Old Bridge (Frankfurt am Main)
Coordinates: 50 ° 6 ′ 30 ″ N , 8 ° 41 ′ 16 ″ E
| Old bridge | ||
|---|---|---|
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| use | Road bridge | |
| Crossing of | Main | |
| place |
Altstadt , Sachsenhausen (Main km 35.65) |
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| construction | Arch bridge , box bridge | |
| overall length | 237.36 m | |
| width | 19.50 m | |
| Number of openings | 7th | |
| Longest span | 70 | |
| construction time | before 1222, 1912-1926, 1965 | |
| location | ||
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The Old Bridge in Frankfurt am Main is the oldest and until the middle of the 19th century was the only stone bridge on the lower reaches of the Main . From the Middle Ages until 1914, it connected the Fahrgasse in Frankfurt's old town with Brückenstraße in Sachsenhausen . Since it was first mentioned in a document in 1222, the development of Frankfurt has been inextricably linked with it. It has been destroyed and renewed at least 18 times over the centuries. With its 13 brick round arches , the Sachsenhausen Bridge was the most important building in the city. Because it was no longer able to cope with the demands of modern road and shipping traffic, it was demolished in 1914.
Today's Old Bridge, more correctly referred to as the New Old Bridge , was inaugurated on August 15, 1926 by the then Lord Mayor Ludwig Landmann . Two of its originally eight vaulted arches, clad with red Main sandstone , were blown up by German soldiers on March 26, 1945 . After an initially provisional reconstruction, the middle section was replaced by a steel box bridge and put into operation on September 15, 1965. With the new portico , the old bridge was given a building again in 2006 that is reminiscent of the former bridge mill . The bridge received its current appearance, characterized by four portal walls on both sides of the central section, during the renovation in 2014. The landmark of the Old Bridge is the brick gickel and the statue of the mythical city founder Charlemagne .
history
11th to 14th centuries
Originally there was a ford passable for people and wagons near the Frankfurt Main Bridge, possibly a little downstream at the level of the Fahrtor , after which the city got its name. It is not certain when the oldest bridge between Frankfurt and the Sachsenhausen district, mentioned in a document in 1193, was built. For the first time a court at the bridge belonging to Magister Nikolaus is mentioned in a document from the Bartholomäusstift from 1222 . The bridge is probably older, however: The Frankfurt chronicler Achilles Augustus von Lersner wrote at the beginning of the 18th century: “The bridge that hangs the two cities on each other was built by Holtz in 1035 and stood there for many years, often causing great damage Waters suffered, especially since 1192 ” . The historian Johann Georg Battonn commented on this in the 19th century: “It is much older, and I don't think I'm wrong if I own its first foundation to Charlemagne, who had a palatium here around 782, and probably around the same time also built the stone bridge over the Main. "
From today's perspective, these assumptions are unlikely. The oldest medieval stone bridge, the Drusus Bridge in Bingen , dates from the 11th century, and larger stone bridges, such as B. in Regensburg , Prague and Würzburg , were only built in the 12th century. This suggests that the Frankfurt Main Bridge, as described by Lersner, was actually built of wood in the 11th or early 12th century and renewed after 1192 - possibly at the instigation of the Reich Ministerial Kuno von Munzenberg , the great on both sides of the river Owned property. As the oldest documents show, this bridge was also partly made of wood, only the pillars were made of stone . A stone bridge is not mentioned until 1276 .
In the 1920s, when the tide was low, a number of old oak piles had come to light upstream from the Old Bridge. This led to speculation that it was the remains of a former bridge from Roman times . It is more likely, however, that the system dates from the Middle Ages and was used for fishing or flood protection .
