Wilhelmsbad

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Spa building

Wilhelmsbad is a former health resort with a state park in Hanau and is now part of the northwest district as a separate district.

Wilhelmsbad is characterized by the historical ensemble of buildings of the former health resort, which is surrounded by an extensive landscaped park. The Wilhelmsbad villa district adjoins to the south and south-east. The area is one of the most expensive in the Brothers Grimm City, with just under 300 residents.

history

According to the founding legend, two herb women found a spring in the forest in 1709, which was said to have a healing effect due to its rich mineralization .

The bathing and park area was essentially built between 1777 and 1785 and at the behest of the Hereditary Prince and ruling Count of Hanau , Wilhelm IX./I. , Who resided in Hanau from 1764 to 1785 . by Hessen-Kassel (1743-1821), erected. The architect was Franz Ludwig Cancrin , who also directed the construction of the carousel (see below). After only one and a half years of construction, the ceremonial opening took place on June 3, 1779. The construction of Wilhelmsbad with its extensive park was financed by leasing soldiers from Hesse and Hanau to the British King , the Prince's uncle. In the 1780s, the Wilhelmsbader Hof was built near the state park .

Wilhelmsbad has largely been spared modernization for two reasons: Even during the heyday in the late 18th century, it was discovered that the mineral spring discovered here lacked healing properties. In 1815 the spring dried up. Healing water was brought from Bad Nauheim for drinking and bathing , a process that soon proved to be uneconomical. In 1857 the spa was closed. The well house in contemporary, classical style is located directly opposite the spa building. In 1785 the builder and namesake of the complex, Hereditary Prince Wilhelm IX, moved to Kassel, where he ruled as Landgrave, from 1803 Elector Wilhelm I. With his departure, Wilhelmsbad lost its attractiveness for high society.

Today there are no more cures in Wilhelmsbad. The complex was transformed into a place of recreation and entertainment for the people of Hanau. Wilhelmsbad is a DIY and garden art and is since 1974 under monument protection . Its repair and maintenance is carried out according to the park maintenance plan written in 2002.

The State Park is administered by the State Palaces and Gardens of Hesse .

Parking area

Entrance to the Comoedienhaus
Former spa building
Comoedienhaus - view from the stage

The park of the Wilhelmsbader Kuranlage is designed as an English landscape park and equipped with numerous "sensations": carousel, ruins, Comoedienhaus, rock passages, Hermitage, Devil's Bridge, pyramid, snail mountain and play equipment. Several streams had to be diverted to create the pond. Today the Braubach flows through it.

The facilities of Wilhelmsbad also include a mini golf course , several restaurants and cafes .

In the north, in the Fasanerie , is one of the oldest golf courses in Hesse, and in the west is the Wilhelmsbader Hof riding stables.

Comoedienhaus

The Comoedienhaus , built in 1781 for Wilhelm von Hessen-Kassel, is one of the few historical theaters in Germany that has preserved baroque stage machinery and historical stage sets. In 1968 the theater was restored.

carousel

One of the biggest attractions is the huge carousel . It was built in 1780 and has been in operation again since 2016 - for the first time since it was damaged in World War II .

Artificial castle ruins

"Castle ruins" in the spa complex

In the tower of the artificial ruin there is a pleasure palace with an elegant living apartment and a magnificent domed hall. These private living quarters of the Hereditary Prince are now restored to their historical state.

pyramid

Pyramid in memory of Prince Friedrich

The four-sided pyramid stands on an island in the pond of the park. A barred gate opens on each side. In the middle of the pyramid was a box of marble , but which has been stolen from the mid-1980s until today unknown. The pyramid was built in memory of Prince Friedrich (1772–1784), the eldest son of Landgrave Wilhelm IX, who died at the age of just under twelve. He is buried in the Marienkirche in Hanau. When the coffin was opened in 1879, a heart-shaped box was also found in it, which probably contained the prince's heart. The legend that the heart is buried in the urn in the pyramid is therefore probably incorrect.

Hermitage

The cave-like Hermitage was established in 1785–1788. Even then she was equipped with a hermit figure. The current figures, a hermit and a deer , date from 1982 when a set designer for the Hessischer Rundfunk set up the Hermitage.

railway station

In the 19th century, the facility - already a popular excursion destination at that time, also from neighboring Frankfurt am Main - received its own train station, today: Hanau-Wilhelmsbad , on the Frankfurt-Hanau Railway .

Doll museum

The Hessian Puppet Museum has been showing its collection in the rooms of the spa building since 1983 .

Historical events in Wilhelmsbad

In the summer of 1782, Wilhelmsbad was the scene of the Freemasons' Convention of Strict Observance . At the invitation of Duke Ferdinand von Braunschweig , 35 representatives of Masonic lodges from France, Italy, Denmark, Switzerland and the Habsburg Empire met for around fifty days to settle disputes and to reform the Masonic system. An agreement failed.

