The town of Kitzingen, in collaboration with the cultural association PAM e.V., is looking for photographs from the first wine festival in 1952 up to the present day. The focus is on historical photographs.
The first Kitzingen Wine Festival took place in 1952 at the Floria-Geyer-Halle. Fritz Schröck, a master tailor from Kitzingen, is regarded as the ‘father of the wine festival’. Schröck was a member of the Kitzingen Tourist Association and had, without further ado, taken charge of organising the wine festival. The former costume master at the Nuremberg Opera House took great pleasure in organising large-scale events. A newspaper report mentions an illuminated parade of boats on the Main. A hot-air balloon was launched, and even back then there was a fireworks display to mark the wine festival. So there were more than enough opportunities for exciting and beautiful photographs.
The Kitzingen wine festivals were, then as now, a meeting place for young and old alike. And visitors came from all over the surrounding area. In the 1950s and 1960s, Deutsche Bahn ran special trains carrying around 800 guests from Nuremberg. An extensive programme of events was organised: festive parades, fishing jousting, rowing regattas, horse riding tournaments and much more. Clubs of all kinds were invited and took part in the preparations. “It would be a shame if these memories were lost,” says Klaus Christof of PAM e.V., who hopes to find plenty of photographs in private archives.
We are also happy to accept wine festival posters, printed wine festival glasses featuring various designs, and commemorative publications containing wine songs composed especially for the festivals. All images and items will, of course, be returned safely to their owners once they have been scanned and documented. Contact: Doris Badel, Kitzingen Town Archives, email: doris.badel@stadt-kitzingen.de, tel. 09321/20-1501; Klaus Christof, email: mail@kd-christof.de, Tel. 09321/382794. Photographs may also be handed in at the Town Hall to the Public Relations Unit, Level 2, Room 2.5. The owners agree that the City Archives may store the details of the photographs and, where appropriate, publish them.