The letter-to-the-editor was skeptical.
Almost every day he reads a note in the newspaper about the newly created institution “Hochtaunus Nature Park”.
For example, the news that more parking spaces, sunbathing areas and campsites should be created.
"Should our beautiful Taunus eventually become an Eldorado for all sorts of people who don't know what to do with their free time, who bring noise and unrest everywhere, so that the great silence is over, that you can't hear a bird singing anymore because of the blaring and squeaking from the many radios, etc.?" That was the man's question in a letter to the FAZ in 1965.
Florentine Fritzen
Correspondent in the Hochtaunus district
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The “Taunus Nature Park Purpose Association” was already three years old and the dichotomy between peace and hustle and bustle in the low mountain range had long been evident.
The conflict continues in this anniversary year, in which the nature park will be 60 years old.
Because it includes areas of the Hochtaunus, Hintertaunus and Vordertaunus in a total of six districts, it has not been called "Hochtaunus Nature Park" since 2012, but "Taunus Nature Park".
From the start it was intended to be an oasis of calm where people from the densely populated Rhine-Main area could relax.
Oases of tranquility - that's also what the program for the nature parks that have been created all over Germany since 1956 says.
But even then it was clear: the areas were not only used for nature conservation, but also for local recreation tourism and tourism.
When the nature park in the Taunus was created 60 years ago, the district president of Wiesbaden called the new facilities a "socio-political requirement of the time".
So that as many people as possible could enjoy the forests, meadows and mountains, parking spaces were needed.
In June 1963, the Taunus Nature Park Association announced seven new parking spaces for motor vehicles.
Seven existing ones would be expanded,
so that there would be additional parking space for three hundred vehicles.
According to FAZ reporting, the costs for this: 60,000 marks.
A good year later, the newspaper reported that there were 50 parking spaces with 3,000 parking spaces on the more than 1,000 square kilometers of the nature park, and that another 20 parking spaces were under construction.
Hiking trails often start there.
The nature park also created these new ones and had a Frankfurt publishing house print a guide to them.
Soon there was also a road map for the area.
In the autumn of 1964, the newspaper reported that the nature park had “proven itself as a recreation area for the population of the densely populated Rhine-Main area during the past, extraordinarily hot and dry summer.” .
For the association, this was an "incentive to intensify its work".
what he did
On a Sunday in October 1965 he made a traffic census: 50,000 people visited the recreation area, most of them came from the cities in the Rhine-Main area between Wiesbaden and Hanau.
In 1967, however, the association had to forego investments because it was unclear whether there would still be enough federal and state subsidies.
At the same time, the district administrator, who was chairman of the association, proposed the next project: he wanted to build a "Hesse Park" in the nature park, an open-air museum with old buildings from Hessian villages, a mill, bakery and game reserve.
As a location, he suggested an area between villages that today belong to Weilrod and Grävenwiesbach.
The idea became reality in Neu-Anspach in 1974.
Mill, bakehouse and game reserve.
As a location, he suggested an area between villages that today belong to Weilrod and Grävenwiesbach.
The idea became reality in Neu-Anspach in 1974.
Mill, bakehouse and game reserve.
As a location, he suggested an area between villages that today belong to Weilrod and Grävenwiesbach.
The idea became reality in Neu-Anspach in 1974.
When it was founded in 1962, the Taunus Nature Park was one of 16; today it is one of 104 nature parks, which together make up more than a quarter of the area of Germany.
In the Taunus it covers more than 1300 square kilometers - Hessen is 21,000 square kilometers.
This includes areas of the Hochtaunuskreis, Main-Taunus-Kreis, Wetteraukreis, Lahn-Dill-Kreis, Limburg-Weilburg district and Gießen district.
The city of Frankfurt is a member of the association, but without territorial shares.