Wolfsbrunnen (Heidelberg)
The Wolfsbrunnen is a historic fountain in Heidelberg-Schlierbach . It is a listed building .
Around 1550, Elector Friedrich II had a pleasure house built with a fountain and water features in a valley rich in springs and sloping steeply northwards to the Neckar and the fishing village of Schlierbach from below the rocky sea at Königstuhl . There were also three fish ponds, some of which can still be seen today. The valley of the Schlierbach , located about two kilometers east of Heidelberg Castle , could be reached from here via an old high-altitude path, today's Castle-Wolfsbrunnenweg . The name of the fountain probably comes from the electoral Wolfskreiser , who drove away and caught wolves.
Several sources around the Wolfsbrunnen - z. B. the "Felsenmeerquelle" - are still used today to produce drinking water. The lake below the restaurant goes back to the upper one of the former fish ponds.
Buildings at Wolfsbrunnen
A notice board at the entrance to the facility provides information about the buildings at Wolfsbrunnen as follows:
1465 The house of the Wolfskreiser (wolf hunter) of the Count Palatine near the Rhine in Heidelberg is mentioned in documents in the Schlierbachtal as early as 1465.
1550 In this year the spring is put into a well house and a pleasure and hunting house is built on behalf of Elector Friedrich II. Because of its proximity to Heidelberg Castle, this house is often used by the subsequent electors and their guests: Located at the same height as the castle, this idyllic place was easily and quickly accessible via the Schloss-Wolfsbrunnenweg. However, it was located off the beaten track and allowed the princes undisturbed rest and discreet relaxation.
In 1822 the house was converted into a three-story building and now used as an inn. Its current condition is largely due to this conversion in the style of a “Swiss house”. In the following decades, the outbuildings and the immediate vicinity in particular were rebuilt and changed many times.
The inn has been owned by the city of Heidelberg since 1870.
After the Gasthaus am Wolfsbrunnen was closed at the beginning of 2008, a new usage concept was fought for several years. Accompanied by the great civic commitment of the members of the Freundeskreis Wolfsbrunnen eV, this concept was established in mid-2010. In addition to a restaurant, the new usage concept also provides space for art and culture.
Construction work started in 2011 on the basis of the new usage concept. By 2015 the main building was supplemented by two extensions on the north and south sides; In the northern extension there is space for an additional large guest and event room.
On May 1, 2015, the guesthouse, expanded to include this extension, was reopened after seven years of closure.
Literary meaning
The wolf fountain has already been sung about by the humanists . Martin Opitz wrote a sonnet about the fate of the seer Jetta , which is said to have come true at the Wolfsbrunnen; August Lafontaine had an important scene played there in his work Clara du Plessis and Clairant , whereupon the number of visitors to the Wolfsbrunnen increased sharply. Heinrich von Kleist and Joseph von Eichendorff, among others, visited the scene of the novel scene. The complex, which was actually baroque, but was no longer horticultural at times, attracted representatives of the Romantic era in its overgrown condition . In 1807 Eichendorff gave the Wolfsbrunnen a “magical, dark silence”. In the early 20th century, this changed at least temporarily: At that time Wilhelm Fraenger had acquired a concession for cultural events in Wolfsbrunnen from the city of Heidelberg and used the restaurant regularly with his Heidelberger Kreis. Among other things, a Bellman evening took place in the tavern garden of the Wolfsbrunnen in 1920 . The literary tradition of the site was revived again in 1980 when Octavio Paz and Hilde Domin met the publisher Siegfried Unseld there .
Say of the pagan seer Jetta
According to a legend, the pagan seer Jetta is said to have been torn by wolves at the source. Martin Opitz wrote in Baroque style:
From the Wolffesbrunnen near Heydelberg
you noble well you, surrounded with peace and joy
With mountains here and there as a castle,
Printz kills all beautiful springs , from which water flows more
graceful then milk, and more delicious then vines,
Since our country's crown and head in his Life,
The worthy nymph himself often spends the long time,
Since poultry sings sweetly in her honor,
Since only greed and chaste lust float,
You are not in vain in this green valley
Decided by mountains and cliffs everywhere:
The artificial nature has
therefore embrace yourself with rocks and plumage, so that one should know
that all joy is labor and work,
and that nothing is so beautiful, it is difficult to achieve.
Pictorial representations
From the Biedermeier period comes a depiction of the then newly designed wolf fountain in the Swiss house style by Charles de Graimberg , which was distributed as an aquatint . A painting by the painter Heinrich Hoffmann with the title Der Wolfsbrunnen became the property of the Heidelberg City Hall.
literature
- State Office for the Preservation of Monuments (ed.): Stadtkreis Heidelberg. (= Monument topography Federal Republic of Germany , cultural monuments in Baden-Württemberg ) Thorbecke-Verlag, Ostfildern 2013, ISBN 978-3-7995-0426-3
- Oliver Fink, "Magical Dark Silence". The Wolfsbrunnen near Heidelberg as a literary place , Marbach 2007, ISBN 978-3-937384-28-3 (= tracks 77)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Press release 097 of 2007 of the German Literature Archive Marbach ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Hermann Alexander Müller and Hans Wolfgang Singer, General Artist Lexicon , 6th volume, 2nd supplement with corrections, Frankfurt am Main 1922, p. 140 ( digitized version )
Coordinates: 49 ° 24 ′ 40.6 " N , 8 ° 44 ′ 46.6" E