Adonis and Bishops in the Lubusz Region
Every spring, hundreds of nature lovers who want to be enchanted by the blooming Adonis flowers are drawn to the Oder slopes near Lebus. The Adonis slopes there are well-known throughout the region. They were declared a nature reserve as early as 1921, making them the second oldest nature reserve in Brandenburg. Without landscape conservation measures, the rare occurrences of this steppe plant could not be preserved. This is why the Lebus local history association organizes the care of the Oder slopes in cooperation with the NABU Foundation, the regional group of the "Lebuser Land" nature friends and committed citizens.
The Lebus local history association not only looks after the Adonis slopes, it also runs the cultural heritage site "Haus Lebuser Land". The small local history museum collects and presents its own regional history. In permanent and changing themed exhibitions, visitors are shown the highlights of the long history of the town on the Oder. The first settlements and the fortification of the castle hill date back to 1100 BC. The Lebus fortifications are therefore probably one of the oldest and largest known fortifications in central Germany. It is assumed that Lebus was probably the most important supra-regional cultural and trading center in the middle Oder area at that time. First mentioned in documents in 1109, Lebus was granted German town rights in 1226. Around a hundred years earlier, the Polish Duke Boleslaw III Krzywousty founded the Polish diocese of Lebus. For a long time, this diocese determined the back and forth of history on the Oder until it was secularized in the second half of the 16th century. At the end of that century, the Lebus domain was established there. Visitors can find out how the story continues in the Lebus Museum. But before we go there, we ask our faithful travel companion Theodor Fontane what he once found out about Lebus.
Theodor describes Lebus from the deck of a paddle steamer as he travels downstream on the Oder. A journey that could certainly have its pitfalls, because even then there was low water and steamers got stuck. "The regulation of the Oder bed, an article that appeared in the newspapers, would perhaps remedy this problem and make it possible for steamships to compete with the railway," our chronicler wrote in 1863. A description of the situation that can be read in the newspapers today. In addition, boatmen at that time had to share the river with "Polish or Bohemian-Upper Silesian wooden raftsmen." If we are to believe Fontane, these encounters were rarely without friction between the two professional groups.
“There is a fairly busy steamship traffic between Frankfurt and Stettin during the summer months. Tugboats and passenger boats come and go, and the columns of smoke from the chimneys cast their shadows over the sails of the Oder barges, which often make this journey in whole squadrons. … The passenger boats leave Frankfurt twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and make the journey to Küstrin in two hours, to Schwedt in eight hours, and to Stettin in ten hours.” When Fontane’s steamer docks in Lebus, the poet has a brief opportunity to look at the “old episcopal city.” “Of course, nothing here reminds us of the days of former glory and fame. The old cathedral, the even older castle, are gone, and one cannot help but smile when one reads in old chronicles that fierce battles were fought for the possession of Lebus, that here the Slavic and the Germanic worlds, Polish kings and Thuringian dukes, clashed in fierce battles, and that the battle cry more than once was: "Lebus or death."
He attributes the small town the "picturesque character of a wine-growing town" and Lebus has indeed retained much of this. "The town, as small as it is, is divided into an upper and lower town. The former stretches, it seems, along the ridge of the mountain, the latter stretches along the bank and follows the windings of the river and hill. Between the two, on the slope, and, as it is said, in the same place where the old cathedral once stood, the Lebus church now stands, a modern building. The "lower town" has courtyards and stairs that lead to the water; the "upper town" has zigzag paths and ravine roads that descend the slope to the lower town. Part of the city's life and traffic moves along these paths and streets."
The local museum "Haus Lebuser Land" was originally a school building, but was later converted to residential use and slowly fell into disrepair. As part of the renovation of the old town, it was saved from demolition and in 2005 became the headquarters of the local history association and museum. "The association's 80 or so members organize changing exhibitions on regional topics," says Helga Töpfer from the museum advisory board. But the permanent exhibits, which bear witness to the earlier life of the people of Lebuser, are worth a visit. The archaeological exhibition, for example, provides information about the history of the excavations and shows various finds. Helga Töpfer takes us to the museum's real "treasure", the bronze hoard that was discovered on the castle hill in 2003. In the museum, however, only replicas can be seen. The local history association had collected many donations to have the expensive, deceptively real-looking replicas made. The valuable originals, over 100 individual pieces from the late Bronze Age, are kept in the Brandenburg State Archaeological Museum. A silver treasure found near Lebus was also briefly on display in the museum before it was locked away. It can be assumed that the soil in Lebus still has a few surprises in store.
Also worth seeing is the permanent exhibition on the top floor of the museum about the life and work of Günter Eich (1907-2007). The writer and radio play author, who was born in Lebus, was a founding member of Group 47 (e.g. Heinrich Böll, Ilse Aichinger, Ingeborg Bachmann, Martin Walser, Günter Grass). He was considered a central figure in the German literary scene. In 1951, Eich wrote the poem "Oder, my river" for a radio play adaptation of Fontane's crime story "Under the pear tree". An excerpt from this:
Or, my river,
It seeps in drops
from mountains of time,
Water that tastes like childhood.
Or, my river,
a width to call Holüber,
a November for rain.
Veil drawn over the beet fields,
indistinguishable meadow bank and mountain bank,
Voices on groynes and towpaths,
among the straggly willows and reeds,
bells from Frankfurt
and the legends of the Reitwein mountains,
the ferry in Lebus
and the house right of the Oder, where I
I was born. …
Cultural heritage site: Haus Lebuser Land, Schulstraße 7, 15326 Lebus, 03 36 04-230, www.heimatverein-lebus.de
For more information about the Oderbruch Museum and the cultural heritage in the Oderbruch, please see here.
The Musenhof is aptly named, as travelers to the Oderbruch can enjoy a wonderful moment of peace and relaxation here before visiting the architectural monuments of Kunersdorf. There is the church built between 1950 and 1955 with its dome roof, which is unusual for the area, the palace park, in the planning of which Peter Joseph Lenné may have been involved, or the family burial place of the von Lestwitz-Itzenplitz family. It was designed according to plans by Carl Gotthard Langhans (Brandenburg Gate) in the style of German classicism. The gravestones and urns were designed by Johann Gottfried Schadow, Christian Daniel Rauch, Karl Friedrich Schinkel and Hugo Hagen, among others.
Cultural Heritage Site: Dorfstraße 1, 16269 Bliesdorf OT Kunersdorf, 0 33 456 – 15 12 27, www.kunersdorfer-musenhof.de
For more information about the Oderbruch Museum and the cultural heritage in the Oderbruch, please see here.