Cellba dolls

Celluloid dolls have existed since 1896 and are dolls made with celluloid which is a group of plastic compounds. In 1918 the board of the Babenhausen Vorschuss- und Kreditverein decided to sell an estate to Heinrich Schöberl, which had previously been used as a comb factory. From 24 March 1924 it was officially the Celluloid goods factory Babenhausen and the production of dolls and floating animals began. The company grew fast, 1929 it had more than 100 employee. Someone form almost every family worked there and went to the so called “Bobbe”.

During the Second World War, parts of the factory were destroyed by bombs, but they got reconstructed after the war ended. After the currency reform 1948 the company made more and more profit. In March 1952 the company had invented two new types of plastic and sought the name protection for them. Almost the whole production changed after that. In 1964 Hermann Schöberl, the son of the founder, retired as a partner and the Cellba story ended in 1966 and an some American company bought it.

Cellba doll, Picture: Die puppenstubensammlerin 

https://www.flickr.com CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Heinrich Schöberl, the founder of the factory, always had a preference for dolls, so he stated to build his own dolls. He took his daughter’s face as a model for the doll faces. The trademark of this dolls was a mermaid. This was placed in the neck of the dolls.

The Cellba dolls of Babenhausen, are old dolls which were first sold in 1938 unclothed and then from 1950 the dolls were sold with cloths, because clothed dolls came into the trend. From 1938 - 1950 the dolls were made out of celluloid and after made out of vinyl. The dolls which were made of celluloid were prepared in several steps. At first they created a draft as a clay model of which a plaster model was then created and painted. Then they poured a metal shape that was used as a blowing room for the doll parts. Then the celluloid was pressed into the right form with hot steam. After the blowing process, the parts were then slowly cooled in cold water. After the doll parts got polished, they were built together and got hand-painted in most cases. Celluloid is a group of plastic which is made out of cellulose nitrate and campher. It is horny at normal temperatures and malleable at 90-100 degrees. The first celluloid was made in 1856 by an English man named Alexander Parkes.

From a sports school to an airfield - the barracks of Babenhausen in the Third Reich

Since the end of the 19th century Babenhausen has been an important military garrison site. The historic buildings on the barracks grounds were built in 1900 and 1901. Until the end of the First World War, they were used as accommodation for artillery and cavalry units and as a reserve hospital.

On 20 July 1933 the SA Brigade 50 of Hessen Darmstadt took over the Babenhausen barracks, which were now used as a "SA sports school". On 8 November 1936 the 2nd section of the artillery regiment 36 moved into the barracks. In September 1938 the Garrison Babenhausen took over the "Wehrkreis Reit- und Fahrschule XII". The airfield Babenhausen was officially established in 1939 as a military airfield and in 1940 it was briefly used by the French campaign. At the end of 1944 air force units were quartered around Babenhausen, whose airplanes were stationed at the "Feldflugplatz Babenhausen". On 16 March 1945 about 400 prisoners had been accommodated in the barracks area. They had been marched on foot from a prisoner-of-war camp in Silesia to Babenhausen and had arrived at Babenhausen in a miserable condition. Nine days later the Americans arrived and occupied the barracks and private homes.

Dr. Wilhelm Schulz – a fighter for democracy during the restauration period in the early 19th century

Dr. Wilhelm Schulz was a political publicist, who spent over forty years fighting for democracy, popular sovereignty, human dignity and progress in Germany during the restauration period of the early 19^th century. 


He was imprisoned in 1834 in the military prison of the castle in Babenhausen because of his “demagogic” writings. He was able to escape in a spectacular way from prison with the help of his wife. They were writing love letters to each other and hid their plans using invisible ink. His wife brought him a table with a hidden saw in the foot of the table. Thanks to this saw he was able to cut open the bars and climb down with a rope. They fled to Strassbourg first and after to Zurich. There he died in 1860.

The castle of Babenhausen

The castle of Babenhausen was started to be built in the end of the 12th century. It is a water castle. It is divided in four wings- the west wing, the east wing, the south wing and the north wing. First the west wing was build, 1460 the east wing was build. It was followed between 1570 and 1578 by the south wing and the north wing finished the structure in the 17th Century.


The castle got rebuild more times. At the end the castle was a closed square investment. It had 4 county towers and the wings were 3 to 4 storey massive construction. To protect the castle from outside the first builder the family of Münzenberg build 3 moats. In the castle were many servants like the fountain master, the hunter, the court cook, the yard gardener, the butler, the trumpeter, the wench and people for the towers. Today the castle is 830 years old and you can still see it.

