Citadel Cyriaksburg
The Citadel Cyriaksburg is an originally urban, later Swedish , Electoral Mainz and Prussian city fortress from the 17th to 19th centuries. It is located on the 265 meter high Cyriaksberg, in the middle of the egapark Erfurt in the southwest of the Thuringian state capital Erfurt .
The Cyriakskloster had previously stood in the same place since the 12th century. 350 years later this was broken off and the city fortress Cyriaksburg was built between 1480 and 1604. It should strengthen the defense of the city to the west. During the Thirty Years War it was converted into a citadel on the orders of Gustav Adolf II of Sweden . After the violent conquest of Erfurt in 1664 by Electoral Mainz troops and the establishment of the Petersberg citadel , however, it lost a lot of its importance. With the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the Cyriaksburg citadel and Erfurt became part of the Prussian kingdom and served as a fortification until the empire was founded in 1871. From 1919 it was redesigned together with the Cyriaksberg into an urban garden.
From 1961 the permanent exhibition International Horticultural Exhibition of the Socialist Countries was held on the site , from which today's egapark Erfurt emerged after 1990 . From 1995 onwards the fortress was renovated on a large scale. Today the German Horticultural Museum is located in its buildings .
history
From the Cyriakskloster to the Cyriaksburg (until 1604)
Around 5000 BC, the Cyriaksberg was probably already settled by Stone Age people. The fertile lowlands of the Gera and the dominant position of the hill offered good conditions for this. In 1123 the Cyriakskloster, a Benedictine nunnery named after St. Cyriakus, was built on the mountain . The monastery was originally founded around 743 under the name of St. Paul next to the Severikirche on Domberg. Under the Mainz Elector and Archbishop Adalbert I of Saarbrücken , it was relocated to the Cyriaksberg for reasons of space. In the following centuries the economic and political power of the city of Erfurt grew , as a result of which some conflicts developed. There were also sieges of the city and in particular the strategically important Cyriaksberg. For example, at the end of the 14th century, when the question of the successor to Archbishop of Mainz, Johann von Luxemburg , arose . Pope Gregory XI. and Emperor Karl IV agreed on the younger brother of the Thuringian Landgrave Friedrich the Strengen . The Mainz cathedral chapter, on the other hand, chose Count Adolf von Nassau , whom Erfurt also joined. As a punishment, the emperor had the city of Erfurt outlawed and besieged together with troops of the Thuringian landgrave. The Cyriaksberg was taken in order to take fire from there on the city and to use the monastery buildings as accommodation for the troops. After several months, the emperor finally made peace with the city in 1382. As a lesson from this event, the western city fortifications were strengthened by the construction of the gate tower (demolished in 1889) and the Brühler tower (demolished in 1633).
In the following centuries, however, the political unrest continued and the city gained independence. On the other hand, the Pope and the Emperor lost much of their power, so the cities had to rely on themselves for their protection. The Erfurt council therefore decided to build a castle on the Cyriaksberg. The Cyriaksburg should dominate the Geratal and the road to Gotha and Nordhausen . For this plan, however, the resident Cyriakskloster had to be relocated a second time, for which Erfurt obtained permission from the Pope in 1478. When two years later on May 14th, Emperor Friedrich III. received a building permit, nothing seemed to stand in the way of the project. But the Archbishop of Mainz and Elector Diether von Isenburg and Elector Ernst von Sachsen felt that the Erfurt citizens' plans had left them behind, so that they finally closed the trade routes outside of Thuringia for merchants from Erfurt. As a little later also an important protector of the city, Wilhelm III. Duke of Saxony died, Erfurt gave up all resistance. In the Treaty of Amorbach (1483) and Weimar (1483), Erfurt undertook to recognize Kurmainz as sovereign and to cede protection money and territories to Electoral Saxony . However, the Cyriaksburg was subsequently approved by both parties, but could only be expanded slightly due to the high monetary payments. Until 1488, only the foundations, the dry moat and part of the western curtain wall were built . It was not until 1514 that work was fully resumed and the two western towers with loopholes and the fortress wells were built between 1528 and 1530 . Originally the plans provided for a total of four towers, but the two eastern ones were probably never built for cost reasons. In 1535 the entire curtain wall was completed with loopholes except for the eastern side. It had a brick roof to protect against the weather and rested on several vaults in the north and south, which saved building material. From 1530 the facility was incorporated into the city's defense system and manned by a vigilante group . During the Schmalkaldic War between 1546 and 1547 troops of Duke Moritz von Sachsen occupied the Cyriaksburg after the city had previously denied them entry. In 1604 the fortress was closed with the construction of a throat building to the east, which served as the commandant's house. At about the same time, the defense order of the castle was changed, which from now on provided for permanent garrisons.
