By Reem Kamel-Al Sagheer and Brigitte Gisel
Bronnweiler is home to one of the largest Christmas trees in Germany. When last measured last year, the giant tree in the Reutlingen district was 34 meters tall and grows right next to St. Mary’s Church. During the Advent and Christmas season, it is illuminated daily with 3,000 electric LED bulbs. Christmas trees are a festive tradition that unites millions of people around the world every year in Christian countries. The Bronnweiler tree towers several meters above the church tower and is positioned close to the church wall, writes the Protestant parish on its website. At a height of one meter, it has a diameter of 2.07 meters. The fairy lights in the large Christmas tree are more than a kilometer long.
In Bronnweiler, there were even efforts to secure the tree an entry in the Guinness Book of Records. However, local mayor Friedel Kehrer-Schreiber did not pursue the plans any further, as the Guinness Book does not differentiate between grown and assembled trees, as reported by the Stuttgarter Zeitung newspaper. According to Christine Wandel, a Protestant pastor from Bronnweiler, the tree in the Edelweiss leisure park in Neukirchen, Bavaria, is currently the largest grown Christmas tree. It is 45.08 meters high. “But ours is by far the most beautiful,” says the pastor, who thinks the other one is a little “schnädrig”, or slender, in Swabian. There are also large Christmas trees in Eichsel near Rheinfelden in Baden and in Badenweiler that are more than 30 meters high.
The tree in question is a Wellingtonia, botanically Sequoiadendron giganteum. It was planted in 1864 when King Wilhelm I of Württemberg ordered seedlings in California for the botanical garden at Wilhelma. After far too many seedlings germinated, Wellingtonias were planted all over the country—including two in Bronnweiler. One of the two trees had to be felled in 1962. A replacement has since been planted. A plaque near the trunk of the tree tells the story.
As the tree grows very close to the church, the Protestant church commissions a “redwood appraisal” every five years, as pastor Christine Wandel explains. It is unclear whether the huge tree is harming the church. To be on the safe side, the statics of the church are regularly examined every year.
The tree is illuminated until January 6 from 5 p.m. until the early morning. The lights then go out again at 10 pm on Epiphany.
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Der Weihnachtsbaum-Riese in Bronnweiler. Foto: tünews INTERNATIONAL / Reem Al Sagheer-Kamel.
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