Hans Eschebach

Hans Eschebach (born April 24, 1909 in Badeborn ; † April 10, 1982 in Magdeburg ; full name: Hans Friedrich Eschebach ) was a German architect , town planner and building researcher . As an architect, he played a key role in the reconstruction and spatial planning in East Friesland after the Second World War , and as a building researcher he made a contribution to researching Pompeii .

education

Hans Eschebach spent his youth in Dessau - Törten , where his father, Pastor Friedrich Franz Eschebach, worked. His mother Marie, nee Liebe, came from the Huguenot family Gabain . He played the viola since childhood and was a friend of chamber music . From 1927 he studied with Karl Bonatz , Paul Schmitthenner and Karl Schmoll of Eisenwerth at the Technical University of Stuttgart and at Henry's jelly and Oscar Reuther at the Technical University of Dresden architecture . In Stuttgart he was a member of the Ulmia association. In 1933 he completed his studies with the diploma thesis Schullandheim in connection with Kleinsiedlung in the Erzgebirge , in 1937 the 2nd state examination for government building master followed .

Eschebach as an architect and spatial planner

Under Paul Wolf , Eschebach was initially a construction assessor and , from 1940, city building officer in the Dresden city ​​planning office . In 1942 he received his doctorate at Sulze with the thesis The urban development of Pompeii in pre-Roman times at the TH Dresden. In 1938 he married Wiltraut Stippich. Eschebach, who had been a member of the NSDAP since 1931 , was not drafted into the Wehrmacht because of an ear ailment . In 1942, Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick signed him to Emden , where he was appointed head of the Office for Reconstruction and Urban Planning. Together with his colleagues Wilhelm Ohm , Peter Diedrichs, Alfred Langeheine and EH Blum, he was not only supposed to build bunkers, but also to plan for the period after the Second World War . The overall plans initiated by Albert Speer to redesign downtown Emden in the National Socialist sense included a cultural center designed by Eschebach based on the Pompeian model. But because he was too friendly with two French prisoners of war, the architect Henri Gelée and the sculptor J. Matthieu, who were employed as draftsmen, he was transferred to a construction battalion of the Waffen SS in Ohrdruf in 1943 as a draftsman . Here he witnessed the excesses of the Nazi system when he met concentration camp inmates in poor physical condition. At the end of the war he was taken prisoner of war in southern Germany.

Port of Neuharlingersiel

After a short imprisonment, Eschebach was released and returned to Friesland in 1946 to build hotels on Norderney on behalf of the British occupying forces . Since October 1947 he worked as a freelancer and initially had an architecture office in Lohne , a year later he moved to Emden. There he worked in the office of the town planning officer Haasis, who was removed from his position by the National Socialists in 1933. From 1951 he ran his own architecture office again. In the following years Eschebach played a key role in the redesign of Friesland. He redesigned the port of Neuharlingersiel and its pumping station, designed the Aurich water management office , designed the Knock sewer and pumping station , rebuilt the Doornkaat administration building, built administration buildings on the Frisian Islands and was also active in the city, church and and hydraulic engineering. A special focus of his work was the development of land use, site and development plans for East Frisian communities, which made up about 90% of Eschebach's work around 1970. His zoning plan for Emden, which he presented in August 1950, was the first in all of Lower Saxony . However, due to the regional and administrative reform in Lower Saxony in the early 1970s, the company's operating base was gradually withdrawn.

Eschebach as a building researcher

Plan of Pompeii on a scale of 1: 5000 based on Eschebach's plan

After Eschebach was less busy professionally, he was able to devote himself more intensively to his archaeological and building research activities. Between 1938 and 1940 he traveled to Pompeii with his mentor Sulze during the vacation months. There he made the first plan of the city on a scale of 1: 1000 since 1877. His doctoral thesis dealt with the structural development of the city in pre-Roman times. However, it was not published in a revised form until 1970. His plan of Pompeii was particularly important after the American bomb hits, but also formed the basis for other archaeological publications since then. From 1966 to 1981 he worked as a freelancer for the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) in the Campanian ruined city. He was supported by his second wife, the teacher and archaeologist Liselotte Bliesner , whom he married after the early death of his first wife. Both spent about eight weeks in the Italian city each year. Eschebach also had good relations with the GDR. He traveled there regularly since 1959, as his mother and brother also lived in Priorau . Sulze, who died in 1959 and who in the meantime had made a great contribution to the reconstruction of Dresden, made Eschebach his spiritual heir and administrator. Nevertheless, his estate was confiscated by the GDR authorities. Through the mediation of the Dresden monument protector , his former student friend Hans Nadler , he was at least able to make copies. Since Eschebach published an illustrated book on Pompeii in 1978 with the Leipzig publisher EA Seemann , relations with the GDR have improved even further. He used this primarily to maintain and deepen contacts with GDR researchers. In 1982 he had a serious car accident on the transit route between West Berlin and the Federal Republic of Germany on a return trip from a visit to the headquarters of the DAI - he was a corresponding member of the DAI - near Magdeburg and died of his injuries in a hospital in the city. Using his preparatory work, his wife brought out the building directory and city map of the ancient city of Pompeii in 1995, with the help of Erika Eschebach's daughter and Jürgen Müller-Trollius with Pompeii. From the 7th century BC A building history of the city is from AD 79 to AD 79 . His urban development and archaeological legacy is in the Lower Saxony State Archive - Aurich location .

Fonts

• The urban development of ancient Pompeii . Kerle, Heidelberg 1970.
• Pompeii. Experience the ancient world , with photographs by Josef Adamiak . Seemann, Leipzig 1978 (three editions until 1984).
• The Stabian thermal baths in Pompeii . (= Monuments of Ancient Architecture, Volume 13). de Gruyter, Berlin 1979, ISBN 3-11-007873-2 .
• The doctors' houses in Pompeii . Raggi, Feldmeilen 1984 ( special issue of the ancient world ).
• with Liselotte Eschebach : Pompeji. From the 7th century BC BC to AD 79 (works on archeology). Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 1995, ISBN 3-412-11594-0 .

Web links

• Biographisches Lexikon für Ostfriesland Vol. 2, Aurich 1997, pp. 102-105.