Gemeinde Gomadingen

 

 

The castle Grafeneck and its Café

Since 1928, the castle accommodated a home for disabled persons of the Samaritan endowment Stuttgart, the new proprietor. In October 1939, the Württemberg Department of the Interior seized the institution for purposes of the empire with the charge to clear the castle within two days. Grafeneck was reconstructed for the first killing sanatorium of the Action T4 and was therefore the example for all further killing facilities of the Nazi regime. In 1947, Grafeneck got it back from the French authorities. Since then the castle serves as a welfare and social institution for disabled persons.

The café is a meeting place for people with and without handicap and gives people the possibility to enjoy a marvelous view in the Groß Lautertal valley. Every Sunday and public holidays the visitors can benefit from coffee, cakes and refreshing drinks. On some Sundays there is a small light entertainment program. Therefore it is worth making a detour to the café in Grafeneck. The feature: The café is run honorary by the circle of friends Grafeneck and engaged associations and groups.

Opening hours:
Every Sunday and public holidays
From May to September: from 2 pm to 6 pm
From October to April: from 2 pm to 4 pm

Something about the history

The today’s municipal area has been colonized already very early; numerous barrows and barrow groups of the Hallstatt period point this out. Since then the colonization did not interrupt. The Alblimes, a Roman borderline, which connected the castles on the Swabian Alb with each other, passed Gomadingen because there was also a Roman castle together with a village.

The castle Blankenstein which was constructed between 1150 and 1250 was situated on a rocky promontory in a side valley of the Lauter. Nowadays you can only see a stump of the spire and some tracks in the ground. In the twelfth century, the lineage of the same name held the domination of Dapfen and Wasserstetten. You can find the rests of that castle hidden in the forest on the left side of the street between Wasserstetten and Eglingen.

Since 1818 it is demonstrable that a lot of sheeps were washed in the Lauter (at the beginning in Dapfen and from 1837 to 1948 in Wasserstetten) and afterwards it was carried out the sheep shearing. Wasserstetten was one of the oldest and most visited places of Southern Germany to carry out this ritual. Over more than 100 years, up to 20.000 sheeps were washed in the Lauter in Wasserstetten every year. Dozens of sheep-herds went with their herds to Wasserstetten in order to wash their animals. Today you can see a bronze figure which shows a sheep washers and which is evocative of the historical sheep wash.

Soap-manufacture

In an old warehouse in Dapfen, Eberhard Läpple opened a soap-manufacture as well as a chocolaterie which is a very pleasing destination for guests, native people and especially for groups. Both in the chocolaterie and in the soap-manufacture, the visitors have the possibility to watch the professionals at work. That enables an insight into the old handicraft. Every Wednesday apart from 2 o’clock, it takes place an open production. Guided tours for small and bigger groups are offered on request. The selling of chocolate products is situated in the second floor and the soaps are sold in the first floor. After the viewing, you can be pampered with specialties like coffee from the Amazon or a delicious hot chocolate.

Contact:
Warehouse directly at the Lauter
Eberhard Läpple
Lautertalstraße 65
72532 Gomadingen-Dapfen
Phone: +49 (0)7385 965825
Fax: +49 (0)7385 965867
info@lagerhaus-lauter.de
http://www.lagerhaus-lauter.de/

Contact

© 2013 Gemeinde Gomadingen - Hirsch & Wölfl GmbH