The Territorial Museum in Babenhausen

The eighth grade of the Open School visited the Babenhausen Territorial Museum in October 2018 to learn about the history of the town.

Some of the results will be presented here, such as Christian Kupferberg or the Hölzerlipps. Both are well known persons of the town history of Babenhausen.

The museum is located in one of the houses of

 former noble families of Babenhausen. 

Picture: A.Murmann CC-BY-SA 4.0

Hölzerlipps

Georg Philipp Lang, called Hölzerlipps, from the Nassau town Roth am Berg, was the leader of a gang of thieves of the same name. Philipp got the name Hölzerlipps by his former activity as a manufacturer of wooden toys and the abbreviation of his name (Lipps =-Phillip). After a raid on a carriage he was arrested and then executed in Heidelberg. He was regarded as the cruelest and most malicious, who could not dampen his own anger and showed an excellent superiority. He was a famous gangster of his time.

Christian Kupferberg

The name Kupferberg is closely associated with Babenhausen. Christian Kupferberg was the son of the Grand Ducal District Tax Collector Joseph Kupferberg. He began training as an export merchant in 1843. He was sentenced to one year in prison for killing a Prussian dragoon lieutenant in a duel with him. Why? Because the lieutenant had insulted his bride. Duels with real weapons were forbidden.

The hill graves of Babenhausen

In the middle Bronze-Age from the 17th century BC, people were buried in hill-graves. The women were buried with their heads stretched to the east and the men were buried with their heads stretched to the west. That’s where the epoch got its name from.

The people believed in the afterlife and gave the deceased ones various grave goods into the graves. The women mostly got jewellery or kitchen-items and the men got weapons or different tools. It is believed that only wealthy people were buried like that because the grave goods were quite expensive and did not match with the lifestyle of an ordinary farmer.

Later the deceased ones were burned at the stake with the grave goods and were buried an urn.

Two destroyed churches and their fate

Comparison of the Frauenkirche in Dresden and the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche in Berlin


Both churches, the Frauenkirche in Dresden and the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin, are Protestant churches. The Frauenkirche was built between 1726 and 1743. The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church was completed in 1895. Both churches were destroyed in the Second World War. After the destruction of the Kaiser Wilhelm Church the NS government promised to rebuild the church after the end of the war. But after the end of the war the Allied powers had didn’t want to rebuild it, because Kaiser Wilhelm supported the national socialism in their eyes. In contrast to the Kaiser Wilhelm Church, the Frauenkirche was left standing as a memorial for over 40 years. In 1991 the reconstruction was started. Kaiser-Wilhelm Churchés highly endangered parts were torn down already after 12 years. In the year 1959 a new building of the church in modern style was decided to be built. The old main tower was left standing as a memorial.

Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche 1964, 
CC-BY-SA 2.0, Photographer: Brian Harrington Spier,
www.wikipedia.org

The difference between the two churches is that both were long regarded as memorials but the Frauenkirche was rebuilt because the population exerted pressure. The Kaiser Wilhelm Church, on the other hand, was not rebuilt, as Kaiser Wilhelm was considered to be a NS supporter. A new church was built next to the ruin.

Ruin of the Frauenkirche in Dresden, CC-BY-SA 4.0, Photographer: Erich Braun, www.wikipedia.org

Impressions of the new Old Town of Frankfurt

The new Old Town of Frankfurt

When the old town was destroyed in the 2nd World War, the Nazis did not want to rebuild it in order to show the attackers' lack of culture. After the war, the loss was to symbolically document the decline of the German spirit, which had led to dictatorship and destruction. During the war, however, people were already committed to documenting the famous Goethe House in detail in order to make post-war reconstruction as accurate as possible. After many discussions, the reconstruction was successful. The Goethe House was built to measure thanks to the good documentation. The golden scale in the new old town is faithfully reproduced up to the leather wallpaper and old techniques are used as far as possible. These reconstructed houses are now used as a museum. 35 houses were built in the new old town of Frankfurt, of which 15 were reconstructed true to the original and 20 were new buildings. The historical course of streets is now also visible again.
Alea

Frankfurts new / old historic town center – Pros and cons

The restoration of the destroyed old town, between 2012 and 2018, was disputed.

