It has been an evening with consequences. He brought back memories and rediscovered an old love, the love for a unique monument of technology, which at that time was threatened with decay. It has been a quarter of a century since Hanau bank employee Stefan Bahn and tax consultant Ludger Wösthoff exchanged their childhood experiences on a spring evening in the "Kleine Parkwirtschaft" in Wilhelmsbad. Bahn, born in Hanau in 1968, talked about his favourite toboggan run. As a boy, he dared to race down the steep carousel mountain on a sled.

Luise Glaser-Lotz

Correspondent of the Rhein-Main-Zeitung for the Main-Kinzig district.

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At the time, he was unaware that there was a unique and intricate technical facility in the mountain that once set the carousel horses in motion at the top of the hill. However, the horses were well known to him. He often slipped through the protective bars into the interior of the carousel to touch the proud animals and stroke their wooden manes. It was a magical place, Bahn recalls, a place that was facing its demise in 1998. An aerial bomb had damaged the monument during the war, after which wind and weather, most recently two heavy storms in 2005, hit it so hard that the foundations threatened to collapse.

Bahn and Wösthoff were outraged that no one wanted to take care of it, even though the building, which was built in 1780 according to plans by the architect Franz Ludwig von Cancrin, was the oldest fixed carousel in the world. That evening, the two decided to found a support association – which set in motion an aid campaign for a building the likes of which Hanau had never experienced before.

The state takes over the main financing

At first, only a few donations were collected, but gradually the association established itself, and at the latest with the organization of festivals in Wilhelmsbad and the sale of carousel wine and souvenirs around the carousel, the money increased. In view of the success of the association, the city agreed to double the sums raised. With so much civic involvement, the Hessian palace administration – and thus the state of Hesse – could not avoid initiating the renovation of the gem and taking over the main financing.

During the repair, the carousel disappeared into a huge wooden house, which the people of Hanau called "St. Wilhelm" because of its church-like appearance. Carriages and horses were restored in a workshop in the Odenwald. The complicated technology presented the experts with difficult tasks during the renovation.

The moment when the inner roof structure, which weighed several tons, had to be lifted was particularly exciting. With ropes and supports, the roof structure was hoisted up millimeter by millimeter for days. Even a small calculation error could have caused the construction to collapse. But the action succeeded, as did the strengthening of the turning mechanism in the mountain. When all European standards for the operation of a ride were finally met, the carousel could and was allowed to turn again after years of standstill.