The Arbeitskreis für Erdstallforschung e.V. is a registered non-profit association based in Neukirchen-Balbini, Bavaria, dedicated to the scientific investigation and preservation of erdstalls, a class of narrow medieval underground passages found across central Europe. Founded in 1973 in Roding, Bavaria, by Karl Schwarzfischer, it was the first organisation in the German-speaking world to pursue systematic, continuous research into these structures. Across central Europe, more than 2,000 erdstalls have now been documented, with approximately 700 in Bavaria and 500 in Austria. In 2018 the association received the Silberne Halbkugel category of the Deutscher Preis für Denkmalschutz, the highest distinction in monument protection in the Federal Republic of Germany.
Key facts
- Country: Germany
- Type: association
- Website: https://www.erdstall.de
Origins and founding
Karl Schwarzfischer (1915–2001) had already been exploring erdstalls in Bavaria with a circle of like-minded individuals since the late 1950s before he formalised the effort. When he founded the Arbeitskreis für Erdstallforschung in 1973, he created the first body in the German-speaking world organised around uninterrupted, methodical erdstall research. Schwarzfischer is regarded as the pioneer of the field in that linguistic region and its driving organisational force.
The association was originally seated in Roding, in the Upper Palatinate region of Bavaria, where Schwarzfischer was active. Its registration as a non-profit association (eingetragener Verein) gave the group a legal structure that enabled it to coordinate excavations, surveys, and funding over the long term.
Research background
Scholarship on erdstalls stretches back to the 1880s, and by 1917 research had established a medieval dating for the structures. After that point, professional prehistorians in Germany and Austria largely withdrew from the subject, leaving its investigation to laypeople and volunteers. That situation persisted until medieval archaeology emerged as a discipline in the 1960s, creating a gap of roughly four decades during which organised amateur effort carried almost all the work.
The Arbeitskreis stepped into that tradition while also working to bring the subject closer to academic archaeology. Its activities include excavations, topographic surveys, and international symposia, and it advises property owners who discover underground passages or chambers beneath their land. The association also answers questions from members of the general public interested in erdstalls as historical monuments.
Journal DER ERDSTALL
Since 1975 the association has published the specialist journal DER ERDSTALL annually. Each issue documents newly discovered or investigated erdstall sites in text and photographs, and also carries articles from archaeology, historical mining research, and narrative folklore studies. The journal carries the ISSN 0343-6500.
Issue 50 appeared in autumn 2024, and issue 51 in autumn 2025. The double issue 48/49, published in autumn 2023, ran to 240 pages and contained over 170 illustrations. Subscription to the journal is included in the association’s membership fee; institutions, libraries, and public authorities may also subscribe independently at a price equivalent to the annual membership fee.
European Erdstall Research Centre
The association established and operates a European Erdstall Research Centre (Europäisches Erdstall-Forschungszentrum) with archaeological documentation facilities at the Schiessl-Hof, a listed historic farmstead in Neukirchen-Balbini. The centre houses an archive, a library, and a museum, and visitors can view an actual erdstall tunnel located in the medieval vaulted cellar of the building.
Conversion of the Schiessl-Hof was co-financed by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (EFRE) and the Free State of Bavaria, with additional contributions from the Bayerische Landesstiftung, the Bezirk Oberpfalz, and the Landkreis Schwandorf. The association’s current headquarters is at this site in Neukirchen-Balbini, within the Schwandorf district.
Governance and contacts
The association’s second chairperson (2. Vorsitzender) is Dr. Ralf Keller. Dr. Martin Müller serves as treasurer (Kassenwart), and Frank Heudorf holds the role of secretary. The association maintains international contacts with European sister organisations, among them the Société Française d’Étude des Souterrains (SFES) in France, which publishes the journal Subterranea.
Conferences and international cooperation
The Arbeitskreis holds annual conferences (Jahrestagungen). The 2024 conference took place from 27 to 29 September 2024 in Waldkirchen, Lower Bavaria. The 2025 conference was held from 17 to 19 October 2025 in Tollet near Grieskirchen, Upper Austria. The 2026 annual conference is planned for 16 to 18 October 2026, with the district of Passau under consideration as the venue.
In July 2024 the association co-organised an International Erdstall Symposium in Raabs, Austria, attended by 35 participants from 6 countries: Austria, Germany, France, Belgium, Ireland, and Israel.
Recognition and controversies
In 2018 the Arbeitskreis für Erdstallforschung e.V. received the Silberne Halbkugel category of the Deutscher Preis für Denkmalschutz, awarded by the German National Committee for Monument Protection in recognition of the association’s decades-long commitment to heritage preservation. The Deutscher Preis für Denkmalschutz is the highest distinction in monument protection in the Federal Republic of Germany.
The association has not been without internal difficulties. A documented organisational crisis followed the departure of Regine Glatthaar from the board, which resulted in three successive chairpersons within a short period and the formation of separate research groups. On a scientific level, issue 42 of DER ERDSTALL (published in 2016) included a report by Dr. Heinrich Kusch proposing a prehistoric dating for one erdstall site in Styria, Austria. The rival organisation IGEF publicly criticised the publication of that report as damaging to the association’s scientific credibility.
Did you know
- The Schiessl-Hof in Neukirchen-Balbini, which hosts the European Erdstall Research Centre, contains its own erdstall tunnel in the medieval vaulted cellar of the building. This makes it one of the few public research institutions in Europe where the subject of research is literally situated beneath the institution itself. (fez-erdstall.de)
- Karl Schwarzfischer, who founded the Arbeitskreis in 1973, lived from 1915 to 2001. By the time of his death he had devoted roughly five decades of his life to erdstall research and to building the organisation around it. (historisches-lexikon-bayerns.de)
- Bavaria alone accounts for approximately 700 of the more than 2,000 erdstalls documented across central Europe, by far the densest concentration of these unexplained medieval underground structures anywhere on the continent. (explorersweb.com)
- The Arbeitskreis received the Silberne Halbkugel (Silver Half-Dome) of the Deutscher Preis für Denkmalschutz in 2018, the same year the prize was specially themed around cross-border European cooperation as part of the European Cultural Heritage Year. (bak.de)
Data sources
- Wikidata
- erdstall.de
- historisches-lexikon-bayerns.de
- premm-druck.de
- erdstallforschung.de
- deutscher-preis-denkmalschutz.de
- bak.de
- schiessl-hof.de
- fez-erdstall.de
- lochstein.de
- explorersweb.com
Data updated: 2026-10-31