On June 22, 1832, a political folk festival with 8,000 to 10,000 participants took place in Wilhelmsbad as the successor to the Hambach Festival . The main speaker was the Heidelberg student and fraternity member Karl Heinrich Brüggemann , who was sentenced to death in Prussia in 1834, but was later pardoned and given amnesty in 1840. Further speakers were the Darmstadt democrats Theodor Reh and Friedrich Wilhelm Schulz as well as Georg Fein , Vormärz politician and editor of the liberal-democratic newspaper Deutsche Tribüne .

Under pressure from the opposition that had built up in the state capital Kassel against the reactionary policies of Elector Friedrich Wilhelm I and his leading minister Ludwig Hassenpflug , the sovereign and government moved to Wilhelmsbad in 1850 and declared it the capital of the electorate. This continued until early 1851.

Wilhelmsbad station on the Hanau - Frankfurt line

literature

  • Wolfgang Bickel: Wilhelmsbad, for example. About the spiritual dimension of the landscape park in the 18th century . In: Die Gartenkunst  11 (1/1999), pp. 146–175.
  • Gerhard Bott : The pheasantry near Wilhelmsbad . In: Nature becomes culture. Garden art in Hanau. Hanau 2002, p. 100.
  • Gerhard Bott: healing exercise and amusement. The Hereditary Prince's Wilhelmsbad. CoCon publishing house. Hanau 2007. ISBN 3-937774-36-X
  • Gerhard Bott: Wilhelmsbad . In: Nature becomes culture. Garden art in Hanau. Hanau 2002, p. 72f.
  • Bettina Clausmeyer-Ewers and Irmela Löw: State Park Wilhelmsbad Hanau . Park maintenance work (= monographs of the state palaces and gardens. Vol. 6). Edited by of the administration of the State Palaces and Gardens of Hesse, Regensburg 2002, ISBN 3-7954-1486-5 .
  • Elke Conert: Wilhelmsbad. Garden of Sensitivity. CoCon publishing house. Hanau 1997, ISBN 3-928100-44-0 .
  • Walter Martin Fraeb: From the history of the Wilhelmsbad near Hanau . In: Hanau city and country. A home book for school and home . Hanau 1954, pp. 371-374.
  • Ewald Grothe : Constitution and Constitutional Conflict. The Electorate of Hesse in the first Hassenpflug era. (= Writings on constitutional history. Vol. 48). Berlin 1996, pp. 209-212, ISBN 3-428-08509-4 .
  • Ewald Grothe: From the Masonic Convention to the Freemason Festival. Hanau-Wilhelmsbad as a meeting place in 1782 and 1832 . In: New Magazine for Hanau History 2011, pp. 89–105.
  • Rüdiger Ham: Federal intervention and constitutional revision. The German Confederation and the Hessian constitutional question 1850/52. (= Sources and research on Hessian history. Vol. 138). Darmstadt / Marburg 2004, ISBN 3-88443-092-0 .
  • Ludwig Hammerstein: The Wilhelmsbad Freemason Convention of 1782 . Heidelberg 1980.
  • Christian Hlavac: Hermits in early Central European landscape gardens . In: Die Gartenkunst 1/2020, pp. 79–94.
  • Werner Kurz: Wilhelmsbad and Freemasonry . In: City time. History magazine on the occasion of the 150 years of revolution and gymnastics movement Hanau 1848–1998. Hanau 1998, pp. 228-230.
  • Bernd Modrow, Claudia Gröschel: Princely pleasure. 400 years of garden culture in Hessen. Schnell + Steiner publishing house, Regensburg 2002, ISBN 3-7954-1487-3 .
  • Bernd Modrow (Ed.): Conversations on garden art and other arts . Schnell + Steiner publishing house, Regensburg 2004, ISBN 3-7954-1631-0 .
  • Reinhard Suchier : The grave monuments and coffins of the people buried in Hanau from the houses of Hanau and Hesse . In: Program of the Royal High School in Hanau. Hanau 1879, pp. 1-56.
  • Anja Zeller: Tour de Burg. The most beautiful castles, palaces and country estates between Vogelsberg and Spessart. A cultural guide. CoCon-Verlag, Hanau 2007, ISBN 978-3-937774-36-7 .
  • Hans Zilch: The Wilhelmsbader Fest - A Palaver? . In: City time. History magazine on the occasion of the 150 years of revolution and gymnastics movement Hanau 1848–1998. Hanau 1998, pp. 49-53.

Web links

Commons : Wilhelmsbad  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Suchier, p. 38f.
  2. ↑ Hlavac, pp. 85f.
  3. ↑ See Bott, p. 234f.
  4. ^ Hessian Puppet Museum
  5. ↑ Cf. Dieter Lent: Finding aid for the holdings of the estate of the democrat Georg Fein (1803–1869) and the Fein family (1737–) approx. 1772–1924 . Lower Saxony archive administration, Wolfenbüttel 1991, ISBN 3-927495-02-6 , p. 80 .
  6. ^ Ordinance of September 17, 1850. In: Collection of laws, ordinances, notices and other general orders for Kurhessen. Luckhardt, Cassel 1850, p. 49; Ham, pp. 174f.

Coordinates: 50 ° 8 ′ 53 ″  N , 8 ° 52 ′ 56 ″  E