Westend (courtyard)

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Coat of arms from court
Westend
district and statistical district No. 14 von Hof
height 500  m above sea level NN
Residents 2582 (Jan 3, 2007)
Post Code 95028
prefix 09281
district Mitte district
Transport links
bus 1, 2, 9, 11, 12

The Westend is a quarter in the Mitte district of the independent city of Hof in Upper Franconia .

Location and history

Western end gnome

The Westend , which was mostly built in the 19th century, is now part of Hof's city center. At its western end it is bounded by the railway lines to Leipzig and Bad Steben . To the east, the old town borders on the Westendviertel. At the southern end is the Q-Bogen, to the north are Schützenstrasse and Konrad-Adenauer-Platz.

In the course of industrialization , Hof's population increased significantly. Between 1850 and 1900 the population quintupled. With the start of construction on the Catholic town church St. Marien , from 1860 onwards, construction began to the west of the old town. The new district was called Westend because it formed the end of Hof when today's western suburb and the formerly adjacent communities were not yet integrated into the city.

The then main street of the new district was initially called Linienstraße because of its straight alignment. In 1879 it was named after the German Emperor Wilhelm I. In the house at Schillerstraße No. 33, opposite today's Schillergymnasium, there was a restaurant called "Schillerglocke". Today the Westendviertel is located at the western end of the Hof town center and is noticeable due to the development in the Wilhelminian era , in Art Nouveau style and a larger population of gardens and trees. According to a legend from the 19th century, the Westend gnome watches over the Westendviertel.

Cross stone

Entrance Kreuzstein and Loge Zum Morgenstern

The Kreuzsteinstrasse, which begins in the old town and runs to Westendstrasse and Hochstrasse, got its name from a stone cross made of granite that a farmer from Osseck had erected in gratitude. The cross was originally located where the garden wall of the Masonic Lodge extends into Wilhelmstrasse. Today it is in the anteroom of the Kreuzstein restaurant. Said farmer had his child baptized on a Sunday in winter . After the church blessing, the guests came to a party. When the mood was high, the party did not notice that evening had already fallen and a snow storm was beginning. The midwife urged them to leave. The journey home was started by horse-drawn sleigh . After arriving in Osseck, however, the child and changing pad were missing. The farm dog was also taken on a search and, hurrying ahead of the sled, was the first to safely discover the child.

Masonic Lodge

The St. John's Lodge Zum Morgenstern in the Orient Hof was founded on April 5, 1799 by 17 Freemasons . The meetings initially took place in Hof's town hall. On March 30, 1869, a lodge house was built on Oberen Kreuzstein, today Kreuzsteinstrasse at the corner of Wilhelmstrasse. The building was expanded in 1889/90. In 1933 the National Socialists confiscated the lodge's entire property, and the building was used as an auxiliary hospital until 1947. The Hof Lodge received its house back in 1949. In the hall on the first floor there is a Blüthner grand piano from 1880, which can be heard again at meetings and public concerts after a restoration by the Bayreuth piano manufacturer Niedermeyer.

Sports

Lion monument on the Jahnsportplatz

Under the motto fresh, pious, happy, free , Ludwig Jahn, known as the gymnastics father , organized the first public gymnastics in 1811 on the Hasenheide near Berlin . This triggered a sports movement that was initially banned by the Karlovy Vary resolutions, but began to flourish in Bavaria from 1860 onwards.

In 1861 today's gymnastics and sports club (TSV) Hof was established in Hof's Westendviertel. It was headed by the bookseller and publisher Rudolf Lion , who moved to Hof in 1863 and came from Göttingen . He held a leading position in the Bavarian Gymnastics Association and was club chairman of the TSV Hof until his death in 1893. As a publisher he published gymnastics writings and as a trainer of teachers he promoted gymnastics in school. The Jahn sports field and the Jahn sports hall, which are also used by the Schiller Gymnasium, are located on Jahnstrasse on the edge of the Westendviertel.

Culture

The first theater in Hof was opened in 1822 in the secular Franciscan church of the former Hof monastery , the neighboring street was named Theaterstraße. In 1894 a spacious “concert, ball and theater house” was built on Schützenstrasse at the northern end of Hofer Westend. In this privately run house there was a three-branch theater from the beginning. With the new construction of the Freiheitshalle (1974) as the venue for the Hof Symphony Orchestra and the new construction of the Hof Theater in 1994, today a four-branch theater, the building was no longer needed and was demolished. The new venues are located on the northern border of the Westendviertel to the Neuhof district .