Expansion to a citadel (1604–1802)
During the Thirty Years War (1618–1648) Erfurt and the Cyriaksberg were occupied in 1631 by Union troops from Gustav Adolf II of Sweden , after the city had previously been able to avert several siege attempts with monetary payments. During a personal visit to Erfurt on September 24th, Gustav II Adolf of Sweden immediately recognized the strategically important location of the city with its defensive works. He then had the Cyriaksburg expanded into a citadel under the Erfurt fortress builder Casper Vogell and the engineer Otto von Guericke . This included filling the inside of the curtain walls with earth and building a stepped earth wall with palisades in front of the moat . The castle buildings were used as quarters and as a base for campaigns by the Swedish troops. In addition, in the last few years of their occupation , the Swedes built a ravelin in front of each side of the fortress and a traverse in front of the two western towers .
The Thirty Years' War ended with the Peace of Westphalia (1648), and Erfurt should have been reintegrated into the Electorate of Mainz due to old legal claims . But that would have meant the loss of communal independence. Erfurt refused and was finally forced to give up in 1664 by Electoral Mainz and French troops. Thereupon they also occupied the citadel of Cyriaksburg. Under the Elector of Mainz and Archbishop Johann Philipp von Schönborn , the fortifications on the Cyriaksberg were to be modernized. But initially the focus was on building the Petersberg Citadel on the neighboring Petersberg . The Cyriaksburg citadel lost its importance and the expansion work was limited to the construction of a cavalier , a two-story barracks (1703) and a covered passage to the Petersberg. The execution of an initially planned horn factory in the west of the facility was not implemented. The cavalier was an earth wall that was slightly higher than the surrounding curtain wall. Inside, next to the barracks, a well house and a small chapel were protected . He also had a casemate on the right flank and several gun posts on the west side, which could be reached via a ramp. The high financial expenditures for new necessary repairs to the fortress and new military developments led to new considerations in the city of Erfurt in 1760. They even thought about razing the facility. This was rejected by the Elector of Mainz and Archbishop Johann Friedrich Karl von Ostein due to the uncertain political situation at the time.
Under Prussian rule (1802–1945)
Through the special Franco-Prussian treaty of 1802, Prussia received from France as compensation for the lost areas on the left bank of the Rhine, including the Eichsfeld and Erfurt. Thereupon the Prussian Regiment No. 59 von Wartensleben occupied the city with the Cyriaksberg. There they found the citadel in a neglected state, which the Prussians did little to change in the following years. Only barracks and small palisade drums in front of the fortress gates were built after the war between France and Prussia (1806) had broken out. After the battle of Jena and Auerstädt, the city of Erfurt surrendered on October 15, 1806 with its two citadels to the Napoleonic troops, who then took the Cyriaksburg citadel. During the first years of occupation, the French were less concerned with expanding the fortress than with selling valuable inventory. Out of greed for money and boredom, the French began to look for a treasure from the time of the Cyriakskloster in the walls of the citadel Cyriaksburg, which according to an old legend should be walled in there. As a result, on December 9, 1810, the partial dismantling of the eastern and later the southern wall began. As the building documents showed, however, the construction time of the wall sections in question was in the 17th century, so that the presumed treasure could not be located there. By the time this knowledge slowly gained acceptance among the French, a great deal of damage had already been done. However, since their own coffers for the necessary repairs to the walls were empty, the small castle chapel was demolished and its stones and bricks were sold. Repair work on the fortress was only resumed after the lost Russian campaign of 1812. These concentrated on the expansion of the glacis (ski jump), the towers with bomb-proof roofing and the construction of a covered path with trench suitcase to the Petersberg Citadel. When Napoleon Bonaparte visited the Cyriaksburg on April 6, 1813 , he was not very satisfied with the work carried out. On his orders, the Dreienbrunnen area was cleared in the summer of 1813 and flooded. The Battle of the Nations near Leipzig (October 16-19, 1813) sealed the fall of the Napoleonic troops. Parts of the French army fled to the city of Erfurt after the battle. The French army was to gather here and a first resistance center against the persecutors was to be established. General Field Marshal Alexandre d'Alton was in charge of this project , who on October 25, 1813, initiated the blockade of the city by closing all gates and shops. After three days, a 34,900-strong siege corps consisting of Prussian, Austrian and Russian troops had surrounded Erfurt on all sides and set up its quarters and artillery in the surrounding villages. In November the Prussians undertook their first attacks against the citadel of Cyriaksburg, which the 800-strong Napoleonic garrison was initially able to repel. But finally the French gave up the blockade of the city on January 6, 1814 and the occupation of the citadel of Cyriaksburg on May 7, 1814, after Paris had fallen on March 31. When the Prussian troops peacefully took it over, the fortress was still in a neglected state. This was particularly evident in the dilapidated buildings and the crumbling arched wall.
