RED OX INN – HEIDELBERG
Historic Student Hangout of Old Heidelberg
College students have been carving their names and initials in things since time immemorial. A record of having passed in the world. In old Heidelberg visiting the places where the students hung out over the past couple hundred years is a tourist pastime. There are several spots in the old city where the sons of the aristocracy of made their marks, carving their names on the tables, while swizzling beer and gnawing on pigs knuckles (see Student Prison Heidelberg). One of the best preserved is the Red Ox Inn (Zum Roten Ochsen) down near the river almost at the end of town. In this restaurant built in 1703 and still privately owned by the same family after a hundred and seventy years.
The building was bought in 1839 in the height of the city’s student bustle by butcher and landlord Albrecht Spengel, who earned the nickname “Daddy Spengel” from his student clientele. A clever businessman, Spengel managed to keep his public house up and running during the troubled times of the 1848 revolution, which brought Germany together into a modern state by 1865. Spengel introduced the idea of “beer coins” to replace money for paying up the bill, essentially a form of personal credit scrip to keep the beer flowing from the tap for tapped customers during a time of questionable national currency. The tradition of the beer coins continued through a couple of wars up until 1965. You’ll find four variations of the coins at the Red Ox, but today plastic is accepted.
On the walls in the various dining rooms and cubbys, both cozy and boisterous, are the historical evidence of the history, cultural and business life of Heidelberg in the form of pictures and paintings, trophies, beer mugs and drinking horns, telling the story of the old times. The likes of famous historic figures like Mark Twain (see Mark Twain Mystery in Heidelberg) and Otto Von Bismarck are recorded in the more than thirty guest books of the inn on display. When American soldiers came to Heidelberg after the end of World War II and the local base became one of the command centers of post war West Germany (see George Patton Accident) the Red Ox attracted the famous of the fifties and sixties with the signatures of political figures like Mamie Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles to movie stars, John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe. On the wall is a letter from Von Bismarck (see Fat Uniforms Bavarian Army Museum) commemorating a meeting when Daddy Spengel met his hero in 1892. After the famous German Chancellor shook his hand, Spengel ran from pub to pub announcing he wouldn’t wash his hand for eight days. Today, the Red Ox Inn is run by a sixth generation of the Spengel family and still a very popular restaurant and hangout for locals as well an attraction for visitors. © Bargain
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Red Ox Inn
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See Also:
PHILOSOPHERS WALK - A POETS VIEW
GIANT WINE BARREL OF HEIDELBERG
CHRISTMAS MARKETS IN HEIDELBERG
NECKAR RIVER CRUISES - HEIDELBERG
