Luther’s Tree in Worms-Pfiffligheim

Luther’s Tree, a landmark of Pfiffligheim, had long been Europe’s largest elm tree (more than 100ft tall and 40ft wide). It even surmounted the elm of Hampstead in Middlesex, which had long been thought to be the world’s largest elm tree. Presumably planted in the 16th century, it came into leaf still in 1948. Embraced by a stone bench, its stub is still there, with a wooden relief created in 1951 by the sculptor Gustav Nonnenmacher reminding of the tree’s history and legend. One year after another refurbishment in 1998, a new elm tree was planted in its heart.

image: Early depiction of Luther’s tree in Pfiffligeim

Heart of elm …

image: Luther’s tree photo from the Municipal Archives

… Luther’s tree in the suburb of Pfiffligheim.

Bild: the wooden relief mounted to the old tree’s stub

Tales from the woods … the wooden relief mounted to the old tree’s stub.

New life …

image: Luther’s tree in Worms-Pfiffligheim today

Luther’s tree today

Tree ‘under which Luther is said to have preached’

Luther’s tree has always been a landmark of the suburb of Pfiffligheim. Old drawings, postcards and photos, and even modern works of art reflect the tree’s former enormous height. In 1809 the Romantic dramatist and poet Zacharias Werner related to Goethe about the ‘thick lime tree near Worms, under which Luther is said to have preached.’

Lorenz Schneidler, a head teacher from Worms, arranged for the giant elm tree to be drawn and engraved. At the same time, this illustration is the first veduta of the village of Pfiffligheim, and the ratio between houses and the tree gives an impression of why people where so impressed by this natural wonder.

Poems and prose accounts tell us about the wonder of a droughty stick that grew into that majestic Luther’s tree. Until it was destroyed, in fact no visitor would have been allowed to take leave of the village without having paid tribute to the towering centre of the village.

Destroyed by the forces of nature

On 26 October 1870, a terrible windstorm ravaged the city, hurling down ashlars from an arched window of the Worms Cathedral, busting some of its windows and tearing down a cross with a weather cock from one of its towers. The storm also raged in the suburbs of Hochheim and Pfiffligheim, unroofing houses and bursting two thirds of the massive elm tree’s trunk. The village’s budget accounts of 1871 tell us that selling the broken wood yielded 133 guilders.

Every effort was taken to preserve the remaining branches and the stub. The soil was dug and fertilised heavily, and in fact the stem put forth buds again. Unlike people from Worms, Pfiffligheim locals began to call the tree Luther’s tree only after 1900. Prior to that, it was known as the Ruschtebaam to them.

To save the tree, exposed parts of its interior were tarred and filled up with bricks in 1899, and the tree was fenced. When the tree collapsed again in a thunderstorm on 29 August 1912, the city council provided means, and the elm was bordered with a stone bench. It started to bud again and kept playing a key role in cultural affairs and sports, confirmations and marriages, but in 1949 it was ultimately at its last gasp.

... view city map (German)

(source: www.heimatverein-worms-pfiffligheim.de)

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