Central Hall (Bayreuth)

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Kreiza Kerwa in and in front of the central hall, 1952

The central hall in the Bayreuth district of Kreuz was a restaurant opened on December 4, 1897, with a hall and outdoor area. Used as a meeting place for the workers' movement , it was historically not insignificant. The “ Kreiza Kerwa ” (Kreuzer Kirchweih) also began there. In 1995 the structurally remarkable brick building was demolished.

Beginnings and first decades

With the enactment of the Socialist Law of October 10, 1878, the Bayreuth Workers' Song Board and the Tailoring Association were immediately banned. After this law was repealed on October 1, 1890, the persecution of the political workforce did not end. All innkeepers who made their premises available to the electoral association founded in 1885 for meetings were placed under strict police supervision. Frequent changes of location were the inevitable consequence. It was only when the restaurateur Fritz Görl built the Central Hall in 1898 that the Bayreuth workers' organizations found a permanent home.

Bayreuth central hall around 1900

On March 14, 1897, the Bayreuth union cartel was constituted. From then on it had its natural center in the Kreuz district, which had been shaped by the labor movement early on. Görl had realized the meeting place at great personal sacrifice, and he was 28 years old when it was completed. In his speeches he used a harsh language, railed against the capitalist world order, bourgeois "Klimbimvereine" and local "construction workers". He died in January 1905 at the age of 36, leaving behind a wife and four children. The SPD newspaper Fränkische Volkstribüne wrote: “As the son of the people, he will live on with the entire enlightened working population”.

In 1895 the police were supposed to unobtrusively check whether there were obvious supporters of social democracy in the Wolf'schen inn . The landlord denied this by pointing out that the SPD is now "going into the cross". A police report from the year on “those young people who were evacuated in the Bayreuth district who are supporters of anarchism or social democracy” illustrates the situation at that time. When Helma Steinbach from Hamburg criticized the government's colonial policy in a speech in the central hall on September 8, 1900 , the event was terminated prematurely.

Social and political events of the labor movement had their home in the central hall for decades. The pub's beer garden was a popular destination for the Bayreuth population on weekends and during the “Kreiza Kerwa” festival .

time of the nationalsocialism

In the early 1930s there were repeated battles between Social Democrats and SA people . On the day before the 1932 presidential election , a group of uniformed SA men raided the central hall. The two local guards set up by the SPD were beaten and taken on a truck to the Nazi party club Schoberths-Garten in Sophienstrasse. After the takeover of the Nazi party who took advantage of Nazis , the central hall as a venue.

Post war years and end

In the first few years after the Second World War , the restaurant and the hall building served the US armed forces as a club. During this time, the "Kreiza Kerwa" could not be held at its traditional location. In the 1960s, the central hall became the “Lilo-Bar” nightclub and then the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses .

The central hall had been empty since 1963. On May 26, 1993 the city ​​council decided unanimously to preserve and renovate the structure of the property. The same committee decided on July 19, 1995 with a three-quarters majority to demolish the building "immediately" although the building had meanwhile been included in the list of historical monuments . One of the reasons for the repeal of the resolution to maintain the hall was that the property and hall could not be used. Only after the demolition of the building should the agreed exchange of land with the Bayreuth housing cooperative, owner of the studio stage area, or the search for another interested party begin.

An initiative to save and future conversion of the historic and symbolic building as a meeting place for citizens could not prevent the demolition in September 1995, which was approved by a social democratic mayor. In June of that year, the Central Hall Bayreuth Friends' Association warned at its annual meeting that the building would not continue to deteriorate. The Arbeiterwohlfahrt is interested in acquiring the central hall at a low purchase price from the city. She wants to use the space for a meeting place for young and old as well as for a retirement home .

The demolition of the central hall began on August 28th. For the work, which should be completed within two weeks, costs of 75,000 DM were estimated.

Web links

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bernd Mayer : Bayreuth à la Carte , p. 164.
  2. ↑ a b c d Bernd Mayer : Nekrolog on the almost hundred-year-old central hall , 1995
  3. ↑ Bernd Mayer, Helmut Paulus: A city is denazified. The Gau capital Bayreuth in front of the Spruchkammer . Ellwanger, Bayreuth 2008, ISBN 978-3-925361-67-8 , pp. 161 .
  4. ↑ Kurt Herterich: Bayreuth - Cross II . Ellwanger, Bayreuth 2009, ISBN 978-3-925361-71-5 , pp. 70 .
  5. ↑ a b 25 years ago. The demolition began in: Nordbayerischer Kurier from 29./30. August 2020, p. 8.
  6. ↑ 25 years ago. Förderverein continues to fight in: Nordbayerischer Kurier from August 14, 2020, p. 8.
  7. ↑ 25 years ago in: Nordbayerischer Kurier of April 17, 2018, p. 10.
  8. ↑ Bernd Mayer: Bayreuth in the twentieth century , p. 158.
  9. ↑ 25 years ago. Zentralhalle expires in: Nordbayerischer Kurier from 6./7. June 2020, p. 8.

Coordinates: 49 ° 56 ′ 41.6 ″  N , 11 ° 33 ′ 44.1 ″  E