Reinhard weigand runs his finger across the screen of his smartphone and reminisces. He is the administrator of the facebook group "du weibt, du bist aus bad kissingen und umgebung" with around 5000 members. In the group, historical pictures and photos are regularly posted, some also of the cinemas that once existed in the city. Like the photo of the former city cinema on von hessing street. A red facade, above the entrance the word "city" is emblazoned in female script, at the bottom right of the picture a woman in a female winter coat is looking at the film posters on the notice board. "First the cinema apollo, then it became the film castle and later it was called "city cinema, tells the 63-year-old. He still remembers the gas station and the rough central parking lot that were right next to it.
Here, in his youth, he watched winnetou movies "and all the other stuff" viewed – in the filmburg still in one cinema hall, in the rebuilt city the productions were finally shown in two halls. "Sometimes, if you knew the projectionist, you were allowed to go into the projection room where the projector was and watch the film through the slits for free." He was happy about that, because as a schoolboy, going to the cinema was an expensive affair that he could not afford often, and when he could, it was with pocket money from grandma and grandpa. "Later, when you were a student, you often went to the movies", says weigand. There was plenty of choice in bad kissingen back then: three cinemas were operated simultaneously in the town between 1950 and 1970. From 1946 to 1975, films were also shown in the spa theater at the suggestion of spa director karl-heinz proehl.
The first cinema in bad kissingen
According to the records of the city archives, the apollo theater restaurant existed from 1912 onwards. It is possible that films were shown there, but this is not documented. What is certain, however, is that from 1922 onwards the "apollo-lichtpiele" became in the place where the savings bank complex stands today. In the apollo there were silent movies to see, which the teacher friedrich W. Grell accompanied live on the piano in the cinema. In 1931 there was the first change of name including change of operator to filmburg. In the middle of the 1970s it was renamed city kino when the gahler family took it over. Until the closure in 1990, it was the largest sound film theater in bad kissingen. "In october 1989 the savings bank bought the land", reports heinz schuhmann. He had started in the building organization at the money house and is still employed there today. In the spring of 1990, work began on the new bank building. "The city was demolished, the central parking lot was dissolved and the savings bank put its building on it", he says. The new central parking garage replaced the parking spaces that had been lost.