In the 12th and 13th centuries, Frankfurt grew into one of the most important trading centers in the empire, not least because of the outstanding importance of its bridge, which it was to maintain for centuries as the most important part of the north-south axis of the Main metropolis. On May 10, 1235, King Heinrich (VII) granted the citizens of the city significant privileges: half of the proceeds from the Frankfurt Mint and wood from the Dreieich Wildbann were given to the city to maintain the bridge. There is also a document dated from Rome from 1300, in which 15 Italian bishops guaranteed indulgences to all those who donated for the maintenance of the Frankfurt Main Bridge.
In the 14th century the bridge was destroyed several times by floods and ice: Anno 1306 on our women's candlelight evening (February 1st) the Meyn was so big here from Eyß and waters that it covered the two Thürn and several parts of the bridges Pushed away a large crowd stood on the bridges, of which 10 people drowned. The two bridge towers that are mentioned for the first time at this event were also torn away. In 1342 the worst flood ever recorded in Central Europe occurred , the Magdalen flood on July 22nd. On the Sachsenhausen side, which was more exposed to the current because of the Main Island, six arches with the St. Catherine's Chapel, consecrated in 1338, and the bridge tower collapsed. Since then, until the Reformation , a penitential procession from the Main Bridge to the Weißfrauenkirche took place every year on Magdalenentag, July 22nd .
15th to 18th century
At the beginning of the 15th century, 10 of the 13 bridge arches and the two bridge towers were fundamentally renewed. The responsible builder was possibly Madern Gerthener , who personally vouched to the council on November 30, 1399 for the safety of the vaults and arches. Gerthener had on his wanderings in Prague recently by the Peter Parler built Charles Bridge met. The oldest representation of the bridge dates from 1405: The Bedebuch ( burned in World War II ) shows it in stylized form, with the two towers, three arches and the crucifix of the Brickegickel . The oldest overall representation of the bridge can be found in the Cosmographia by Sebastian Münster as part of Frankfurt's Vogelschau in the second edition from 1550 and is dated 1545 in the woodcut itself. Soon afterwards, in 1552, another depiction appeared on the so-called siege plan by Conrad Faber von Creuznach , who had already sketched the bridge in 1535 in the background of his double portrait of Anna and Gilbrecht von Holzhausen. It shows the bridge during the three-week siege of the Protestant city by an army of Protestant princes led by Elector Moritz von Sachsen in the summer of 1552 when it was defended by imperial troops . At that time the bridge was covered with cloth, the Main made impassable by sunk ships and an iron chain. The siege began on July 17th and ended on August 2nd after the Passau Treaty was signed. Their loyalty to the emperor paid off for the city, from 1562 onwards all coronations took place in Frankfurt.
At the beginning of the 17th century, the last wooden pillar to the north of the bridge mill was replaced by a stone arch pillar. However, the bridge deck continued to consist of wooden beams that could be quickly removed if necessary to make the bridge impassable.
The bridge was 31 shoes wide (almost 9 m), including the stone bridge railings, which were each one shoe wide. With normal water flow, the highest arch was 30 shoes (8.50 m) above the water level, the other arches were two to three shoes lower. The passage width of the arches was between 7.50 m and 9 m. The actual carriageway was only about 4.70 m wide, which was just enough for two cars to pass each other. The footpaths were so narrow that one-way traffic had to be introduced: pedestrians had to take the right side of the bridge in the walking direction.
( copper engraving by Matthäus Merian the Elder )
The bridge was also the scene of armed conflicts in the Thirty Years' War . In August 1635 imperial troops attacked the Swedes who were occupying Sachsenhausen and who had holed up in the bridge mill and in the Sachsenhausen bridge tower. In the course of the battle, the bridge mill went up in flames. It was replaced by two new buildings.
(copper engraving by Georg Daniel Heumann after a drawing by Salomon Kleiner )
At the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century, the state of construction of the bridge deteriorated. During this time, floods and ice drift repeatedly hit the bridge and caused damage, some of which were only poorly repaired. In 1739 the council ordered that the dilapidated bridge could not carry more than 50 hundredweights . Nevertheless, the cross arch collapsed on December 16, 1739, whereby the brick wall was lost. The two adjacent arches, the raftsman arch and the discharge arch where the rubbish was dumped into the Main, were also badly damaged.