After the Congress of Vienna (1814–1815), Europe was reorganized. As a result, the Kingdom of Prussia received the province of Saxony and the city of Erfurt, among others . The Erfurt fortress was now one of the southernmost fortifications in Prussia. Therefore it should be developed as a fortress of the first order, together with the two citadels Petersberg and Cyriaksburg. For this purpose, the engineer lieutenant from the place Johann Pientka (called Haak) was hired, who had the citadel Cyriaksburg reinforced between 1824 and 1830 according to the New Prussian system. First of all, the moat was deepened in 1824 and the buildings inside the complex were demolished. The defense barracks were then built between 1825 and 1826, as well as the two cannon yards I and II and the ditch capons I and II in 1827. The two upper floors of the barracks served as accommodation for the fortress crew and the basement as a war bakery and kitchen with storage rooms. The courtyard side of the building had numerous loopholes and the roof was, for that time, covered with thick beams and a layer of earth that was bombproof. In 1827 a tower reduit was built and the tops of the towers removed. The wooden interior fittings were also removed and replaced by a round brick pillar. It led to the roof in a ring vault, which made the tower bomb-proof for that time. Between 1827 and 1828, the completion of the entire Kontereskarpenmauer in the moat, the Eckbatterien I and II and 1829 followed Seitenkaponnieren I and II. They had like all caponiers the equipment to its inputs reels (side walls) with small gates, causing the moat at an attack could be divided into different sections. In 1829 the covered path was regulated , the throat caponier with its two drawbridges was completed and an underground well chamber with a domed vault was built. It enclosed the fortress well built in the middle of the 16th century and was connected to the defense barracks via a corridor. With the correction of the earth cavalier in 1830, hollow traverse I with loopholes, a war latrine and further cavities inside the two flanks were built in the middle of the front. Furthermore, the peace powder magazine No. 7 and the terrace battery were built in 1842 below the side cape II. This ended the modernization measures at the fortress, which was considered impregnable until the introduction of the rifled artillery in the 1870s. From 1848 the 31st Infantry Regiment was based at the Citadel Cyriaksburg and between 1871 and 1873 the 1st and 2nd Magdeburg Fusilier Regiment No. 36 followed.
From the founding of the Empire to the end of the Second World War (1871–1945)
With the establishment of the German Empire in 1871, Prussia, Bavaria and Württemberg became allies. As a result, numerous fortresses lost their importance, which were subsequently exposed or even razed. Kaiser Wilhelm I also gave the order to demolish the citadel of Cyriaksburg in 1873. Thereupon, according to plans of the engineer major Ritter der Erdkavalier, the entire curtain wall, the drawbridges and the tambours were demolished. In addition, the fortress trenches were filled up to the east side. From 1885 a part of the Cyriaksberg was transformed into a wild and romantic landscape garden by a beautification association. In the following years there was less and less space for the occupation, so that in 1893 a barrack was built in the north of the complex and finally even thought about selling the fortress. But that did not happen for the time being, and so the barracks were used until the end of the First World War as troop accommodation for parts of the 3rd Thuringian Infantry Regiment No. 71. Finally, in 1919 the city bought the entire Cyriaksberg from Prussia for 200,000 gold marks and designed it as an urban garden. In 1935, the south-western tower was converted into a viewing tower for visitors. During the Second World War, the Wehrmacht installed anti-aircraft guns on the towers , and the vaults of the fortress served as an air raid shelter for the population of Erfurt.
Use after the Second World War
During the GDR era , the area around the Cyriaksburg citadel was used as a horticultural exhibition , for example for the Erfurt blooms (1950) and seed export show (1955) events . A little later, the site and the citadel's courtyard were expanded into a cultural park with an open-air stage in the former quarry, and the north-western tower was converted into an observatory . Between 1958 and 1961 there was a further expansion for the permanent exhibition International Horticultural Exhibition of the Socialist Countries (iga). In addition, a horticultural museum with an extensive horticultural library was set up in the defense barracks. After the fall of 1989/90, today's egapark Erfurt was founded in place of the iga and, from 1995, the restoration of the preserved buildings of the Cyriaksburg citadel began in stages. The use of the northern tower as an observatory and that of the defense barracks as a museum were retained. The newly founded German Horticultural Museum has been located in the Defensionskaserne since May 2000 and presents the world of horticulture on 1500 m². After its uncovering in 1997, the southern tower was expanded with a steel structure to become a lookout tower. Furthermore, the 60-meter-deep fortress well in the defense barracks was made accessible to visitors. In addition, the remains of the moat and ramparts as well as a piece of the reconstructed southern fortress wall are preserved today.