The most important arguments were:

Cons 

• Despite ”reconstructions“ of the old houses, the new houses stand out with the reinvention of the old architectural style.
• Something is being built from which the inhabitants moved away earlier. This means that the old town used to have poor sanitary conditions. The narrow architectural style was due to the lack of space and was used for poor people at the time of destruction. Therefore, the question of why it should be rebuilt is justified.
  
• There was the question whether it would not have been time to vote for a new daring architecture, in contrast to the reconstruction of the historical buildings and to justify this with feelings of homeland.
• Condominiums were supposed to balance the investments and bring back the money hoped for, this was a crucial point that voted for the reconstruction again. But some of the apartments are not inhabited. Why not? This is because one would have to be insane to want to live in a tourism sector.
• Many say that the reconstruction of the bombed buildings from the Second World War is supposed to conceal Nazi crimes.

Pros

• It would not fit if new modern housing complexes were to be built into the well-preserved old town. 
• Frankfurters identify with their old town "their heart", so the citizen´s view. The old town should create a feeling of home among the people of Frankfurt and allow them to grow closer together.
• It is intended to underline the art-historical significance of Frankfurt´s old town and to make Frankfurt fashionably chic again as well as to dress up for the tourist sector.
• It is intended to bring income to Frankfurt and thus financially support the city.

Jan

The Destruction of Frankfurt's Old Town

Frankfurt's Old Town was important because it used to be the largest medieval Old Town in Europe consisting of more than 2000 buildings. Without the air raids and the resulting damage, the Old Town would probably be a World Heritage Site today.

Around 75 air raids by the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Force destroyed Frankfurt's Old Town between June 1940 and March 1945. Over 26,000 bombs were dropped. The attacks killed 5559 people, including residents, prisoners of war and forced laborers. Almost all important cultural monuments as well as the entire medieval old and new town with over 1800 half-timbered houses were burned during the March attacks in 1944. The combination of explosive and incendiary bombs resulted in a firestorm. First they blew up the roofs of the houses, then they used the incendiary bombs to reach combustible parts of the houses. Through burst windows, more air reached the fire, allowing it to spread rapidly. A suction developed which made it impossible to extinguish or control the fire. By the end of the war in 1945, the population of Frankfurt had fallen from over 553,000 (1939) to 230,000.

Aerial view of the Cathedral and the surrounding 

Old Town of Frankfurt in 1944
public domain (www.wikipedia.de)

By the end of 1942, 67 Frankfurters had died in air raids and only a few buildings had been destroyed. In 1943 and especially in 1944 the air raids increased in strength and frequency. On March 22^nd 1944, the devastating large-scale attack on Frankfurt's Old Town followed, erasing the historic heart of Frankfurt.

Other cities were also affected, such as Cologne, Lübeck, Rostock and Essen. The "Dehousing Paper" adopted by the British cabinet in May 1942 declared the destruction of eight million houses and 60 million apartments in German industrial cities a strategic goal. An attempt was made to weaken the morale and stamina of the population.

During the entire war a total of 14,017 tons of bombs were dropped on Frankfurt, a total of 5559 people died and 90,000 apartments burned down.

Niklas

The built heritage of Babenhausen

Breschtower:

• One of the two well preserved defence towers.
• Its name originates in the 17th century: a hole (Bresche) was shot in the tower.
• In 1965 the Breschturm was renovated, but the hole is still there.

 Eldest half-timbered house:

• The house was probably built in 1484. 
• It was used to defend the “witch- tower.
• 

 Witch-Tower:

• It is the second well-preserved defence tower in Babenhausen.
• Because of his closeness to the mill it was called mill tower.
• After the witch processes in the 16^th and 17^th century it was called witch-tower.
• It is not proved that witches were burned there.

 The castle:

·       Once it was a residence of the counts of Hanau-Lichtenberg
·         It was a water castle.

·         Build in from the 12th to the 16^th century.

·         The west wing is to be recognized as late Romanic.

·         Today it is closed because of renovation.

City walls:

• The city wall is still very well preserved and surrounds the old part of the city/ town almost completely.
• In front of the wall there was the city ditch full of water.

 Old chemist Shop:

•  Build in 18^th century.
• The remedial plants on the outside facade come from the artist Fritz Kehr.

 The town church

 ·        Originally named St. Nicholas - but today a Protestant church.
·         A medieval church - first mentioned in the 13th century.
·         Especially valuable is a wooden altar from the 16th century.
·        Funeral site of the Counts of Hanau-Lichtenberg.