The council then decided to completely rebuild the bridge. The construction management was given to Johann Friedrich von Uffenbach . First of all, a wooden emergency bridge was built, which, for example, served the coronation of Emperor Charles VII . The foundation stone for the new stone building was laid on September 18, 1741, and the keystone was laid on September 14, 1744. In 1748 the bridge was paved, then it received a representative sandstone parapet. The portals at the exits to the Main Island were adorned with sandstone reliefs of the river god Moenus and the two cannon steps , a caricature-like representation of two artillerymen. The relief was lost in World War II.
On February 27, 1784 , the bridge was damaged again by ice drift.
During the Sixth Coalition War , on October 31, 1813, French troops of the Napoleonic Imperial Guard, who were supposed to defend the city, fought a fierce battle with the Bavarian and Austrian troops advancing from Sachsenhausen. Again both bridge mills fell victim to the flames. The French troops had to retreat, but were effectively able to evade pursuit by the Allies by removing the wooden beams over the two central arches of the bridge. The bridge arches were not finally walled up until 1840.
19th century
( steel engraving by Jakob Ludwig August Buhl based on a template by Jakob Fürchtegott Dielmann )
Even after the new construction, the bridge had an unfavorable ratio of the free opening width of 172.17 meters to the total length of 264.87 meters. As a result, ice jammed above the bridge almost every winter. The icebreakers in front of the pillars endangered the ships passing through and were therefore removed; In any case, there was strong turbulence and currents in the long, narrow arched passages between the pillars , as the pillars were slightly inclined to the main direction of flow. Scouring and erosion repeatedly caused damage to the bridge. Reports by the city architect Johann Friedrich Christian Hess from 1816 to 1844 indicated the desolate condition of the pillars and the antechamber with cracks of up to 10 inches. In the years 1825 to 1859 alone, the maintenance costs amounted to 230,000 guilders .
In 1848 a second bridge was built over the Main for the Main-Neckar-Bahn . The Eiserne Steg , a pedestrian bridge , followed in 1869 . Nevertheless, the Main Bridge, now called the Old Bridge , was no longer able to cope with the increasing traffic. Since 1859 there were plans to widen the bridge. In 1865 the first plans were made for a new building with eight instead of 13 arches and a width of 14 m. It was planned to remove the Main Island for this new building.
When the Free City of Frankfurt was annexed by Prussia in 1866 , the bridge became the property of the Prussian state. The new construction plans were initially put on hold; instead, more new bridges were built in the following decades: the Untermainbrücke downstream was opened to traffic in 1874, and the Obermainbrücke (today Ignatz-Bubis-Brücke ) in 1878 . In the 1880s the Main was canalized, which caused the water level to rise by around two meters. The Osthafen was built between 1908 and 1910 . By now at the latest, the old bridge had become a traffic obstacle for shipping on the Main .
The route of the Frankfurt-Offenbacher Trambahn-Gesellschaft (FOTG) opened on February 18, 1884, at the end of an Offenbach consortium consisting of the Kommerzienrat Weintraut, the banker Weymann and the Bankhaus Merzbach, starting from the Alte Brücke in Sachsenhausen , was the first commercially operated public electric tram in Germany . The route initially led to Buchrainstrasse in Oberrad and from April 10th to Mathildenplatz in Offenbach . At that time, the FOTG still used a gauge of 1000 mm ( meter gauge ).
20th century: The New Old Bridge
The city's civil engineering department wrote a memorandum in 1909 in which the principles for the new building were summarized: construction on the old site, preservation of the Main Island, construction of red Main sandstone. The 1911 advertised architectural competition where architects from Community Franz von Hoven was involved with Hermann von Hoven, won Franz Heberer and Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Leonhardt . On May 23, 1912, the foundation stone for the new building was laid on the Maininsel . The bridge should be 14 m wide and have eight arches.
