Tradition & Change

Since the Middle Ages, salt was extracted from an enclosed area within the city walls of Halle, called the »Thal« or »the Halle«. Here, to the west of the market square, were four brine wells: Deutscher Brunnen, Gutjahr, Meteritz and Hackeborn. All the wells – up to 35 metres deep – carried brine of varying quantity and quality. Around them, about 110 boiling houses crowded into a very small space. These were called »Kothen« in Low German, which means small simple hut. In these Huts, salt workers and their servants boiled the brine to produce table salt.

The area of the Thalsaline was precisely marked out with boundary stones. The carved coats of arms indicated whether one was moving on city or Thalsaline territory.

As city and regional rulers, the archbishops of Magdeburg basically owned the rights to the Thalsaline. They gave the brine in varying proportions mostly as fiefs to wealthy citizens of Halle, who thus became owners of a certain amount of brine. In 1479, as a result of intense inner-city conflicts, the archbishop confiscated a quarter of all Thal estates – the »Quartsole« and some boiling huts – for his own purposes. These sovereign rights were also claimed by the Hohenzollerns as new sovereigns in 1680.

The ceremonial »Lehntafelhalten« at the end of the year served to officially confirm new brine owners. In the presence of representatives of the court, the town and the salt works, all the ownerships were carved into wax tablets with a stylus. Each well had three of these elaborately bound wooden tablets with the same content: one each for the Thal court, the sovereign and the town council.

Brine owners were not allowed to have their brine boiled into salt without further ado. Only Pfänner – many of them successful merchants – were entitled to do so. To do so, they had to be married townspeople with their own house and household in Halle, own a boiling hut and have an amount of brine. That is why most Pfänner were also owners of brine amounts. Those who did not have a boiling hut or brine amounts could lease both from other owners for a fee.

As independent entrepreneurs, the Pfänner organised themselves into the Pfännerschaft, an early form of cooperative with its own assets, coat of arms and seal, in order to run the saltworks collectively for the benefit of all. They were responsible for the maintenance of the saltworks and issued instructions to their workers. As many Pfänner were usually represented on the city council, they formed a weighty factor in Halle's city affairs.

When the town changed, there was also movement in the Pfännerschaft. This is particularly evident in the Brandenburg-Prussian period after 1680. Around 1700, most Pfänner still came from a Pfänner family or had married into one, but there were more and more newcomers: professors from the Friedrich University founded in 1694, for example, but above all Prussian civil servants.

The physician and university professor Friedrich Hoffmann, for example, worked with salt out of medical interest and published on the subject. As a Pfänner, he was keen on innovation and experimentation and was one of the first members of the Pfännerschaft to convert their boiling huts to run on hard coal.

The saltworks formed a separate legal area within the city. Production and administration, ownership and use, peacekeeping and sanctions, but also occupational health and safety and disposal issues were regulated in the Thal Law – a kind of company code. It ensured the smooth running of salt production and provided the greatest possible yields.

In addition, the salt count appeared at traditional ceremonies and public events as a representative of the saltworks and the Pfännerschaft. He was thus an important mediator between the peasants and the authorities. Among the most famous salt counts in Halle were Friedrich Hondorff (1628–1694) and Johann Christoph von Dreyhaupt (1699–1768).

Three senior well masters stood by the salt count as administrators. They supervised the brine wells and the entire salt production and were elected annually by the city council. Subordinate to them were the sub well masters, who supervised the correct distribution of the brine to the boiling huts as well as necessary construction measures and mediated in disputes. In addition, four Thal supervisors were responsible for the maintenance of the wells and well houses as well as the paths and buildings in the Thal Salt Works.

With the death of its last administrator, August of Saxe-Weissenfels (1614–1680), the Archdiocese of Magdeburg – to which Halle also belonged – became a secular duchy in the dominion of the Electorate of Brandenburg in 1680. Now the Brandenburg electors and later Prussian kings from the House of Hohenzollern were the ruling sovereigns.

Until 1680 there were no salt works on Brandenburg soil. That is why the electors had to import their salt at great expense, mainly evaporated salt from Lüneburg, but also sea salt from the Atlantic coast. Now, however, this time seemed to be over at last. For Magdeburg's newly acquired territory had no fewer than five productive salt works, including the salt works in Halle. Above all, its salt was to supply the provinces of Electorate Brandenburg in the future, end the long dependence on Lüneburg and fill the state coffers.

In order to be able to compete with the quality of Lüneburg salt, the »Great Elector« Friedrich Wilhelm decided to set up his own salt production. The proposal for this came from the Brandenburg finance official Christian Friedrich von Kraut, the son of a Pfänner. Kraut was appointed salt director and managed the electoral boiling plant. From then on, there were two salt companies directly next to each other on the Thalsaline: the old Pfänner's salt works and the new state salt works with their own boiling huts, separate administration and sworn salt workers.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, Halle's importance as a salt town dwindled and with it the value of the old salt works. This was not only for economic reasons. For the Pfänners were increasingly distancing themselves from their saltworks, which offered a small, reliable income, but hardly any prestige. More social prestige was promised by the civil service, with or without a title of nobility.