Arroz Doce Recipe

·       250g carolino rice

·       450g of sugar

·       6 egg yolks

·       3 lemon peel

·       2 cinnamon sticks

·       50g butter

·       0.5 l of water

·       a cup of tea of milk

·       1700 ml of milk

·       Salt

·       Cinnamon powder

Preparation:

1. In a pan, bring to the boil water and rice.

Season with a little salt and cook until the water dries.

2. After the water evaporates, add the butter, lemon peel, cinnamon sticks and milk.

Stir and cook for 30 minutes. Stir occasionally not to grab the bottom.

After the 30 minutes add the sugar.

3. Dissolve the egg yolks with the cup of milk.

While stirring, add the egg yolks to the rice and when it starts to bubble, extinguish the heat.

4. After serving in bowls, bring the sweet rice to the refrigerator.

After cooling, sprinkle with cinnamon and is ready to serve.

Portuguese Recipe of CodFish “Meia Desfeita de Bacalhau”

·       3 codfish pieces

·       550g cooked chickpeas

·       1 chopped onion

·       3 minced cloves garlic

·       3 boiled eggs

·       Pepper

·       Chopped parsley

·       Olive oil

·       Vinegar

Preparation:

1. In a pan with boiling water, place the cod to cook for 10 minutes.

After the cooked cod, remove it to a plate and let cool.

2. Clean it of the skin and bones and shred.

3. In a large bowl, combine the onion, garlic and chopped parsley.

Season with pepper, olive oil and vinegar.

Stir everything very well.

Add the cod and mix a little.

4. Cut the eggs into slices and decorate.

Serve this fresh salad.

Šaltibarščiai (cold beetroot soup)

• 1 medium red beetroot
• 1 medium cucumber
• A handful of spring onion
• A bunch of fresh dill
• 2 hard boiled eggs
• Salt
• A pinch of lemon acid
• 800 ml buttermilk or kefir
• 200-400 ml of cold boiled water (optionaly)
• Sour cream (optionaly)
• 6 medium potatoes

• Boil beetroot in water until tender. Let it cool down, peel and grate coarsely. Mix with salt and a pinch of lemon acid. Leave aside.
• Chop spring onions. Chop dill finely. Chop cucumber into small cubes. Mix all together with salt and let release the flavour. Add grated beetroot. Peel shells from hard-boiled eggs. One option (more comfortable, but less beautiful) – to cut eggs really small and mix with all other ingredients. Another option – to cut boiled eggs in halfs or quarters and divides to each personal plate.
• Add sour cream, buttermilk or kefir. Stir. The color will appear slowly. If you like more liquid soup, add some cold boiled water. Test, is it enough salt.
• Peel potatoes, cut them in half and boil in slightly salted water until tender. Calculate time, that they would be ready and hot when you all sit down for the meal.

Pancake soup

Well – this is the récipe for a huge portion.

Pancakes:

12 Eggs
800g Flour
1/5 liters Milk
Salt

Soup:

6 L of  Water
8 green soup dice
A little bit of herbs

At first you must make pancakes in a pan, for this dough you need a bowl with 1/5 liters Milk, 800g Flour, 12 Eggs and a little bit of salt mixed. Frz the dough in a pan und cut the pancake into small stripes.

For the soup you need 6-8 liters of Water, 8 green soup dice and at the end you need a bit of herbs. Boil everything and add the pancake stripes.

TORTILLA DE PATATAS RECIPE

INGREDIENTS (FOR FOUR)

·            Six eggs

·            6 potatoes peeled, cut in half, and sliced horizontally
·            One large onion, sliced
·            Salt
·            ½ litre of olive oil

THE PROCESS

·            In a large stockpot over medium high heat, add 3/4 litres of olive oil. When it is hot but not smoking, add the potatoes and onions. Lower heat to medium. Cook, poaching the potatoes and onions until the potatoes are fork tender, about 10 minutes.