construction
The Citadel Cyriaksburg is a largely preserved city fortress from the 17th to 19th centuries and initially served as an independent fortress and later as a detached work of the neighboring Petersberg Citadel . Its core fortress extends over an area of approx. 8000 m² and consists of an irregular, square plan that was originally surrounded by a fortress moat with a covered path . In the event of a defense, the trench could be divided into different sections by tambours and was connected to the Petersberg Citadel via a covered connection path (double trench suitcase). A horseshoe-shaped tower reduit , two earth and corner batteries with trusses and two side capons were originally located around the core fortress and were intended to strengthen the western side of the citadel. The lower floors of the tower redoubt and the ground and corner batteries had access to an underground counter mine system that led into the terrain in front. Soldiers patrolled it in order to locate enemy miners early in the event of a siege and to prevent them from their work of destruction. In 1925 the tower reduit and the two ground and corner batteries and in the 1950s the northern side cape were demolished. Somewhat out of the way to the south of the Cyriaksburg citadel, there is still a peace powder magazine and remains of the former terrace battery that was used to paint the Geratal and was later converted into a lookout point. The only way to get into the interior of the citadel was via the drawbridge and throat caponier of the defense barracks in the north-east of the complex, which was protected by an upstream drum. The defense barracks was built between 1824 and 1826 in neo- Prussian classicism and is flanked by two cannon yards. The walls facing the castle courtyard are reinforced and provided with loopholes for artillery and infantry. On the ground floor of the barracks there were originally storage rooms for weapons and provisions, the war kitchen and the fortress bakery, and the crew rooms on the two floors above. Inside, the defense barracks consists of numerous individual sections that could be separated from one another by deployable palisade walls in the event of an enemy storm. Furthermore, there are connections on the ground floor of the building to an underground vault with a well system and to the upstream trench capons and throat capons. The well has a depth of approx. 40 m and is fed via an 8 m³ cistern . After being used as accommodation for the troops, the barracks served as the seat of a horticultural museum between 1961 and 1994 and has housed the newly founded German Horticultural Museum since May 2000 . Furthermore, the core fortress is bordered in the southwest by two 15 m high gun turrets, the walls of which are provided with numerous loopholes. Tower A has a relief from the year 1528 on the north side, which shows the coat of arms of the city of Erfurt and the then associated villages Kapellendorf , Vieselbach , Schlossvippach and Vargula . Tower B has been used as an observation tower since 1935 and tower A since 1955 as an observatory, the rotating dome of which has a diameter of 5 m and was manufactured by VEB Carl Zeiss Jena . The lower floors of the towers, together with parts of the moat, were filled in after the fortress was lifted and only exposed again after renovation work on tower B in the 1990s. Furthermore, the towers were originally connected to the rest of the complex via a circular wall , which had a total length of approx. 400 m and a height of approx. 3 m. At the top, the walls were closed by a pointed roof to make it difficult for enemy soldiers to overcome. Finally, the former castle courtyard, on which a cavalier was originally laid out, extends between the defense barracks and the gun turrets . It was an earth wall with two flanks, which raised the surrounding wall and whose cavities were used as war powder magazines and casemates . In addition, the cavalier had a ramp on the northern flank for pulling up guns and was built with a hollow crossbeam in the middle of the front . This had loopholes and led via a stair tower and subsequent trench caponier into the tower reduit. As a result of the softening, the Kavalier was removed and redesigned into a garden together with the castle courtyard in the 1920s and 1950s.
See also
literature
- Willibald Gutsche (ed.): History of the city of Erfurt. Hermann Böhlaus successor, Weimar 1986, ISBN 3-7400-0095-3
- Robert Huth: The Cyriaksburg near Erfurt. Publishing house of the Thuringian Forest Association, Erfurt 1907
- Hansjürgen Müllerott: From the Cyriakskloster to the Cyriaksburg. Thüringer Chronik-Verlag, Arnstadt 1991, ISBN 3-910132-04-9
Individual evidence
- ^ Robert Huth: The Cyriaksburg near Erfurt . Publishing house of the Thuringian Forest Association, Erfurt 1907, p. 5
- ^ Robert Huth: The Cyriaksburg near Erfurt . Publishing house of the Thuringian Forest Association, Erfurt 1907, p. 25
- ↑ Gerhard Robert Walter of Coeckelberghe-Dützele : Ruins or paperback (etc.) on the history of dilapidated castles and castles . Me. Lechner, 1834, p. 21 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed January 23, 2016]).
- ^ The leveling of the Cyriaksburg . Thuringian General Gazette, April 27, 1927
Web links
Coordinates: 50 ° 58 ′ 3 ″ N , 11 ° 0 ′ 26 ″ E