Collecting

‘Magic Nordhessen!!!’

Kassel, Vorderer Westen: a shop where things have been collected for almost a century. We took a look inside.
By Mayla Lüst (photos), Paul Geiersbach (text)

Black-and-white portrait of Paul Geiersbach, a student on the Visual Journalism and Documentary Photography degree programme, taken against a plain dark background. He looks straight into the camera with a neutral expression. His mid-length dark-brown hair falls loosely, and he wears a simple, understated jacket.

Push open the door and the first thing you hear is the locomotive. A small model railway trundles round between the wine racks, carrying helicopters, containers, timber – and somehow time itself. Because time has stood still here for decades.

Karl-Heinz Jennewein, known as Carlo, is the second generation to run ‘Wein-Müller’ in Kassel’s Vorderer Westen district. The wine shop has been going for a century – with one interruption: in 1943 a bomb hit the original shop on Hohentorstraße. Today it is a crammed, dark-panelled universe of pennants, fan merchandise, spirits and miniature trains.

One Google reviewer summed it up like this: ‘Magic Nordhessen!!!’

A counter covered in small ornaments, bottles and souvenirs, including a figure of a boy in a red coat, a small green ball-shaped plant and a red Bayern Munich fan-shop bag.

‘Top wine shop🍷…quirky, old-school interior…🚂model railway outstanding…as is the rum selection😉👌really knowledgeable advice👍you’ve got to drop by….Magic North Hesse…!!!’ – Google review

Shadow of a Ferris wheel on a wall with a hexagonal pattern

The shadow of the model Ferris wheel on the wallpaper. The little Ferris wheel sits at the very top of the back bar in the shop, behind the counter.

Framed portrait of a man in uniform with a peaked cap and tie, placed against a wall next to model trains

On a windowsill in the taproom, a portrait of Karl-Heinz Jennewein sits on top of a collection of model trains

A man in a red jumper stands in a room full of football memorabilia, including Bayern Munich shirts and soft toys.

Karl-Heinz Jennewein behind his shop counter. His goods are neatly arranged among his collections of fan merchandise – partly to show his support for the football club KSV Hessen Kassel.

A person in a pink jumper and a colourful scarf dries a wine glass with a white, red-striped cloth in a bar.

A long-standing employee of the wine shop polishes the last glass of the day. ‘I’ve known Carlo since the sixties. We were in the same crowd even back then,’ she says of her relationship with Karl-Heinz.

Several hats and jackets hang on a coat stand in a room with a large pale mural of a lit-up railway station.

The coat and hat stand in front of a photograph of Wilhelmshöhe station at night. Guests who take a seat in the taproom at the back of the wine shop can hang their jackets and coats there, alongside the owner’s own collection.

‘In here, time has stood still. You feel like you’ve gone back 30 years…simply unique.’ – Google review

A grey-haired person in a red jumper stretches out an arm; shelves and objects in the background

Karl-Heinz operates the model railway and watches the trains go round.

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