As a rule, great joy follows a victory – whether this will also be the case in the vote for the “Demolition of the Year 2023” is doubtful. This year, this title goes to a former farmhouse in the Rödensdorf district of Bayreuth, as the Bavarian State Association for Homeland Preservation announced on Thursday. Built in 1802, the dilapidated house was demolished last year, even though it was considered a monument.
One of the most beautiful half-timbered houses in eastern Upper Franconia perished so unnecessarily, said Günter Dippold, deputy chairman of the state association and district home administrator of Upper Franconia. Within the past two weeks, 1,400 people had voted on the most shameful building demolition of 2023. More than three times as many as in last year’s vote. 374 of the votes went to the Rödensdorf farmhouse.
Franconian houses also came in second and third place: the sacrificial wing of the historic Erlangen sanatorium and nursing home (“Hupfla”), in which hundreds of patients died in so-called starvation wards during the Nazi era, received 350 votes. The old Kulmbach freight station collected 180 votes.