Photo of the Month - June 2022

What was that building opposite the new fire station on Dingdener Straße that was demolished two years after a roof fire in 2019? "... I was a guest there recently," the former newspaper editor Josef Stanik knew to report about it more than 60 years ago. He looked back even further into the past, when the innkeeper Bernhard Klein-Wiele invited "to a pleasurable and cheerful stay" in his inn "Zum Neutor". This is now recalled by the Bocholt city archives.

It was the merchant Heinrich Gerbaulet who built this house in Ellerings Kamp on the Chaussee from Bocholt to Dingden and was granted permission to run an inn and tavern on 21 February 1899.

Just two years later Johann Schwinges from Duisburg took over the inn, which he handed over to Karl Stuwe at the beginning of 1904 for health reasons. " Stuwe is not in the best of reputations, he and his wife tend to drink," was the verdict of police inspector Wilhelm Korn on the new owner at the time. The officer suspected that the penniless Stuwe "would be the straw man of the local Social Democrats". The money for the pub would be raised by the Social Democrats, and Stuwe would then be their landlord, Korn stated.

Permit in June 1908

In 1908, the master moulder Magnus Fladung unsuccessfully applied for the business licence. The SPD member was also a tenant of the Glückauf-Brauerei AG in Gelsenkirchen. Instead, police inspector Korn supported the application of the haulage contractor Bernhard Klein-Wiele, whom he assumed with certainty would not leave his business to the Social Democrats as a meeting place. Klein-Wiele had previously failed several times with applications to run a restaurant in his own house nearby.

On 9 June 1908 he received a permit to run the restaurant "Zum Neutor", which he then renovated and opened on 17 August 1908 with a large concert. At that time, the house included a garden restaurant and a grocery store. As can be seen in the picture, family members and neighbours probably stood in front of the inn at that time and posed for the photographer. The tall trees along the road are also striking.

After nine decades with frequently changing owners, the inn on Dingdener Straße was finally abandoned. As a result of fire damage in December 2017, the building was recently replaced by a modern apartment building.