Faces of Wiehre

Situated south of the Dreisam River and incorporated into Freiburg in 1819, the former suburb Wiehre recently celebrated its one thousandth birthday, having been mentioned first in written documents in 1008. During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Wiehre experienced a housing boom that yielded some expansive Jugendstil constructions and revealed a stylistic penchant for faces under, over, and next to windows. Today, Wiehre is one of Freiburg's poshest neighborhoods.

A mystery solved

A few weeks ago, I took a long walk from Herdern to Guenterstal, a village in the valley of the same name. As I passed through the Freiburg neighborhood Wiehre, I was on the lookout for Stolpersteine and sculpted faces on the sides of buildings; Wiehre has an abundance of both.

Near the corner of Zasiusstrasse and Brombergstrasse, I was surprised to see an ornate six-pointed star on the side of a building. I looked around for a plaque that would tell me something about the building and Jewish history in Wiehre, but I found nothing.

Later I searched the internet for various combinations of Wiehre, Juden, Davidstern, Zasiusstrasse, Brombergstrasse, and Cafe au Lait (the name of the coffee shop that currently occupies the space), and again found nothing. I thought it odd that so obvious a symbol wouldn't have some online documentation.

I searched again this evening, and when I left Juden out of the equation, I finally got a hit. It turns out the star isn't a Davidstern at all: it's a brewer's star, a guild emblem that has been used in southern Germany since the early 15th century.

In his 2002 thesis on the history of brewing signs, Matthias Trum explores whether there is a historical connection between the evolution of the brewer's star and the Star of David. He concludes that a relationship might indeed have existed, originating in an earlier, more widespread use of the hexagram as a symbol for protection. For Jews, the star became a military shield; for brewers, it was a shield against fire and demons.

This information of course changes how I see the Wiehre star. The cornucopia above on the left and the hops above on the right suddenly appear glaringly obvious. And that the structure formerly housed a brewery also helps makes sense of the three smiling faces over a door further along the side of the building. A satyr, Ceres, and Silenus perhaps? In any case, they look like they're having a pretty good time.

City seal

The Freiburg Stadtarchiv has a collection of Freiburg city seals and stamps dating back to the 13th century. A seal from 1245 depicts the town wall with three archways, three towers, two watchmen blowing horns, four stars, a fleur-de-lis, and the text, "SIGILLVM:CIVITATIS:DE VRIBVRCH IN BRISGAVDIA:" ("Civic seal of Freiburg im Breisgau"). Copies of the seal can be found all around the Altstadt on the charming manhole covers, bearing the less regal text, "Kanalisation Freiburg i. Br."

The 13th-century values represented by the logo became a life-sized physical reality (minus giant horn blowers) in 1895-96, with the construction of the Wasserwerk building on a hill above Wiehre (along the southern edge of Freiburg). Presumably the manhole covers then followed as part of the new water works branding concept. The building is known as the Wasserschloessle because it's too small and too kitschig to be a Wasserschloss.