Gradierwerke Bad Rothenfelde

An inconspicuous little door opens somewhere in the 412 meter long and ten meter high blackthorn wall of the new graduation house. You climb a few steps, step through - and you are in another world. A little light falls in from far above, a little brightness shimmers through the piled branches. And once your eyes have adjusted to the twilight, you gradually see the steady flow and trickle that you had previously only heard. What looks very solid and compact from the outside turns out to be a delicate wooden construction in the demonstration corridor and on the way to the inhalation chamber.

If you bought a plastic cape at the start of the tour, you now know why. Because the trickling over brushwood causes a lot of water to evaporate and the salt content of the brine increases, so that drops on clothing quickly turn into bright white stains. In the inhalation chamber, salt stains even appear without drops, as the brine mist is so thick here that you can barely see two meters away. Breathe in deeply - 20 minutes are enough to clear your sinuses, cough and hoarseness are blown away and allergy sufferers can smile again.

The principle of how the salt content in the brine is increased in the salt works may be simple. However, the guided tours shed light on the sophistication of the historical technology required to achieve this. This also includes the ascent to the reconstructed wind art on the new graduation tower. Wind power drives the pump here, with which the brine is brought up again and again so that it trickles and loses more and more water - until it is finally boiled in the boiling house with as little fuel as possible, dried and thus refined into salt. At least that's how it used to be. Production ceased in 1969, as salt could be extracted much more cheaply elsewhere. Nevertheless, the graduation towers remained, as Bad Rothenfelde had long been a brine spa and the aerosol-rich air in the spa park was indispensable.

A highlight of the tour is the ascent to the graduation tower: the view over the town, the spa park and the Teutoburg Forest is simply magnificent. Another highlight lies in the depths, in the brine corridors from the 18th century, which were partially uncovered and made accessible a few years ago. Here, the brine flowed under brick vaults to the graduation house. One final tip: Don't be frightened when the tour guides set the historic conveyor technology in motion.