Deichmannsaue Castle

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Deichmannsaue Castle, aerial view (2008)
Deichmannsaue Castle, aerial view (2013)
Deichmannsaue Castle, street view (2013)

The Deichmannsaue Castle is a building complex in the south of Rüngsdorf , a district of the Bonn district of Bad Godesberg , on the edge of the “Mehlemer Auen” north of the Königswinter - Mehlem Rhine ferry . It has been rebuilt and expanded several times and has been used by the Federal Republic of Germany since 1955. From 1955 to 1999, it was the seat of the United States Embassy and the Federal Department of Construction , expanded to include several office buildings . The Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning has been based in the Deichmanns Aue property since 2000, and the Federal Agency for Agriculture and Food since 2005 . The "Villa Deichmann" core of the building complex, and took its present appearance at a remodeling of 1910 and 1912. It stands as a monument under monument protection .

Origins

Villa Deichmann before the renovation (1905)

The castle was first mentioned in 1662 as "Auerhof" and had been in the possession of the Deichmann family from Cologne since 1836 . The wealthy and socially high-ranking Cologne family was looking for a suitable residence to hold their previously organized receptions in Cologne. The choice fell on the estate in Mehlem-Lannesdorf, which was up for auction at the time.

The property was described in the “Bonner Wochenblatt” in October 1836 as follows: The Mehlemer Aue estate “consists of a) manorial and economic buildings with the main front facing the Rhine and the Siebengebirge, two-story with an attic, a total of 12 rooms, 1 Hall, 1 salon, 2 kitchens, lockers, cellars, wells, stables for horses and cattle, barn, wine press house, bakery, two entrance gates and greenhouse; b) from an English-style garden ”as well as further land holdings with a vegetable garden, arable land, vineyards, meadows and bushland, a total of over 100 Magdeburg acres. However, structural changes did not take place until 1856. After the completion of the Cologne – Bonn railway line in 1844, the line was extended to Rolandseck in 1845 at the instigation of the railway company's influential shareholders who wanted to reach their villas more comfortably. The travel time from Cologne to Mehlem was reduced to one hour, so that Wilhelm Ludwig Deichmann was now able to drive to his country estate every evening in the summer.

After the death of the parents, the estate fell to the eldest son Adolf Deichmann (1831–1907). Since he was a banker in London, he could not use the floodplain and left it to his brother Theodor (1837–1895), who continued to run the Deichmann & Co. bank with his brothers Otto (1838–1911) and Wilhelm (1841–1919) . Theodor Deichmann's eldest son Wilhelm Theodor (1864–1929) finally inherited the property and was the builder of the castle-like new building from 1910 to 1912. Here he built a large new building on the foundations of the old manor house according to his own ideas, executed by the local architect Peter Wald erect.

In 1934 the postal address of the castle from Mehlemer Aue was changed to Deichmanns Aue .

Post-war development

In 1941 the castle was sold to the Wehrmacht and since then it has belonged to the German state. After the end of World War II , Allied occupation forces confiscated it . The Belgian military moved there.

New building of the high commission

From September 28, 1949, the US American High Commissioner was set up in the castle as the office of the High Commissioner of Germany (HICOG) John McCloy and part of the Allied High Commission (AHK). After completing a renovation and renovation, McCloy was able to move into his office in Deichmannsaue Castle in May 1950. Since it no longer met the space requirements of the commissioner's office, an extension with a total of 700 offices was built in 1951 according to plans by a joint venture between the Munich architect Sep Ruf and the Frankfurt architects Otto Apel , Rudolf Letocha, William Rohrer and Martin Herdt in an eleven month construction period America typical wooden stand construction . As a landscape architect worked Hermann Mattern and Heinrich Raderschall . In the summer of 1952, the Allied High Commission , which had previously resided on the Petersberg , also moved to the Deichmannsaue. On November 10, 1954, the confiscation of the castle and the associated park area ended. On May 5, 1955, the proclamation of the end of the occupation statute was signed in the castle as part of the celebrations for the acquisition of the sovereignty of the Federal Republic .

With the dissolution of the AHK in 1955, the extension became the seat of the Embassy of the United States of America, while the residence of the Ambassador was the Villa Rolandstrasse 67 in Rüngsdorf . Also in 1955, the Federal Ministry for Housing (later renamed the Federal Ministry for Spatial Planning, Building and Urban Development) moved into the castle and parts of the extension, and between 1957 and 1967 it also took over Houses III and partly IV from the USA. Other federal authorities used the property until the mid-1970s: part of the Development Aid Ministry (until 1963), the Bundestag's defense commissioner , the central salary office, the central tax auditor (each until 1968) and the federal property office (until the mid-1970s). Up until the end of 1974, Deichmannsaue also had its own post office , which had been set up in connection with the new buildings for the American high commission. In 1989 the property was completely renovated.

On February 13, 1991, an attack on the US embassy was carried out by a command of the Red Army Faction (RAF). From the property of Villa Von-Weiß-Strasse 8, which was vacant at the time, on the opposite bank of the Rhine in Koenigswinter , RAF terrorists shot 60 bullets from two weapons at the American embassy building. However, only property damage occurred. In the letter of confession , the act was justified with the war in Iraq that was taking place at the same time . It has not yet been fully clarified. Detlev Rohwedder , who was last chairman of the Treuhandanstalt, was murdered on April 1, 1991 with one of the weapons used in the attack .

After German reunification and the decision of the Bundestag in 1991 to relocate the seat of government to Berlin, a new use for the property was sought. The American embassy moved to Berlin from September 1998 to July 1999. The move was officially completed on April 3, 2000. She left a branch in the form of a military liaison staff ( Office of Defense Cooperation ) in the building. The Federal Building Ministry, whose first office was relocated to Berlin by 2000, had its Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning (BBR), created in 1998 from the Federal Building Department, move into the Deichmannsaue. The Bonn office of the ministry has since been located on Robert-Schuman-Platz in the Hochkreuz district . The now largely unused former US embassy was to be occupied by the Federal Agency for Agriculture and Food , which was to move from Frankfurt am Main to Bonn under the Berlin / Bonn Act .

For this purpose, the former US embassy was renovated from late 2002 to early 2005 at a cost of 31 million euros. The Federal Agency moved there in April 2005 with 650 employees, completing the last move of the Bonn-Berlin Compensation Authority . The former service area used by the ambassador is now used as a training and seminar area. In connection with the move in of the federal institute, an 800 m² canteen was built for the 1,200 employees who have since been employed in the entire property from September 2004 to May 2006 for 4.2 million euros according to plans by the Stuttgart architects Heinle, Wischer und Partner . The basis was an expert opinion that recommended the replacement of the two former canteen areas, which were no longer suitable for supplying the employees due to their small size and outdated kitchen technology . In 2013 the branch office of the US embassy left the property and moved within Bonn.

architecture

The building complex is divided into the old building, the four-winged Deichmannsaue Castle, which was comprehensively modified from 1910-12, and the extension buildings to the north that were built mainly in 1951 for the US High Commission. The transition between the old and new buildings is created by an elevated connecting tract that spans an access road. The original high commission building is built in reinforced concrete and timber, has a flat roof and, due to the flood-prone location on the ground floor, is elevated with pylons . Similar to the Frankfurt IG Farben building, the southern part - the middle part of the complex - is formed by a three-storey block that can be described as a “comb structure” and is slightly concave towards the Rhine, in which four five-storey landside transverse structures (houses 1–3) are set. These each have two staircases and protrude as a risalit on the Rhine side , where the entrances protected by a canopy are located. The northern end (former seat of the US embassy; today BLE) is formed by an eight-storey building (House 6) facing the Rhine, which is divided into several five-storey wings grouped around two inner courtyards to the north and west and a three-storey wing to the south-east (House 7; formerly the seat of the ambassador) is involved.

"The grouping of the components and the different height orientations loosen up the huge group of buildings (...) and establish a connection with the park and the landscape."

- Angelika Schyma (2003)

  • Comb construction (front), building construction (rear right)

  • Transverse structure

  • House 7

  • Deichmannsaue Castle, entrance portal

See also

literature

  • Olga Sonntag : Villas on the banks of the Rhine in Bonn: 1819–1914 , Bouvier Verlag, Bonn 1998, ISBN 3-416-02618-7 , Volume 3, Catalog (2), pp. 175–199. (also dissertation University of Bonn, 1994)
  • Olga Sonntag: Villas on the banks of the Rhine in Bonn: 1819–1914 , Bouvier Verlag, Bonn 1998, ISBN 3-416-02618-7 , Volume 1, pp. 50–52. (also dissertation University of Bonn, 1994)
  • Andreas Denk , Ingeborg flag : Architectural guide Bonn . Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-496-01150-5 , p. 124.
  • Angelika Schyma : With diplomatic restraint. Embassy architecture of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn from the founding of the state to the fall of the wall . In: Messages in Berlin , Gebr. Mann Verlag , Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-7861-2472-8 , pp. 29–41 (here: pp. 30/31).
  • Rita Hombach: Landscape gardens in the Rhineland. The collection of the historical inventory and studies of the garden culture of the "long" 19th century. (Articles on architectural and art monuments in the Rhineland, Volume 37) Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, Worms 2010, ISBN 978-3-88462-298-8 , pp. 210/211.
  • City of Bonn, City Archives (ed.); Helmut Vogt : "The Minister lives in a company car on platform 4". The beginnings of the federal government in Bonn 1949/50 , Bonn 1999, ISBN 3-922832-21-0 , pp. 132, 215/216, 220.
  • Thilo von Trotha: Chronicle of the Deichmannsaue castle in Bonn-Bad Godesberg-Mehlem . Bonn 1996. [not yet evaluated for this article]
  • Hans Kleinpass: The street names of the Lannesdorf district. 1st part . In: Godesberger Heimatblätter. Annual booklet of the Association for Homeland Care and Local History Bad Godesberg . Issue 13 , 1975, ISSN  0436-1024 , pp. 102-136 (here: 117-127).

Web links

Commons : Schloss Deichmannsaue  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ List of monuments of the city of Bonn (as of March 15, 2019), p. 15, number A 1414
  2. ^ Bonner Wochenblatt, October 2, 1836, p. 2 . Collection of newspapers ULB Bonn. Retrieved October 5, 2012.
  3. ↑ a b Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning: The Deichmannsaue
  4. ^ A b Helmut Vogt : Guardians of the Bonn Republic: The Allied High Commissioners 1949–1955 , Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2004, ISBN 3-506-70139-8 .
  5. ↑ a b Hans Kleinpass: The street names of the Lannesdorf district. 1st part . In: Godesberger Heimatblätter. Annual booklet of the Association for Homeland Care and Local History Bad Godesberg. Issue 13 , 1975, ISSN  0436-1024 , pp. 102-136 (here: pp. 117 ff.)
  6. ↑ Westdeutscher Rundfunk , local time from Bonn, July 20, 2011
  7. ↑ Secrets of an old Rhine villa - a film by Gabriele Rose , Westdeutscher Rundfunk , 2014 (from minute 36:10)
  8. ^ Richard Gilbert: Bonn to Berlin: One Embassy - Two Locations , State Magazine, May 1999
  9. ↑ Berlin is once again the official US embassy , Berliner Zeitung , September 18, 1998
  10. ^ A Guide to the United States' History of Recognition, Diplomatic, and Consular Relations, by Country, since 1776: Germany , US Department of State, Office of the Historian
  11. ^ Marc Eller: Federal Office for Agriculture and Food - Conversion of the former US embassy in Bonn . In: Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning: Building and Space. Yearbook 2006 , Junius Verlag, Hamburg 2006, ISBN 978-3-88506-574-6 , pp. 68-77.
  12. ^ Andreas Heitmann: Restaurant Deichmanns Aue Bonn - construction of a new canteen . In: Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning: Building and Space. Yearbook 2006 , Junius Verlag, Hamburg 2006, ISBN 978-3-88506-574-6 , pp. 84-89.
  13. ↑ United States Diplomatic Mission to Germany, Key Personnel & Contact Information ( Memento from August 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  14. ↑ Angelika Schyma: In diplomatic restraint. Embassy architecture of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn from the founding of the state to the fall of the wall.

Coordinates: 50 ° 40 ′ 17.2 ″  N , 7 ° 11 ′ 7.4 ″  E