·            Meanwhile, in a large bowl, crack your eggs and beat. Add salt.
·            You need two frying pans and a large plate.
·            When your potatoes and onions are done, strain them, reserving two tbsp. of oil. Let them cool for at least 10 minutes. When your potatoes are cool enough to touch, then mix them in with your scrambled eggs.
·            In a frying pan, add one tbsp. of your reserved oil. Heat over medium heat until almost smoking.
·            Now add your egg and potato mixture, and as soon as it hits the pan, start stirring the eggs so that they coagulate and the uncooked part goes to the bottom, and you get some cooked egg on top.
·            Simultaneously, as you are stirring the centre, with your wooden spoon, drag it along the edges to make sure that it is drying up.
·            When you feel that there won’t be enough egg mix lost when you do “The Flip”, then place your large plate (it must be larger than the circumference of your frying pan) on top of the pan, and with a flick of your wrist, flip the tortilla onto the plate, and then slide back into the frying pan.

The Jewish cemetery of Babenhausen

Until 1570, the dead of the Jewish community in Frankfurt / Main were buried. Then a separate cemetery was created in Babenhausen. At that time the cemetery was far away from the city wall; meanwhile, it is completely surrounded by a new development area. The cemetery area of the today received cemetery covers 24.81 ares. The cemetery was also occupied by surrounding Jewish communities (including Schaafheim).

There are 228 tombstones preserved. The oldest is from 1692. A gravestone from 1946 stands over the grave of a Jewish child who died in a DP camp in Babenhausen. The cemetery is surrounded by hedges, bushes and a fence, not by a wall.

In the cemetery, non-Christian (Muslim) prisoners of war were buried during the Second World War, which were exhumed after the war again.


Documentation of the cemetery:

In April 2005, the cemetery was disgraced. Thirteen gravestones were overturned. 


Location of the cemetery:

The cemetery is located in the northeastern part of the city on Potsdamer Straße (between a playground and the municipal kindergarten).

Documents in danger - a visit to a paper restoration expert

Pests, water and fire are the greatest dangers to historical documents. It doesn't always have to be as spectacular as it was in 2009, when the city archive of Cologne sank into a neighbouring excavation and two people were killed. Large parts of the historical documents sank into the mud and had to be recovered and cleaned laboriously. Surprisingly, some documents survived even months in damp mud.

The restoration workshop of the Frankfurt City Archive is not quite as dramatic. Mould and water damage, along with pests (for example bookworms), are among the main problems that are being fought there. 

If paper becomes damp, mould is not far away. Mould decomposes the paper and makes it brittle. One can see very well from this document that the lower edge had become damp. It shows the typical darker discoloration that occurs with mould. Parts of the page are already broken off. Such a document can no longer be used without further damage. In addition, the spores are a health hazard for the users. In the restoration workshop such documents are cleaned and the paper is stabilized again by additional layers. However, this procedure is very costly and is therefore only used for particularly important documents.

Another serious problem is acidic paper. With the change of paper production and the use of alum instead of glue from bone or skin. Both substances prevent ink from leaking. Alum-containing papers release acids in the aging process, which corrode the cellulose fibres of the paper. It disintegrates. Even the acids contained in the inks can lead to decomposition (ink corrosion). The raw material used in paper production is also decisive - in the past, paper was made with alkaline solutions from rags and was therefore more durable. Paper made from wood was treated with acidic solutions to remove the yellowing substance lignin. Especially such papers are affected by acid corrosion. The neutralization and removal of the acids is complex. In addition, the paper must then be reinforced with new fibres (fraying).

Thanks to the institute for town history we had the chance to visit this workshop. Here is a link to a short film about this visit:
A visit to the restoration workshop in Frankfurt

The German National Library in Frankfurt

A place of written heritage

Today the German National Library has two locations, Leipzig and Frankfurt. Founded in Leipzig in 1913, Frankfurt was chosen as a replacement location after the division of Germany in the post-war period. Since 1945 every printed work published in Germany has been collected there - from magazines to scientific books. Even advertising brochures and club magazines are kept. Publishers must hand in two copies of each printed work - one for Frankfurt and one for Leipzig. Every day, about 2000 new writings arrive at the library. Today there are 34 million objects on the shelves - in

the chronological order and sorted by size, so that more fits into the 30000 m² of storage space. The first book from 1945 is “Meine Hunde im Nordland” von Egerton Young about a journey with a dog slide through the north of Canada. This is not one of the works that are in demand on a regular basis. Only 5% of the works are actually brought into the reading rooms, because nobody can borrow the books. The task of the 634 employees is to collect, document and make available the collection – and, in principle, to preserve the written heritage for the future. In addition, there is a special collection of literature about Germany (including that from other countries), translations of German works into other languages, and the Exile Archive, which collects the estates and literature of the people who had to flee Germany between 1933 and 1945.