District of Bayreuth, Germany
Sankt Georgen is an 18th-century planned new town, today a district of the city of Bayreuth in Bavaria.
Location.
Sankt Georgen is located north-east of the city center of Bayreuth on the top of a hill whose southern slope is called the Stuckberg. To the south it slopes down to the valley of the Red Main; to the west to the city railway station; and to the north-east to the industrial area of St. Georgen on the former Brandenburger Weiher (a large man-made mere). The plateau extends eastward to the and the . To the east, Sankt Georgen borders on the district of .
Early history - the Brandenburger Weiher.
Before 1700, the area of Sankt Georgen was virtually uninhabited. The beginnings of the later town of Sankt Georgen am See can be traced back to the construction of the Brandenberger Weiher. The county register from 1499 mentions a small pond here. In 1508, the "Weiher uffm Brand" (pond on the burn) and an associated "Weiherhaus" are documented. (Brand and Brandberg referred to the area below the Hohe Warte ridge that had been cleared by fire). Margrave Friedrich had the pond enlarged from 1509 with corvée labour. In 1516, his successors further extended the body of water until it had a surface area of 565 , according to a 1530 survey. It was filled from the Warme Steinach through a canal branching off at and drained through two weirs in the direction of Bindlach.
The Weiher was used as a fish pond and was the domain of the margravial court. As late as the 16th century, the name Brandenburger Weiher was officially used because it belonged to the Margraves of Brandenburg. A document from 1515 shows that the Franciscan monastery Sankt Jobst on the nearby Oschenberg was entitled to three hundredweight of carp out of an average of 200 hundredweight per year of fish caught there.
In the late seventeenth century Crown prince Georg Wilhelm had developed a passion for the navy on his Grand Tour to England and Holland, and this had a lasting impact on Sankt Georgen. In 1695 he had a modest wooden castle built on the lake shore, which was replaced by a stone building between 1701 and 1707. Also in 1695 he had a carpenter from Münchberg build his first ship. Four magnificent frigates armed with small guns followed later, with which sea battles were staged on the lake. Six one-story sailor's houses and one two-storey captain's house were built on the south-west bank.
Margraviate of Bayreuth.
Under Georg Wilhelm.
In a decree of March 28, 1702 to the Bayreuth city council, Margrave Christian Ernst of Bayreuth indicated that his son and heir Georg Wilhelm wanted to erect "various buildings" on the Brandenburger Weiher. Land was acquired for the construction project, with other parcels of pasture land given in compensation to its former owners. On September 2, 1702, Georg Wilhelm's wife, Princess Sophia, laid the cornerstone for the new planned suburb of Sankt Georgen. Since Georg Wilhelm spent a lot of time that year as a general in imperial service in the camp in the Rhine Palatinate, his mother Sophie Luise initially personally took charge of the construction project, but she died in October 1702. In 1704 there is mention of the prince's "three houses in St. Georg am See"("St. George on the lake").
The new town was laid out on a symmetrical plan, in the baroque style, in 1709. As in Versailles, the palace was the focal point. Two parallel streets on either side of the palace gardens, each with 24 similar houses, were planned with "the most beautiful regularity"; however only the houses in the eastern section were actually built. The owner of the first house (St. Georgen No. 29) was Georg Wilhelm's mother Princess Sophia Luise, while the owner of the second was Prince Georg Wilhelm's valet de chambre von Löwenberg. Other houses were built by nobles or belonged to commoners who were in the service of or dependent on Georg Wilhelm. In addition to the 24 "typical houses" along the main street, known as first as Bayreuther Gass (and since 1889 as St. Georgen Street), there were soon several smaller cottages on the edge of the settlement that were not subject to the strict design requirements of regularity.
In 1708 the foundation stone for the barracks of the Grenadier Guard was laid, but the plan for a town hall opposite the church, outlined in 1709, was never realised. The eventual town hall was created by repurposing the buildings at St. Georgen 27 and 29 which had been joined around 1745 and then used as storage by the faience factory.
The street was dominated by the church of St. Sophia, begun in 1705 and consecrated in 1711 (Georg Wilhelm's mother was Sophia Luise, his wife Sophia and his daughter Christiane Sophie Wilhelmine). The name indicated that it was originally intended to be a family and court church. However Georg Wilhelm decided to make it the centre of worship for his newly created Ordre de la Sincérité and after its consecration it became generally known as the Ordenskirche St. Georgen.
As Margrave from 1712 to 1726, Georg Wilhelm ruled in an absolutist manner, emulating the example of Louis XIV and building up considerable debts. In 1706 he had an opera house built to the west of the Sankt Georgen palace, and in 1708 the infantry barracks on the southern edge of the settlement. The construction of the "prison and work house" (today's prison) began in 1724, but the building complex was only completed in 1735. Under Margrave Alexander (1769-1791) the building was used as a "madhouse" or Sankt-Georgen-Hospital. It was converted into a "modern insane asylum" at the beginning of the 19th century.
Under George Friedrich Karl and Friedrich.
Georg Wilhelm's successor Georg Friedrich Karl (1727-1735) showed no interest in expanding the town. Friedrich III (1735–1763) 1741 ordered the construction of the Gravenreuther Stift, an early retirement home with its own church, which was completed in 1744. In 1745 he granted the town of Sankt Georgen the privilege of its own independent town council. In the first election, 28-year-old master baker Adolph Fränkel was elected mayor by the 40 homeowners who acted as voters. The mayor and the six-member council were given local judicial authority. Since the higher authorities in Bayreuth threatened to delay the construction of the town hall, a town hall was quickly created by acquiring and connecting the two houses. A ratskeller was opened there and a council innkeeper was appointed. However, because the building soon proved to be too large for this purpose, two thirds of the building was sold to the Protestant church administration in 1755.
Up to 1733 Sankt Georgen then had been allowed to hold two horse and cattle markets per year, and in that year it asked for permission to hold monthly cattle markets. At the same time, the mayor and the city council advocated a reduction in customs duties for Jewish traders, who represented a significant element in these markets. A Jewish cattle dealer had to pay six and a half kreuzers when they arrived on foot on market day, and ten and a half kreuzers if they came on horseback. If he arrived the day before, this special taxation could rise to as high as ;templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" / ;31+1⁄2 Kreuzer. The Margrave therefore had the customs duties reduced by half and the number of markets increased – but not to the desired extent. It was not until 1773 that cattle markets were authorised every second Tuesday. At that time, cattle could only be sold outside the Margraviate of Bayreuth if they had previously been unsuccessfully offered at least once on a domestic market. In order to better control the operations of the cattle markets, the market street was blocked off with barriers.
Under Friedrich Christian and Alexander.
Friedrich Christian, who ruled from 1763 to 1769, ended seafaring on the Brandenburger Weiher, and all the sailors were dismissed. A final major lake festival was celebrated under Margrave Alexander in 1771, and the lake was then drained in 1775. At that time, specialists such as parchment makers and tobacco pipe makers worked in Sankt Georgen; a lens grinding shop and a playing card factory were established, and in 1781 a bell foundry was added.
Kingdom of Bavaria.
In the harsh economic circumstances of the Napoleonic wars, the people of Sankt Georgen increasingly wished to join Bayreuth. In 1811 the town and the city were united by King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria under a single municipality, ending 109 years of independence. The old town of Sant Georgen became the 13th district of the city, while the northern area (Grüner Baum, Matrosengasse, Straße nach Berneck) formed the 14th district.
Since every house owner in Sankt Georgen had the right to brew, there were more than 20 brewers out of the approximately 900 inhabitants. However, according to the new Bavarian Municipal Code, all suburbs were to cease to have any independent rights. This was not accepted by the citizens of Sankt Georgen without objections, and prompted several petitions to the king. As late as 1819, they were demanding self-government back, but in vain.
In the 1884 regulations for the cattle markets in Bayreuth, in addition to the cattle market in the main street, the pig market at the lower fountain and the fattening cattle market on the square in front of the upper fountain are also listed. The impressive drive of up to 1500 cattle and 450 pigs also attracted buyers from Baden, Württemberg, Saxony and even Russia.
20th century.
The Market Ordinance of 1914 prohibited cattle markets on Jewish holidays. However under pressure from the National Socialists, "conducting business in the Jewish language (Yiddish)" was banned in 1934. With the construction of the , the Sankt Georgen cattle markets were relocated there in 1935.
In keeping with Bayreuth tradition, there were also bakers brewing beer in Sankt Georgen. As the last "Becknbräu" in the city, Franz Götschel (Sankt Georgen 25) practiced this double profession until 1961. Opposite, the Kolb drugstore operated one of Bayreuth's first two gas stations with a gas pump on the street.
At the upper end of Brandenburger Strasse, the Royal Bavarian Councilor of Commerce Otto Rose (1839-1984) donated a sandstone fountain. The Rose Fountain is popularly known as the "Saubrunnen" ("sows' fountain") after the wooden drinking trough that previously existed on the site.
In 1940, the first branch of the Municipal Savings Bank in Bayreuth was opened to the public in the building at Brandenburger Strasse 49. In the 1950s, the Rex cinema opened on Brandenburger Strasse. In the 1990s, on the Markgrafenallee, the new building for the Bayreuth District Office, which had been located on Tunnelstrasse, was built on a 1.7-hectare site. Groundbreaking took place on March 16, 1992, and on July 15, 1994, it was inaugurated. ;ref name="BC1989/54" ; ;/ref ;
In the early 1870s, the brothers Bruno and Oskar Teuscher acquired the building complex. Oskar and his brother-in-law Albert Dietz, who had moved to Bayreuth in 1885, set up a biscuit factory there. In 1900 Oskar Teuscher became the sole owner, and two years later his son-in-law Wilhelm Koch joined the company as a partner. As a result, a prosperous candy, biscuit and gingerbread factory was established in the outbuildings; the main building was used as an office and prestigious apartment. During the Bayreuth festival, Koch regularly received illustrious guests there: Auguste Rodin visited the house, and King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra stayed there several times. In 1956 the factory ceased operations.
At least 36 deceased babies of forced laborers who were buried there from March 1943 lie in the cemetery. Their mothers, who mostly came from Poland and the Soviet Union, mainly worked in agriculture in Bayreuth and the surrounding area, but also in spinning mills and armaments factories. The location of the graves can no longer be determined. At the end of the Second World War, the complex was expanded to include a war cemetery, making this is one of the largest war cemeteries in Upper Franconia.
In 2021, a grave was rediscovered in which six young French soldiers were buried between December 24, 1870 and March 16, 1871. They were among several hundred prisoners of war of the Franco-Prussian War who were interned in Sankt Georgen prison and died there of illness.
Vanished buildings.
The air raids on Bayreuth towards the