Old money house

In 1876 the Reichsbank was founded in Berlin as the central bank of the German Reich. In 1945 the Reichsbank was succeeded by the Landeszentralbank and the Bundesbank . Due to the industrial boom, a branch of the Reichsbank was opened in Hof in 1887. In 1900 this branch moved to a new building on Kreuzsteinstrasse in Hofer Westend, where it remained until it was closed in 2003. The lawyer and tax advisor Professor Schneiderbanger bought the building and restored it. Today the office of Dr. Schneiderbanger & Colleagues. The name Altes Geldhaus refers to the history of the house.

Schiller school house

The Schiller school building on Schillerstrasse, at the corner of Westendstrasse, was originally built as a primary school. Construction of the building began in 1905, in the centenary of the death of the patron Friedrich Schiller . The New Renaissance style schoolhouse was inaugurated in 1907. Towards the end of the Second World War , the building served as a hospital . The primary school was again housed in the building until 1963. The building was then renovated in the businesslike style of the 1960s. Since 1965 the Schiller school house has housed the upper secondary school for boys, today's Schiller grammar school . Before the 100th anniversary of the inauguration in 2007, the general renovation of the school building was completed. In 2013 it received the title “ School without Racism - School with Courage ”. The sponsorship was taken over by Heinz Badewitz , the longtime director of the Hof International Film Festival .

synagogue

Memorial plaque on Hallplatz

At the end of the 19th century, during the time of Jewish emancipation , Jewish families again settled in the town of Hof. They formed a new Jewish community that grew to almost 100 people in the following decades. In 1927, a synagogue was built in the Westend on Hallplatz, near the old train station, but it soon became a target of Nazi attacks. This church was completely destroyed in the November pogrom in 1938 ; the inventory was burned. To commemorate the destruction in 1938, the Jewish community, together with the city of Hof and representatives of the Hof churches, hold a commemoration on November 10th every year on Hallplatz.

fire Department

The Hof volunteer fire brigade is located at Hallplatz in the Westend , consisting of the main fire station with the rescue control center for the Hofer Land . In the main station there are 25 vehicles, 3 roll-off containers for the swap bodies and 7 trailers for use. Nine full-time employees work for administration, vehicle and equipment maintenance and emergency services. The Hof fire brigade has a total of around 250 active members. The district operations center Hof-Stadt is located on the upper floor of the fire station. In the Hauptwache the training and further education of the members takes place in six groups. They perform around 600 missions with up to 10,000 hours of use per year.

Other facilities

The main post office is on Konrad-Adenauer-Platz, the Frankenpost editorship is in Poststraße, the State-Wirtschaftsschule-Hof and Diakonie Hochfranken are in Wilhelmstraße, a medical center with orthopedics and surgery is in the former Bachmann clinic in the Housed in Kreuzsteinstrasse.

Image gallery

  • Waldenfels estate

  • Poststrasse and Westendstrasse

  • Old money house, Schneiderbanger Chancellery

  • Hoesslin estate

  • Obere Westendstrasse

  • Westendstrasse and Luitpoldstrasse

  • Westendstrasse Mitte

  • Lower Westendstrasse

  • Westendstrasse and Schillerstrasse

  • Schiller Street

  • Schillerstrasse and Wilhelmstrasse

  • Wilhelmstrasse

  • House Emil Ressel in Wilhelmstrasse

  • Cross stone

  • Hexengäßla

  • Hofer Stadttheater (1894 to 1994) in Schützenstrasse

Economy and Infrastructure

Companies

  • The largest regional daily newspaper Frankenpost , which emerges from the Hofer Anzeiger in the city, is based in the Westend.
Editorial office of the Frankenpost in Poststrasse

Public facilities

  • Schiller-Gymnasium Hof

  • Rescue control center and main fire station at Hallplatz

  • Former Bachmann Clinic, Medical Center

  • Historical Münch-Ferber-Villa, Forum Gesundheit

traffic

In 1848, as part of the Ludwig-Süd-Nord-Bahn and the Saxon-Bavarian Railway Compagnie, the old station was built in Hof's Westendviertel . When the new through station was completed in 1880 ( Hof Hbf ), the old station was dismantled. The new Mitte train station, which should be completed in 2022, will again be in the Westend. The railway lines Munich – Hof – Leipzig and Hof – Bad Steben form the western border, Marienstraße is the eastern border of the Westend.

