstein was mentioned in the New Water Treasure of Tabernaemontanus . In 1612 the therapeutic bath was recommended for stomach stones, bladder and kidney stones, poisoned wounds and ulcers.
The moated castle Lautereck was first mentioned in 1623 , which is located in a lake by the source and was repaired that year, so it had existed for a long time. In the further course of the Thirty Years' War , the Teusserbad, which lies outside the city walls of Löwenstein, was certainly exposed to looting and other arbitrariness by troops passing through. In the regulation of fixed prices for the town's inns in 1647, Teusserbad is not mentioned, so that there was no longer any operation there.
After the end of the war, the situation initially seems to have returned to normal quickly. In 1665 and 1671 the Teusserbad was mentioned in contemporary writings by Melchior Meisner and Johann Rudolf Glauber , in 1666 the footpath from the town of Löwenstein to the Teusserbad was renewed. In 1685, however, it is reported that a tanner, a dyer and a tobacconist had taken up quarters in the bath, so that the bathing business had probably come to a standstill again. During the war around 1700, the bathroom continued to deteriorate. It mostly only served as a shelter for roaming robbers. In 1711 special guards were set up in Löwenstein because of such bands of robbers and searches took place in the Teusserbad. After the Peace of Rastatt in 1714, things gradually improved.
In 1730, at the instigation of Count Ludwig Volrath, the bath was leased to the pharmacist Albert Friedrich Waltz, who renovated it extensively. Waltz had the spring redesigned and a new chapel built over the fountain and a new hall. The Heilbronn doctor Dietrich Christoph Scharff wrote a comprehensive description of the restored baths in 1731, which appeared in Heilbronn in 1733. Scharff describes the Teusserbad as a complex surrounded by a wall with loopholes, with two gates, a chapel, a small fountain and a bathhouse. The bathhouse was a complex of three buildings connected by corridors and stairs. On the ground floor there were separate bathrooms for men and women, changing rooms, boiler rooms, kitchen, pantries and a dining room. On the two floors above there were guest rooms for the bathers. Lautereck Castle was connected to the bathing business and had its own boiler. The 26 guest rooms of different sizes had wooden floors and their own stoves. Scharff also gave recommendations on the course of a cure day and diet. In addition, the costs for baths, accommodation and meals are handed down from his description. Compared to other spas at that time, the small Teusserbad with its accommodation facilities was quite comfortable. Scharff also tried to analyze the water and recommended it for drinking and bathing cures for a wide variety of complaints.
The small bathroom was highly praised, but due to its small size it was not economical, so that ten years later the tenant Waltz went bankrupt. The bathroom was empty and was quickly ravaged by vandals.
In 1742, a new tenant was found in the Löwenstein administrator Fulda, who had the facilities restored. Immediately after the work was finished, the War of the Austrian Succession broke out. The uncertain war years up to 1748 brought numerous bands of robbers with them, which made the Löwenstein Mountains unsafe. The health resort didn't get going and the tenant Fulda gave up again in 1748 at the latest. Fulda 's successors were more fortunate, and from 1750 onwards the bathing industry began to flourish again. The Napoleonic Wars around 1800 did not lead to a decline like the previous wars, but rather contributed to the flourishing of the bathing industry. Wounded officers went to the baths for brief wake-ups, and in the case of billeting, the Kurhaus usually accommodated higher ranks. In 1801, the leaseholder Johann Jakob Deeg had the main building of the health resort replaced by a spacious three-story half-timbered house. The moated castle was in need of renovation and no longer part of the spa business.
In the 19th century, the competing bathing companies caught up or overtook the small Teusserbad. Many health resorts, which in the 18th century still had a rural character, developed into fashionable travel destinations for the rich. Teusserbad, on the other hand, had mostly middle-class visitors from Heilbronn , Öhringen , and Weinsberg . Among the visitors were Prevorst's seer , Friederike Hauffe , or the postmaster Friedrich von Reinöhl , who had his crutches, which were superfluous after a successful healing, hung up along with a message board in the stairwell of the Kurhaus. The laughing philosopher Karl Julius Weber recommended Teusserbad because of the water castle he called a paradox , and Heyfeld's bathing guide for Württemberg from 1840 praised the healing properties of the now six springs, but also regretted the small capacity of only 50 spa guests during one season compared to, for example, 3,000 seasonal guests in Kissingen .
