Dürkheim Giant Barrel

The idea of creating a giant barrel to memorialize Palatinate and therefore also German wine came to winery owner Fritz Keller when he built a "normal" barrel for his master cooper exam in the early 1930s. After a long period of preparation, he set about realizing his dream at the beginning of 1934.

The undertaking was huge. In the Black Forest, almost 200 fir trees, each around 40 meters high, were felled for the gigantic barrel construction. One Christmas tree was needed to make one of the 178 barrel staves, each 15 meters long and 15 centimeters thick. The transport of these extremely long fir trunks from the Black Forest to the Palatinate was only possible at night and with a special permit. Fritz Keller and his helpers processed more than 200 cubic meters of wood to create the giant barrel with a diameter of 13.5 meters and a volume of 1.7 million liters. After weeks of hard work, the giant barrel stood, which today has become an eye-catcher next to the Bad Dürkheim - Kaiserslautern federal road. Until 1934, the giant barrel in Heidelberg Castle was the largest barrel in the world with a length of nine meters, a diameter of seven meters and a volume of 221,000 liters. In contrast to the gigantic Dürkheimer barrel, its “Heidelberg brother” was already filled once.
（duerkheimer-fass.de/cms1/fass-about/die-fassgeschichte)

The huge wine barrel is simply part of a visit to Bad Dürkheim, regardless of whether you drink wine or not; it is practically the symbol of the city

Anyone who has ever been to Bad Dürkheim has to stop there once