At the end of the winter of 1893, the owner was forced to repaint his 'Wurstküche' at the foot of the Salt Barn in Regensburg's old town for the second time in a decade after the oddly shaped small building was inundated by the icy floodwaters of the Danube. Along with the renovation, Fritz Schricker had another flood sign made, this time not inside the restaurant's guest area, but outside on the western wall outside, and even had his own name engraved in ornate Gothic letters. It is a recent custom at that time, for if the owners of the restaurant had had a flood sign made after every major flood on the Danube, Fritz Schricker's 1893 flood sign - a little exaggeratedly - would not have fit on the wall. Neither inside nor outside.
Fritz Schricker's memory is preserved along with the flood level in his restaurant, which was owned by the same family until 1990. And since 1893, six more flood levels have been added to one of the world's oldest restaurants, a sausage kitchen called the Historische Wurstküche, or Wurstkuchl as it is spelled in the local dialect. The terrace at Weiße-Lamm-Gasse 3 offers a spectacular view over the Danube, the northern tip of the island of Unterer Wöhrd, with Oberer Wöhrd behind it, the Stone Bridge (built between 1135 and 1146) to the left, and the huge, four-century-old Salt Barn to the west. Despite its central location, the Wurstkuchl was a suburban building in the strictest sense of the word, being outside the Danube-side city walls built after 1320, until 1856, when the city finally succeeded in having the ancient walls, which had been maintained at great expense, demolished. However, the demolition of the wall would have been problematic in the case of the Wurstkuchl, because the back wall of the restaurant was the city wall itself, so a piece of the old Regensburg city wall still stands on this section, commemorated by a plaque. Its 'suburban' location meant that while the imperial city of Regensburg was protected by thick walls from the Danube flooding, the Wurstkuchl was flooded by practically all major floods, but the owners still considered it worth the trouble of saving the equipment and drying out the wet walls, as the oldest crossing of the Danube still standing today provided enough traffic to restart the business again and again.
The eternal recurrence at this point on the Danube is understandable in a literal sense, just as a sensible person can build on flood plains if he calculates that the expected benefits will outweigh the expected losses. It is uncertain when the first restaurant was built on this site, but there are sources that workers on the Steinerne Brücke (Stone Bridge) used to come here for lunch almost 900 years ago. In 1293, the city council of Regensburg decided to build a wall around the outskirts of the city, extending beyond the Arnulfian walls. The southern inland section was completed by 1320, after which the river bank was fortified, with a two-kilometer stretch of city wall, divided by 15 towers. Immediately east of the Stone Bridge stood the Kräncher Tower, a round tower with a crane on top, which served the interests of trade on the quay. Obviously, the Wurstkuchl restaurant must have been built after the construction of the city wall, as this wall formed the back wall of the inn. Archaeologists have excavated the garbage dumps of the kitchen on the quayside, which show that meat dishes were typically prepared here, with poultry, beef, pork, rabbit, lamb and goat bones making up the bulk of the finds.
In 1616, the old restaurant was demolished to build the Salzstadel, but after the construction of the huge warehouse that still dominates the image of the city from the Danube, they rebuilt a new building on the exact same spot with a trapezoidal floor plan. This curious shape is explained by a special 4 m by 40 cm section of Hans Georg Bahre's 1630 drawing of Regensburg from the north, i.e. from the Danube. This engraving shows two gates on either side of the Wurstkuchl. These gates ensured the traffic circulation between the Danube quays outside the city walls and the city itself. This quay was quite narrow, as it is unfortunate if the enemy has too much space to lay siege. And in such a narrow area, it would probably be difficult for the carts to turn onto the gate without hitting the tavern, so it was obvious to knock down both protruding corners and build the tavern in a trapezoidal shape.
