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300 years of summer cellars in Benediktbeuern: this story is behind the ruin

2020-05-04T07:05:33.452Z


The summer cellar festival in Benediktbeuern is legendary. But what exactly is it about the building that was built in 1720 when the Benedictine monastery was in full bloom?


The summer cellar festival in Benediktbeuern is legendary. But what exactly is it about the building that was built in 1720 when the Benedictine monastery was in full bloom?

Benediktbeuern - In 1720, 300 years ago, the "summer cellar" was completed after ten years of construction. This is indicated by a plaque on the ruin, which the Benediktbeuern community had installed there. The municipality has owned the facility since 1995. There is something mysterious about this summer cellar, which, like an iceberg, hides most of its building mass under the surface.

The spacious summer cellar is located under the artificially built hill opposite the school center and was used by the monastery for the temperature-constant storage of beer barrels from the monastery brewery. At the top of the plateau with its shady deciduous trees stood a restaurant with a farm building and bowling alley, the ruins of which are still standing today. From 1914 to 1918, the facility was used as a camp for 200 French, Serbian and Russian prisoners of war, who were used to cultivate the moor and as helpers in agriculture.

The Benedictine beer was stored in the summer cellar

The complex was built in the heyday of the Benedictine monastery. It reminds of its outstanding position not only as a supra-regional center of culture and science, administration of justice and administration, but also as a prudent large landowner: in addition to the construction of the magnificent baroque three-winged convent and the basilica, the order went according to its tradition of "ora et labora ”(pray and work), namely about building the monastery into a thriving business enterprise.

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This board provides information about the history of the summer cellar.

© Rainer Bannier

Between 1708 and 1718 (almost at the same time as the construction of the summer cellar), the Benedictines had the rectangular, four-winged Maierhof built according to plans by Michael Ötschmann, which, according to the official monument description, "is one of the most impressive agricultural facilities of the Baroque period in Bavaria" thanks to its unusually generous design. .

Monastery gave bread and work to many farmers and artisans

The brewery was located in the north wing of the convent. The fact that the large cellar for storing the beer barrels was built almost two kilometers away also shows how generously the monks thought at the time. Another large farm building was built after 1758 in the district of Häuser with the three-winged Klostermaierhof.

Also read: When the plague raged in Tölzer Land: ban on going out if the gallows were punished

In his readable, unfortunately out of print book "Die Säkularisation 1803" (Rosenheimer Verlag), Dietmar Stutzer describes how the monastery gave bread and work to many farmers and artisans and created a system of social security that was of Benedictine origin and long before the reform socialism of the 19th Century. With the secularization in 1803, the absolutist princely state overwhelmed the prelate, expropriated and sold off the possessions of the monasteries, with many valuable cultural assets being irretrievably lost. In 1806 Joseph von Utzschneider (1763-1840) acquired the Benediktbeuern monastery, which came from Rieden Castle on Lake Staffelsee and had a career as a high-ranking Bavarian state official and mayor of Munich, but also as an entrepreneur and manufacturer.

The ruins of the summer cellar have long been an adventure playground for the village youth

The Bavarian state took over the monastery in 1818 and used the stables until the 1920s as a military cavalry training center, as a disability home and hospital for soldiers, as a prison, and from 1921 as an agricultural enterprise. The monastery brewery was closed in 1925, with the result that the summer cellar finally lost its original function. It was not until 1930 that Don Bosco's Salesians returned to the convent with a religious order that was primarily involved in church social work, religious education and environmental education.

Read also: These big festivals in the district fall victim to the corona pandemic this year

Until it was closed off for security reasons in the 1990s, the ruins of the summer cellar remained an adventure playground for the village youth. To this day, the local fire brigade is holding its summer party in this romantic atmosphere. Many a love affair, it is said, has already been sealed there.

Read also: "A gruesome sight": contemporary witness remembers the last days of the war in Bad Tölz

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2020-05-04

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