Although attempts were made to upgrade the spa with a few smaller measures such as dividing the communal bathing room into smaller bathing areas or the use of the name Theresienbad , they fell further and further behind against the up-and-coming health resorts such as Baden-Baden . In the middle of the 19th century, the number of visitors to Teusserbad decreased. The Badwirt had the Teusserbad chapel converted into a brewery , but that was not profitable either and the building was soon converted into a shed. The bathing business experienced its decline around 1860. The guest rooms were mostly occupied by long-term tenants and the healing springs were only used by visitors in the immediate vicinity. In 1861 the princes of Löwenstein sold the bath and castle to Julius Rauth, a citizen of Heilbronn. He had the bathing facilities, buildings and parking areas renovated, after which the Teusserbad became a popular destination for Heilbronn residents. The actual bathing facilities, however, were hardly used and soon closed.
In 1887 the German-American Chr. Knorr acquired the bathhouse, source and park, while the moated castle remained in the possession of Rauth. Knorr had the inn modernized, which reopened in 1887. In 1888 the modernized bath was also reopened. The facilities were once again very popular, but mainly only from Heilbronn and not, as hoped, from supraregional circles of the upper class. From Heilbronn it took about three hours to walk across the street from the Jägerhaus to Löwenstein, and about half the time by horse and cart. Knorr sold the system in 1892 and returned to the United States.
The new owner A. Deyringer from Stuttgart started shipping Teusser-Sprudel in the 1890s and became extremely successful with it. The soda was showered with international awards and soon competed with industry giants such as Apollinaris , Staatl. Fachingen , Gerolsteiner Brunnen and Selters . In 1908 the water business was converted into a stock corporation. The AG had plans to increase sales to over 1 million liters within a year and to build a cable car to transport the soda bottles to the train station in Willsbach . Despite an advertising campaign at all Württemberg train stations, the great success that had been hoped for did not materialize. The spa hotel, which in the meantime belonged to the AG, was well attended in the years before the First World War and was well connected in terms of transport: Kraftpost bus routes ran five times a day to Willsbach, three times to Mainhardt and twice to Sulzbach.
The AG did not survive the crisis years after the First World War . In 1921, Karl Kühnle, the owner of the inn in Öhringen, acquired the spring, the bath building and the bottling plants. Kühnle survived the high inflation mainly by running the hotel restaurant and expanded the bottling plant after the end of the inflation. The hotel changed from a spa hotel to a holiday hotel and was leased from 1933. During the Second World War , vehicles and workers in the filling plants were claimed by the Wehrmacht , and most of the soda produced went to the Wehrmacht. The hotel business ended and only the restaurant was continued.
After the war ended in 1945, many families from the destroyed Löwenstein found temporary homes in Teusserbad. The restaurant in Teusserbad was taken over by the bombed out innkeeper Paula Wengerts from Heilbronn, who ran it until she retired in 1984, after which the restaurant was closed.
The soda bottling by Teusser Mineralbrunnen experienced a great boom after the Second World War. In 1967 six million bottles were sold. The factory premises were enlarged through acquisitions and the filling systems were modernized several times. With a modern fleet of vehicles, sales increased to 35 million bottles by 1986. In order to cover the water demand, new sources were developed by drilling up to 180 meters deep. Around 100 million bottles of beverages are currently filled in Teusserbad every year.
literature
- Lothar Dudeck and Edmund Schrein: The Teusserbad - "This wonderful, strong and water-rich source ..." , in: Karl-Heinz Dähn (Red.): 700 Years of the City of Löwenstein 1287–1987 , Löwenstein 1987, pp. 389–412.
- Julius Fekete : Art and cultural monuments in the city and district of Heilbronn . Theiss, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-8062-1662-2 , p. 226 and ill. P. 228.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Dudeck / Schrein 1987, p. 389.
- ↑ Dr. Johann Gvintherius: Commentarius de balneis et quais medicatis , Strasbourg 1565, p. 95.
- ↑ Dietrich Christoph Scharff: New description of the old and long ago famous Gesundbrunnen , which abundantly flowed out near and under the high-counts residence , Heilbronn 1733, p. 37ff.
- ^ Karl Julius Weber: Journey through the Kingdom of Württemberg , Stuttgart 1978 (reprint), p. 248.
- ↑ JFM Heyfelder: The healing springs and whey spa facilities of the Kingdom of Württemberg , Stuttgart 1840, p. 35.
- ↑ http://www.teusser.de/index.php?id=46
Coordinates: 49 ° 6 ' N , 9 ° 23' E