Jörg Renneisen has received various honorary degrees in recent years. He is therefore allowed to call himself “Christmas tree beautician” or “spruce surgeon”. Renneisen is the man who pretties the Christmas tree on the Römerberg, if that is necessary. In the previous year he had plenty of work after "Bertl" arrived at the Römerberg from Austria in a bad state of disbelief and caused disbelief. A few days later, of course, the world looked different. Renneisen had screwed and fixed branches again, and "Bertl" turned out to be a splendid Christmas tree after all, when tinsel and fairy lights were attached. "Gretel will make us less work," he says of the tree that a select group of people looking for a Christmas tree had christened. "That a few branches are sawed off for transport and screwed on again,Part of the plan. ”Renneisen is an electrician and has long been responsible for the fairy lights at the Christmas market, he has also been illuminating the tree for a long time, and at some point the task of tree cosmetics was added. “I grew into it,” he says.

Not the most beautiful, but not a "shocker like Bertl"

Daniel Meuren

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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This year the tree came from the Spessart, where Matthias Krug, who had been selling Christmas trees at the Eiserner Steg in his parents' business since he was a child, had received the order to choose a tree.

Krug found a spruce in the forest near Jossgrund that met the demands of Thomas Feda, Managing Director of Tourismus und Congress GmbH Frankfurt (TCF) and organizer of the Christmas market.

The tree in the forest is of course one thing, the tree on the Römerberg after arriving on a heavy-duty truck is the other. Some of the 150 or so spectators who followed the two-hour spectacle of being erected with two crane trucks spoke of a “Derrappel” or were amazed at the “crooked servant Ruprecht”. Others, however, also saw the potential like Krug himself. "I'm already glad that it arrived safely, and it looks good too," says Krug, who is delighted with the honor and donates his proceeds to the association "Wünsche am Horizont" . Whereby imagination is needed, like Krug, to imagine the splendor with which the 8.5-tonne "Gretel" will delight the visitors to the Christmas market from November 22nd. Because before the Römer, the more than 90-year-old spruce looked significantly narrower on Thursday due to transport than in the Spessart,thinned out in the middle where it still seemed full of branches in the forest. In addition, the spruce slopes slightly towards the Main. “The tree straightens up again after it has built up tension while lying down. It has to hang out for a few days, then you will see that it looks good, ”promises Krug. Then Jörg Renneisen will also lend a hand before “Gretel” will stand proudly on the Römerberg in ten days.

In spite of the annual malice, TCF managing director Feda has no doubts that Frankfurt will again have a fairytale Christmas tree to match its name. “Gretel is not the most beautiful specimen of all time, but a tree that we can get beautiful with a reasonable amount of effort. She is not a shocker like Bertl was last year. ”Feda refers above all to the proportions that match the Roman gable. “And for me a criterion: you will see Gretel from the southern Mainkai. It just has to be 30 meters that the tree measures, then it gives a great picture of all over the world. "

This is also important to Mayor Peter Feldmann (SPD), who personally welcomed the tree.

“The arrival of the Christmas tree is a beautiful tradition that tells us that we are heading for Christmas,” he said.

"Gretel" heard it calmly.

A video on the arrival of “Gretels” can be found online at: www.faz.net/Gretel.