Bakery Böhm
The well-preserved courtyard housed the bakery of the Böhm family until the end of the 1960s.
Moreover, from 1909 to 1946 the family continuously provided the local mayors, who performed their official duties from here.
The farm is listed in the monument register of the Mainz-Bingen district.
Böhm wine tavern, postcard detail from 1906
Image source: Willi Buchert
View from the former wine tavern. The year 1887 can be seen on the wall post.
Image source: Böhm family
The three-sided courtyard at Gaustraße 11 dates back to the 19th century and impresses with its good state of preservation. The building on the right was built in the early 19th century and is solid except for the upper gable walls. Under part of the house is a barrel-vaulted cellar. The dormer on the longitudinal facade was added around 1900. The transverse barn at the rear of the courtyard also contains half-timbered sections and probably also dates from the early 19th century. On the left is a two-story brick house in the Wilhelminian tradition. On a photo the year 1887 can be seen on a wall post, this could have been the year of construction.
The estate belonged to the Hessler family at the end of the 19th century. During this time, Johann Adam Böhm I, a baker from the Odenwald, married into the family. Today the farm is still owned by the descendants of the Böhm family.
In the building on the right, the Böhm family operated a wine tavern at least until the first years of the last century.
View of the courtyard at Gaustraße 11, presumably before the 2nd World War
Image source: Böhm family
Coming home from the field work with the “Plugskarrn” (plow cart). Behind the horse, a smaller axle (Protze) could be harnessed to either a single-axle cart with a seat or a farming implement.
Image source: Böhm family
The farm had its own vineyards and the wine sold was produced by the farm itself.
The bakery, also run by the family, was located in the left building until the end of the 1960s. There was also the oven fired with briquettes and vine wood.
Labeled paper bag in which cigars sold loose were packed
Image source: Böhm family
Preserved front side of the dismantled oven
Image source: Böhm family
The flour used either came from the company’s own production or – as was customary at the time – was provided by the customers. Large parts of the clientele operated their own farms and therefore had their own flour. The baker received from them a certain supply of flour, the use of which he kept a record in the flour book. The customer then only had to pay for the baking. Towards the end of the Second World War, baking four 2 kilo loaves cost 48 Reichspfennige. When children picked up the bread and paid with 50 pennies, they got three raspberry candies out of it. Many customers not only ordered bread and rolls from the bakery, but also brought their own sheet cakes to bake for a fee.
After Johann Adam Böhm I, his son Johann Adam Böhm II continued the bakery until the post-war years. After that, the employed baker Volkmann worked in the bakery until 1968, and the sisters Mathilde and Emilie Böhm continued to be responsible for sales. Old-established Harxheimers still like to report that baker Volkmann collected the ribbele (crumbles) that fell off while cutting the cake and put them in front of the door for the children to take home and snack on.
Court idyll: a sister of Johann Adam Böhm II feeding the chickens
Image source: Böhm family
Johann Adam Böhm I and Johann Adam Böhm II are not only connected with the history of Harxheim as bakers, but also as long-time mayors of the village. Johann Adam Böhm I held this office from 1909 until his death in 1927. His son immediately succeeded him and was local mayor until 1946. Both mayors carried out their official duties – as did Mayor Ackermann after them – in their residential building and not in the municipal town hall in Mainzer Straße. Their term of office also included the two world wars and thus very difficult years. An impression of this is given, for example, by the dignified treatment of the American soldiers who died in a bomber crash in Harxheim in 1943 by Mayor Johann Adam Böhm II.
For several years after the war, a medical consultation was held once a week in a separate room in the right-hand building by Dr. Walter Klein, a medical officer from Mommenheim. There was no general practitioner in Harxheim until 1973, when the practice was located in the old town hall at Mainzer Straße 6.
References:
Conversations with Werner Böhm
