The history of the village of Buben and the Bubenre fraternity The origins of Alt-Bubenreuth People settled in the area that is now part of the municipality of Bubenreuth in prehistoric times. A Bronze Age burial mound (ca. 1700-1400 BC) was discovered in 1923 during forestry work north of Meilwaldstrasse. There are also settlement finds from the older urn burial period (1200-1000 BC) and the Iron Age (800 BC to the birth of Christ). Bubo, the namesake A settlement with the name Bubenreuth first appears in writing as "Bubenrode" in 1243. The place is mentioned more by chance as part of the redemption of some goods pledged by the Bishopric of Bamberg. From the shape of the field and the place name, it can be deduced that it is a planned clearing village with ten or eleven farms, which was created as part of a large wave of new settlements in the High Middle Ages in the wooded area along the Regnitz and Pegnitz. Presumably a Budbert (Bubo for short), who acted as a follower of the Imperial Ministerial von Gründlach, gave the name to the clearing on the Entlesbach. Bridges over the religious schism Since the Reformation, Bubenreuth was a place politically and religiously divided between the Catholic Principality of Bamberg and the Protestant Margraviate of Brandenburg-Bayreuth. The residents had to come to terms with each other and built various bridges to each other, overcoming what divides them. To this day, the two denominations are more or less balanced. The Catholics were able to inaugurate their first church, St. Joseph, in 1927. In the meantime, the Protestant St. Luke's Church (1957) and the Catholic parish church of the Visitation of Mary (1964/65) have been added. Population development During the Thirty Years' War, Bubenreuth was completely destroyed and depopulated. In 1763, Bubenreuth was mentioned on a map as a "mere village without a castle". It was not until the 1820s that the last site of the Thirty Years' War was settled. The 190 inhabitants (1818) lived from agriculture, horseradish cultivation and ice production. In 1939, Bubenreuth had 415 inhabitants. The unanimous decision of the (old) Bubenreuth municipal council under Mayor Hans Paulus to "make room" in their community for homeless people, who made up four times the population, was unprecedented in German history. This marked the beginning of Bubenreuth's rise from an agrarian suburb of Erlangen to the new European center of string instrument making at the end of 1949. The influx of displaced musical instrument makers from the Egerland caused the population to rise to over 3,000 by 1963. Thanks to the influx of other new residents since the 1970s, Bubenreuth now has more than 4,500 residents. An exhibition in the Bubenreuth town hall provides a deep insight into the fascinating history of Bubenreuth. Dr. Christian Hoyer The Mörsbergei and its students There is life here!" wrote the freedom poet Ernst Moritz Arndt in 1798 about Bubenreuth, a popular meeting place for Erlangen students. "There were boys from Erlangen here, and it was loud!" In the autumn of 1817, these students sent some representatives to the Wartburg Festival. The returnees brought a spirit of optimism to Franconia: freedom, an end to class differences, a united German fatherland! On December 1, 1817, the founding of a "general fraternity", later known as the Bubenreuth fraternity, was decided. The young fraternity was soon threatened with danger: in 1819, the student Carl Ludwig Sand murdered the comedy writer August von Kotzebue; Sand considered him a spy and traitor to the fatherland. The crime was followed by the Carlsbad Decrees, and the fraternity members were declared enemies of the state. Bubenreuth became a place of refuge and gave the fraternity its name. Vivat Bubenruthia!" we read the Latinized form of the name as a family register entry in 1823. In 1833 the fraternity had to formally dissolve, but the Bubenreuth spirit continued to work powerfully. "Let us separate ourselves from the form, what is the need? The spirit lives in all of us, and our fortress is God!", concludes the speech by speaker August Esper on May 9, 1833. He plants a linden tree in the garden of the Mörsbergei. The "Esper-Linde" is a reminder of this time to this day. In the following years, the Bubenreuther fraternity experienced a rapid upswing. At times, every fifth student in Erlangen was a member of the Bubenreuthers. In 1889, the Erlangen House on Östlichen Stadtmauerstrasse was inaugurated. When the rumor arose in 1914 that Jean, "the Schang" Mörsberger, the landlord of the Mörsbergeri, wanted to sell the old Bubenreuther home, the fraternity purchased the property. Over the years, the village population grew together with its students to form a close community that is unparalleled to this day. The church fair became a regular event.