Tour of the City

Over 120 years ago a man died whose name and work has been forgotten even by Mannheim's older citizens: Friedrich Lauer. Only the Lauer Gardens in M 6, or rather what is left of them, are still there to remind one of him.

Actually it was the merchant Johann Elias Ackermann who first bought this part of the former fortification grounds adjacent to the ring road and turned it into pretty gardens. One needs to be aware of the former size of the property, which stretched from the building in M 5, 7 up to the ring road. When Ackermann died in 1822, his nephew Friedrich Lauer, later state representative for Mannheim, inherited the property. He was one of the men who played an important role in the economic boom of the city and also stood out in the realm of politics.

After the death of Friedrich Lauer, the Lauer Gardens passed from one owner to another. The quadrate M 7 was built there and, in 1918, what was left became the property of the city. The grounds were the focus of public attention once more when, about sixty years ago, the construction of a new school for engineering was under consideration. Today, the gardens are officially protected as one of the few green spaces in the centre of the city, albeit reduced in size by the new building of the Kurpfalz Grammar School.

The last remaining remnants of a bastion were included in the park as a reminder of Mannheim's period as a fortress. The somewhat romantically inclined former owners had adorned the foundation walls with watch-towers and merlons, adornments which were destroyed in the war. Also the old garden house too, with its half-timbered construction and its wooden verandas, has disappeared. Today one can look at the remains in M 6. Towards the end of World War II., the Lauer Gardens were witness to a scene from the darkest side of recent German history. On March 28th 1945 the Mannheim citizens Herrmann Adis, Adolf Doland and Erich Paul fell victim to the arbitrary justice of the National Socialists. Their 'offence' had been to hoist a white flag. A commemorative plaque reminds one of this terrible event.