Warnemünde lighthouse
| Warnemünde lighthouse | ||
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| Place: | Warnemünde | |
| Location: | Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , Germany | |
| Geographical location: | 54 ° 10 '53 " N , 12 ° 5' 9" E | |
| Height of tower base: | 36.9 m | |
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| Identifier : |
Fl (3 + 1) 24s 0.3+ (2.7) +0.3+ (2.7) +0.3+ (8.7) +0.3+ (8.7) s |
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| Scope knows: | 20 nm (37 km ) | |
| Construction time: | 1897-1898 | |
| Operating time: | since 1898 | |
| International ordinal number: | C 1404 | |
The Warnemünde lighthouse is in the Baltic Sea resort of Warnemünde , a district of the Hanseatic city of Rostock . The famous landmark of the seaside resort was put into operation in 1898. The height is 36.90 m.
prehistory
The first notarization of a lamp in Warnemünde took place in 1358, it was a wooden frame on which a fire basket was raised. The basket was in the museum after it was renewed by a successor, but later disappeared. But there is a detailed drawing of the fire basket. The area around the lamp was paved. In the dispute between the duke and the city, the duke had the fortifications and lights destroyed in 1487. Then there was no written mention for a while, it was not until 1582 that the oldest pictorial representation of the light tower was drawn in the famous Vicke-Schorler scroll. The tower, including the guard house, was roughly in the same place as the current tower. In 1588 the tower was renewed. There is a written report that describes it. A special type of light is striking, it was a glazed metal cage in which 12 candles were burning. The beacon could therefore only be seen by the skippers from 2.8 nautical miles (approx. 5 kilometers). After that there were no records for over 250 years.
It was not until 1836 that a new lantern was reported; its brick substructure was 3.62 meters high, and the iron framework above it was 11.35 meters from the ground. The lamp was a kerosene lamp. It was to continue to serve for over 60 years, because after planning in 1862, years went by before the current tower was finished in 1898.
planning
Until the lighthouse was built in 1897/98, the entrance to the narrow sea canal in front of Warnemünde was secured with this pull lantern. With the rapidly increasing sea traffic, which was now possible all year round due to the operation of steamships and which had also grown considerably due to the onset of industrialization, this no longer corresponded to the technical standard. On June 18, 1862, the city council of Rostock received a “draft for Conversion of the harbor light to a complete lighthouse with a prismatic lantern house ” submitted and approved on September 11, 1863. Due to the subsequent dispute between the "district administrators, country marshals and the rest of the knights and landscape of the duchies of Mecklenburg" and, as a further adversary, the general management of the Mecklenburg Railways because of their operation of the ferry connection to Gedser ( Denmark ), the construction could only be realized in 1896 be gone.
construction
The Rostock port construction director Karl Friedrich Kerner managed the construction. Since taking office in 1885, he had already done an excellent job building the trajectory in Warnemünde harbor. In 1897 he signed contracts with Berringer in Rostock and Oloff in Warnemünde for the construction of the tower and with Ludewig in Rostock for driving foundation piles. 33 piles were driven eleven meters into the sandy subsoil down to the bearing layer. This work was completed by July 9, 1897, and after a very short construction period, the masonry work was also completed in November 1897. In the following winter the lantern was installed and by the summer of 1898 all other interior work was done, so that the official commissioning could take place on October 19, 1898. For this purpose, the steamship "König Christian" went to sea and it was found that the planned visibility of 16 nautical miles had been achieved.
The building was built from bricks and faced with white, glazed bricks. Two galleries lead around the tower. In the lower section up to the first gallery, the white tiles are set off by green tile strips. The corbels of the galleries are made of red sandstone . The tower is 36.90 m high, measured between the top of the tower and the mean water level of the Baltic Sea, correspondingly just under 31 m above the ground. The light source in the center of the optics is installed at a height of 34.25 m above mean water.
There are two cellars under the tower. The lower one is designed as a vault and served as a petroleum store. In this there were four vats with a total of 800 liters of petroleum , which was pumped into a 90-liter vessel into the lantern room. After the installation of the electrical system, the containers were removed in 1927.
Technical development
The horizontal light angle of the fire is 180 degrees. In order to make use of the remaining amount of light emitted by the lamp to land, a concave mirror was installed on the land side, which was later replaced by reflective prisms. A cylinder in which lenses are embedded rotates around the permanently installed belt lens. They bundle the light and thereby generate the rhythm of the light appearance ( identifier ). This cylinder was driven by a clockwork with an iron weight until it was electrified . The lighthouse keeper had to pull this weight, which ran in a tube in the center of the tower, every two hours using a crank on the clockwork. Inside the tower, a granite spiral staircase leads to the lantern room.
After the tower was built, a kerosene burner with five wicks served as a light source and consumed 1.3 liters of kerosene per hour. In 1911, an improvement in luminosity was achieved using a burner with a mantle . The strength of the light was increased eightfold. In 1917 the switch to gas incandescent light and in 1919 to electrical operation took place. The expansion of the beacons on the German coasts made it necessary to change the identifier in 1936. From the sequence 51- (5) -3- (10) -3- (5) (51 seconds of fixed fire - five seconds of blackout - three seconds of fire - ten seconds of blackout - three seconds of fire - five seconds of blackout) was switched to the Identification flash group 3 + 1 (0.3- (2.7) -0.3- (2.7) -0.3- (8.7) -0.3- (8.7)). The light can be seen up to 20 nautical miles away. Until 1978 there were beacon keepers or beacon machinists. Since that time, the beacons have been operated from a central office for the Warnemünder lighthouse in Hohe Düne .
Redevelopment
In 1949 cracks were found in the walls, presumably due to the effects of temperature, which led to a partial renovation in 1969. Further extensive renovation measures followed in the 1980s, which were not completed until 1993. In the years from 1979 to 1993, the tower was therefore closed to tourists.
Todays use
In addition to its use as a beacon, the lighthouse is mainly of importance for tourism today. Numerous visitors use the ascent to get an overview of Warnemünde. Most of the tourist activities are carried out and supervised by a non-profit association. The lighthouse is open every year from Holy Saturday to the 1st weekend in October from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. (as of October 2018).
The spiral staircase inside the lighthouse
View of the promenade
View of the old stream
Warnemünde tower lights
Since 1999, the Warnemünder lighthouse has been staged on January 1st with a show with fireworks, lasers, lights and music. The event, which was held as a lighthouse in flames until 2014 , was renamed Warnemünde Tower Lights in 2015 . In 2015, around 85,000 visitors came to the event for the first time.
Lighthouse on fire 2011
Lighthouse on fire 2012
Lighthouse on fire 2012 with tea pot
Lighthouse on fire 2012
Postage stamps
The Warnemünde lighthouse has been featured twice on German postage stamps.
literature
- Karl Friedrich Kerner : The lighthouse near Warnemünde. In: Centralblatt der Bauverwaltung . Volume 19, No. 17, March 4, 1899, pp. 97-101.
- Hans-Joachim Luttermann: Warnemünde lighthouse. 4th edition. Tourist Verlag, Berlin / Leipzig 1981.
- Monuments and legacy of Rostock technical history. Redieck & Schade, Rostock 1995, ISBN 3-929544-02-4 .
Movie
The lighthouse in Warnemünde is shown on the poster for the film Shutter Island .
Web links
- Friends of the Lighthouse Warnemünde eV
- Newspaper report of the commissioning ( memento of February 18, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Website Warnemünder tower lights
- ↑ Gallery: Warnemünde Tower Lights 2015. In: Wmnd.de Portal for Warnemünde and the surrounding area. January 2, 2015, accessed January 6, 2017 .