Coming from the town church of St. Marien, Luitpoldstrasse and Jahnstrasse cross the Westend in an east-west direction. They are a feeder to the B 15 (Hof - Regensburg - Rosenheim ) and further along Kulmbacher Strasse to the A 9 (Munich - Nuremberg - Berlin ). The axis Poststrasse and Westendstrasse runs like Wilhelmstrasse in a north-south direction and Hochstrasse, an avenue that begins east of the Hofer Theater and the Freiheitshalle and ends as a one-way street in Kreuzsteinstrasse, in an easterly direction.

  • Former train station in Hof's Westend

  • Entrance hall that has been preserved

  • Western border of the Westendviertel, the Hof-Leipzig railway line

  • Crossing at the upper Westendstrasse

  • Northern border of the Westendviertel

  • Sign in Poststrasse

Street signs and house numbers

The signs for the streets and house numbers in the Westend are mostly of an older date.

  • Street sign Westendstrasse

  • House number Kreuzsteinstrasse

  • Street sign Wilhelmstrasse

  • House number Poststrasse

  • Street sign Schillerstrasse

people

Persons and names associated with the Hofer Westend:

literature

  • Johann Gottlob Thomas: The municipal gym in Hof. In addition to a historical sketch of gymnastics there. Courtyard 1868.
  • Brief outline of the history of the gymnastics club at Hof . In celebration of its 25th anniversary from 1861 to 1886. Published by the Turnverein Hof. Hof 1886.
  • Johann Gottlob Thomas u. a .: The gyms and the gymnasiums in the city of Hof. Along with an outline of the history of gymnastics there. Hof 1893.
  • Ernst Dietlein : Chronicle of the City of Hof Volume III. General history of the town from 1763-1871 . Mintzel print, Hof 1942.
  • Friedrich Ebert : Chronicle of the city yard volume V. Building history . Mintzel print, Hof 1957.
  • Friedrich Ebert, Axel Herrmann: A short history of the city court . Hoermann Verlag, Hof 1988, ISBN 3-88267-034-7 .
  • Ludger Stühlmeyer: Curia sonans. The music history of the city of Hof. A study on the culture of Upper Franconia. From the foundation of the Bamberg diocese to the present. Bayerische Verlagsanstalt, Heinrichs-Verlag, Bamberg 2010, ISBN 978-3-89889-155-4 .
  • Ludger Stühlmeyer: History of Music . In: A brief history of the Hof region . North Upper Franconian Association for Nature, History and Regional Studies (ed.), Hof 2010, ISBN 978-3-928626-61-3 , pp. 333–342.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 2007 yearbook of the city of Hof (PDF file; 2.15 MB)
  2. ↑ Based on "Sagen" by Andreas Reinhold.
  3. ^ Website Johannisloge Zum Morgenstern Hof
  4. ^ Ludger Stühlmeyer: Curia sonans. The music history of the city of Hof. A study on the culture of Upper Franconia . Heinrichs-Verlag, Bayerische Verlagsanstalt Bamberg 2010, ISBN 978-3-89889-155-4 , p. 238.
  5. ↑ Website Turn- und Sportverein Hof
  6. ^ Website Hofer Symphoniker
  7. ^ Website Theater Hof
  8. ^ Ludger Stühlmeyer: Curia sonans. The music history of the city of Hof. A study on the culture of Upper Franconia . Heinrichs-Verlag, Bayerische Verlagsanstalt Bamberg 2010, p. 286ff.
  9. ^ Website of the Schneiderbanger law firm
  10. ^ Website Schiller-Gymnasium Hof
  11. ^ Friedrich Ebert, Axel Herrmann: Small history of the city court . Hoermann Verlag, Hof 1988, ISBN 3-88267-034-7 .
  12. ↑ Lea Stühlmeyer (ed.): The courtyard is colorful. The Schiller Gymnasium shows Courage , DeBehr, Radeberg 2012, ISBN 978-3-944028-17-0 .
  13. ^ Arnd Kluge : The Reichskristallnacht in Hof , Hof Stadtarchiv , 2002
  14. ^ Website of the Hof Fire Brigade
  15. ^ Website Frankenpost Hof
  16. ^ Website of the State Business School Hof
  17. ^ Website Diakonie Hochfranken
  18. ↑ site MedCenter Hof / Bayreuth