The trapezoidal shape meant that the interior, which has to share a space with the kitchen, is rather small, with only 25 guests can be seated, and a total of four flood signs adorning the walls inside. There are a further four flood signs on the outside walls; two on the west and two on the north, either side of the entrance to the Wurstkuchl. It is a rare coincidence of cultural, culinary, hydrological and urban history curiosities where the history of the Danube is so dense; the eight flood signs commemorate seven floods in total, as there is a sign both outside and inside commemorating the March 1988 flood. The order of the flood plaques on the walls of the Wurstkuchl is as follows:
1893. February 16. ice flood ~700 cm
2013. June (4.) 682 cm
1882. December 29. ice flood 670 cm
1988. March 27. (2 signs) 659 cm
1954. July 645 cm
1965. June 643 cm
2011. January 15. 627 cm
 |
| Bavarian idyll with Danubian flood signs (1988 and the bit worn one from 2011) (source) |
Each of these floods could be the subject of a separate article, as these years do not always correlate with the major floods in Hungary. This is mainly due to geographical distance, as flood curves may flatten towards the lower sections due to lack of replenishment. This is especially true for icy floods, such as the one we are now discussing, the flood of 1893, which was one of the highest floods in Regensburg, while it peaked at a lower flood level in Vienna, it again flooded villages (e.g. Gerjen) in the Hungarian section due to ice jams forming in the river bends. In Regensburg, the sign for the flood that peaked on 16 February 1893 was the highest on the wall of the Wurstkuchl, but it should be added that ice floods are always separated from ice-free floods by hydrology, This is because it is not always clear where the water ends and the ice begins, and in the case of certain structures, such as the aforementioned Stone Bridge of Regensburg, the swelling effect of the ice jams must be taken into account.
 |
| The two highest flood sign on the Western wall of the Wurstküche. |
It is therefore unclear on what basis the owner Fritz Schricker put the second flood sign on the wall of his sausage kitchen. The building was presumably inaccessible at the time of the icy flood, and it was only after the flood had receded that the extent of the damage could be seen. In any case, the flood mark is at least one large span higher than the maximum ice-free flood level, which is also the record level on the Hungarian stretch of the Danube, with the exception of the water gauges at Dunaszekcső and Mohács. The 1893 flood in Regensburg, which peaked just 132 years ago, is also a curiosity in that it has already been photographed, with seven of them available on the Hochwasserschutz Regensburg website, three of which are available in higher resolution below:
 |
| Ice jam above the Stone Bridge seen from the Oberer Wöhrd |
 |
| The flooded Protzenweiher marketplace in Stadtamhof |
 |
| Ice jam as seen from the Stone Bridge with the Unterer Wöhrd |
One might think that modern flood defences are already capable of protecting urban facilities in the most developed states of Germany, but instead of a positive outcome, it should be noted that the largest floods will continue to flood the Historiches Wurtsküche, despite the fact that a mobile dike system has already been built along this stretch. This is because the flood defences are unable to protect the restaurant from the water pressure rising from below. This is not a problem in the neighbouring Salt Barn, where the weight of the huge building can counteract the rising water table, but this is not the case in the small Wurstkuchl, which is forced to let the Danube break into the building, as this would cause less damage. Thus, it is expected that in the centuries to come, the walls of the small sausage kitchen in Regensburg will bear further flood marks, while there will be no fear of visitors being left behind during periods of low water.
Literature:
- https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historische_Wurstkuchl
- https://www.heimatforschung-regensburg.de/2486/1/1063113_DTL1774.pdf
- https://www.regensburgnow.de/wurstkuchl/
- https://hochwasser-regensburg.tumblr.com/image/52136760733
- https://www.wurstkuchl.de
- https://www.hochwasserschutz-regensburg.bayern.de/dok-historische-hochwasser/galerie-eisgaenge.html
- https://www.regensburg.de/fm/121/hochwasser-bedeutende-pegelstaende.pdf
- https://www.hnd.bayern.de/pegel/donau_bis_passau/regensburg-eiserne-bruecke-10061007?
- Christine Schimpfermann: Hochwasserschutz im Denkmalensemble – Strategien zur Konfliktlösung am Beispiel Regensburg
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment