City fortifications Hanover
The fortification Hannover was a system of defenses of the city Hannover in the period from about 1200 to 1800. The in medieval resulting fortification surrounded the then-city, today's Old Town . A city wall with wall towers and gate towers as well as city gates belonged to it , of which hardly any remains are left. Trenches, ramparts and waiting towers still bear witness to the Hanoverian Landwehr located in the apron of the city . Almost the highest stage of expansion of the city fortifications was reached at the beginning of the 17th century as a bastionary fortification based on the Dutch model . In 1646, the Calenberger Neustadt was incorporated into the star hill-shaped complex as an upstream, new district . In the Seven Years' War reactivated again until 1763, which began immediately thereafter looping the fastening systems in the absence of a military value and for recovering space for new urban planning projects.
city wall
The city wall developed from the fortification with ramparts, palisades and moats that was built around 1150 . In the 13th century the ditch was widened and deepened and the palisade was replaced by a wall. A city wall under construction was first mentioned in a document by Duke Otto in 1297. The expansion into a closed wall ring probably dragged on, but is to be assumed in the middle of the 14th century. As a document from 1314 reports, the duke was negotiating with the city to demolish 30 houses at the stone gate , which disrupted the fortifications. During the Middle Ages, the wall was almost 1.8 km long. After the inclusion of the Calenberger Neustadt in the middle of the 17th century, the wall was about 2.8 km long. Outside the city walls was in the 13th and 14th centuries on the opposite bank of the leash the castle Lauenrode that by 1371 razing disappeared.
Wall construction
The wall was 7 to 8 m high and had a cover on the top of the wall to protect it from the weather. The wall thickness was about 1.2 m at the bottom and about 0.8 m at the crown. On the outside there were diagonal struts for support. Limestone from the nearby Lindener Berg served as the building material , of which around 13,000 m³ were built according to calculations. On the inside of the wall, a guard's corridor led down to level ground ; a parapet walk in height is not proven.
City gates and passages
Originally there were four city gates , which served as passages for traffic and were each overbuilt by a square gate tower . In the beginning there were wooden gates, which were replaced by stone gates from the 13th century. The name of the stone gate indicates stone as a building material.
- Stone gate in the north: first mentioned in 1314, demolished in 1741
- Leintor in the west: demolished in 1340, 1798
- Aegidientor in the southeast: 1300, removed in 1748
- Brühltor : removed in 1646 due to the incorporation of the Calenberger Neustadt
Around 1650 the Clevertor and the Calenberger Tor were added.
The city gates received additional fortifications around 1500 in front of the city wall. They protect the passage through the upstream wall. For this purpose gate buildings were built, next to each of which there was a round kennel tower .
In addition to the city gates, there were wall passages in the city wall. They served to be able to reach the defenses and ramparts outside the city by a short distance. In the 18th century, further breakthroughs in the wall were made as gates because the wall had lost its defensive function.
Wall towers
A number of towers were built to secure the walls. A total of 34 wall towers were built along the wall. In 1352 only four wall towers were mentioned, later the many towers were sometimes only 30 m apart. The older towers were built from stone blocks. They were semicircular and open to the city. The younger towers were rectangular and made of brick. The three-storey Begin Tower was built in 1357 as the most powerful tower in the city with 3 m thick walls. It is still there today. Initially the tower was known as De nye Torn (The New Tower). It was later named after the monastery-like house of the Beguines in whose garden it was located.
Around 1930 there were remains of 4 wall towers, today only the Begin tower on the high bank and the Borgentric tower in the building of the adult education center are left. The tower is named after the oil miller Cord Borgentrick , who on November 24, 1490 thwarted an attack on the city from this tower.
Wall and moat
The former Wall- and grave sites are in the demolition have been the end of the 18th century largely destroyed the defenses. Archaeological investigations from 1926 showed that there was initially a rampart in front of the city wall at a distance of 25 m. It came from the excavation for a double system of ditches with an inner and an outer ditch that surrounded parts of the city. It is assumed that trenches are 13 m wide. Only rainwater collected in them, as they were too high for water to be supplied from the line. The system of ditches was unnecessary in the west and south of the city, as the Leine and its moist valley offered Leinemasch protection there.
Landwehr and outpost
When the city wall was already in place, the area in front of the city was secured by a Landwehr in the middle of the 14th century . It was built on the borders of the city's ban mile and consisted of a hedge-lined wall with a moat. At the passageways there were waiting towers and houses, which have been preserved to this day as excursion restaurants. Presumably the Landwehr surrounded the entire medieval city, remnants can only be found in the eastern part of the Eilenriede city forest .
Expansion of the fastening system
The further development of the artillery led to the expansion of the city fortifications in the 15th century . For this purpose, a 35 m wide trench was created in the north and east, the other sides were protected by the line and its lowlands. In the urban area, the east bank of the Leine would receive a wall, which is therefore called the Hohe Ufer .
From 1632, the city fortifications were expanded into a bastionary fortification based on the Dutch model . The strength of the fortification was no longer based on the city wall, but on the rampart and moat in front of the wall. For this purpose, wide moats and polygonal earth walls were dug with the formation of curtains , ravelins and glacis . In 1646 the newly upstream district of Calenberger Neustadt was included in the fortress. The wall around the old town had eight bastions:
Hanover seen from the northeast, heavily fortified with a moat, rampart and city wall with wall towers; Merian engraving
published for the first time in 1641 |
- Bastion behind the riding house
- Bastion in front of the stone gate
- Norder-Bothfelder-Bastion
- Bastion behind the new house
- Süder-Bothfelder-Bastion
- Windmill Bastion
- Bastion on the kingdom of heaven
- Bastion behind the archive
The new town was secured in its wall by six bastions:
- Bastion behind the wooden yard
- Calenberg gate and windmill bastion
- Bastion behind Count Platen's court
- Bastion behind the Roman Catholic. church
- Bastion in front of the Clevertor
- Sparrenberg
Last expansion in the Seven Years War
After more than a hundred years of peace, Kurhannover was included in the Seven Years War . France sought to damage Great Britain by occupying Kurhannover . The Hanoverian fortifications were reactivated again.
The measures were unsuccessful, however: After the battle of Hastenbeck , the victorious French troops occupied Hanover on August 9, 1757 with up to 20,000 soldiers at times, but withdrew again on February 28, 1758 after the city had paid a contribution of 100,000 Reichstalers had (among other things by auctioning bourgeois silver goods at the town hall) and had committed to the destruction of the city's weapons stocks. Around 2,200 French soldiers remained in the city as sick and disabled.
After the French withdrew, further reinforcements were built, mainly in external entrenchments . This is how four star-shaped earthworks were created around the city. The largest facility was to be the Georgenschanze on Lindener Berg , which was built in 1761 . However, only the inner ring of the Sternschanze was built . Further jumps were the Eduard- and Ferdinand-Schanze as well as a Redoute . Weak spots in the closer city fortifications were also expanded by Ravelins . The west side of the Ihmeufer in Linden received a fortification to protect the bridge.
Demolition of the city fortifications
Immediately after the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763, the demolition of the fortifications began. They narrowed the old town and hindered urban expansion. The city wall had long since lost its military function. The citizens had breached the wall and used wall towers for other purposes. After the Seven Years' War, the city was the first to auction palisades to citizens. In 1767 a wall was removed in the south in order to create an esplanade from which the parade ground at Waterlooplatz was later formed. From 1780, the systematic laying down took place by removing walls and filling ditches with their soil. Tree-lined avenues were laid out on the flat promenades created in this way, or new streets were built, such as Friedrichswall in 1783 and Georgstraße in 1787 , where the Ernst-August-Stadt was built in the mid-19th century . The outer works and gate structures were also demolished. Individual parts of the city wall were pulled in during the construction of buildings.
Remains still preserved today
Remains of the city wall and the wall towers that are visible above ground can only be found in a few places, but underground remains of foundations can be assumed in many places. Until the Second World War , remains were preserved mainly on background pieces. The bombing during the air raids on Hanover as well as demolition in the post-war period (Hillebrecht era) such as the (preserved) city wall tower at Loccumer Hof - it was demolished in 1952 (after the eastern part of the property was sold) when the state central bank was being expanded - resulted in a significant loss of substance .
Today there are five places with preserved remains of the city wall and wall towers:
- Begin tower with a piece of wall as part of today's Historical Museum on the Leine
- Former main building of the Volkshochschule Hannover (Theodor-Lessing-Platz, formerly “Knappenort”) with city wall outside and city wall with the rest of the old Borgentrick tower inside
- Pedestrian passage from Georgsplatz to Osterstrasse next to the Bundesbank;
- Backyards between Osterstrasse and Georgstrasse
- Backyards between Friedrichswall and Ebhardtstrasse
A last remnant of a hydraulic engineering facility of the city fortifications is a ferry on the Leine on Friedrichswall. It is a 20 m long sea wall made of stone blocks with a small tower . The former sluice regulated the water level between the Leine and the city moat.
Remnants of the city wall between Osterstrasse and Georgstrasse , outside on the left, inside on the right
Siel tower at the junction of the Leine and the former moat
Remnants of the wall between Ebhardtstrasse and Friedrichswall
1915 still existing city wall tower Neuer Weg
See also
literature
-
Arnold Nöldeke : Fortification , in which: The art monuments of the province of Hanover (= booklet 19 of the complete work), Part 1: Region of Hanover , Booklet 2 in two parts: City of Hanover, Part 1: Monuments of the "old" city area of Hanover (incorporation status up to January 1, 1870) , Hanover: Self-published by the Provinzialverwaltung, Theodor Schulzes Buchhandlung, 1932, pp. 41–74
- (Reprint: Osnabrück, Wenner, 1979, ISBN 3-87898-151-1 )
- Gerd Weiß, Marianne Zehnpfennig: The fortification of the old town. In: Monument topography of the Federal Republic of Germany , architectural monuments in Lower Saxony, City of Hanover, part 1, vol. 10.1 , ed. by Hans-Herbert Möller , Lower Saxony State Administration Office - publications by the Institute for Monument Preservation , Friedr. Vieweg & Sohn, Braunschweig / Wiesbaden 1983, ISBN 3-528-06203-7 , p. 51f.
- Siegfried Müller : The city fortifications , in this: Life in old Hanover. Cultural images of a German city . Schlütersche, Hannover 1986, ISBN 3-87706-033-1 , p. 19f.
- Franz Rudolf Zankl (Ed.): Hannover Archive , passim
- Helmut Knocke : City fortifications. In: Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein (eds.) U. a .: City Lexicon Hanover . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2009, ISBN 978-3-89993-662-9 , p. 585.
- Klaus Mlynek : City gates. In: Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein (eds.) U. a .: City Lexicon Hanover. From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2009, ISBN 978-3-89993-662-9 , p. 594.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein (ed.): Stadtlexikon Hannover: From the beginnings to the present . Schlütersche, Hannover 2009, p. 585
- ^ Klaus Mlynek in: Stadtlexikon Hannover , p. 564
- ↑ Photo comparison Begin tower earlier - today
- ↑ City board No. 35 Borgentrick Tower
- ↑ City board No. 23 remains of the city wall