In the spring of 1914, an emergency bridge bought from Dresden was built , which spanned the river to the west of the old bridge, 279 m long on 15 wooden pillars. On July 3rd, the Old Bridge was closed to traffic and demolition began immediately . The names of the two Frankfurters who were the last to cross the bridge are well known: A Mr. Heymann from Heidestrasse and the innkeeper Effelsberger from Alter Markt . That was the end of the centuries-old history of the bridge.
The construction work on the new bridge, which was to be named Kaiserbrücke by a resolution of the city council , began in 1915 on the Sachsenhausen side with the two pillars spanning the Müllermain. However , the work came to a standstill due to the First World War . On January 22, 1924, the emergency bridge was torn away by heavy ice . Thereupon the city founded a bridge building association, whose chairmanship was taken over by Lord Mayor Georg Voigt . At the beginning of June 1924, construction work was resumed, the bridge was now to be called Neue Alte Brücke and was 19 m wide. For this, the pillars that had already been built had to be extensively rebuilt. In December 1925, the construction work had to be interrupted again due to ice drift. On August 15, 1926, the New Old Bridge was finally opened by Mayor Ludwig Landmann . At its inauguration on August 15, 1926, Franz Heberer spoke the words on behalf of the architects:
“Now you're done, Brick, / after a long and serious suffering. / Now bring Honor and Glick to Frankfurt / Until the most distant times. "
The bridge was 237.40 m long and 19.5 m wide (of which 11 m for the roadway, 4 m each for the two footpaths). Its eight arches (5 across the main stream, one on the Main Island and two across the Müllermain) were of different widths, the widest being the two central arches, each 29.5 m. The construction method represented a compromise, on the one hand to be powerful enough for modern ship and road traffic, on the other hand to preserve the traditions of the old bridge.
The Neue Alte Brücke was only 18 years old: on March 26, 1945, shortly before the end of the Second World War , the German Wehrmacht blew up the two navigable bridge arches in the middle of the river to make it more difficult for the advancing Allied forces to cross the Main. A pointless undertaking, because within the next three days, US Army units occupied the entire city.
At the end of 1945, the repair of the old bridge began (now without the attribute new). A steel center piece with a load-bearing capacity of up to approx. 24 tons total weight was manufactured and used from armor plates and other war material . The construction was supported by a wide, temporary steel pillar. On September 13, 1947, the Old Bridge was opened to traffic again as the second Frankfurt Main Bridge after the Eiserner Steg .
Since the provisional middle section only allowed two lanes of traffic , a complete new construction of the bridge was soon planned. However, the new building failed due to the estimated high costs. In the mid-1960s, it was therefore decided to renovate the building in order to end the increasing traffic obstructions. Especially since the construction of the wide Kurt-Schumacher-Straße , which today forms the northern access to the bridge, traffic has often backed up well into the city center. In 1964 the Flößerbrücke was built to relieve the old bridge east of the Obermainbrücke and on June 1, 1965 the old bridge was closed to traffic. Two new, approximately 70 m long and almost 10 m wide steel bridge sections were floated between the old pillars. Because of the upcoming International Motor Show , the construction work was completed in record time, so that the bridge was reopened to traffic on September 16, 1965 - just in time for the opening of the IAA. Around 29,000 vehicles now roll along the five lanes every day.
The damage that occurred to the Old Bridge was makeshift repaired in 1996. In December 2000, the city council decided to overhaul the entire bridge. The architect Christoph Mäckler won an architectural competition held in 2001 with a design that emphasizes the historical elements of the building and wants to make them more prominent in the future. In 2004 the city council decided that the renovation should begin immediately after the 2006 World Cup . The construction work was delayed, however, because it was to be combined with the necessary repairs to Kurt-Schumacher-Straße in order not to impair private traffic in the city center for a long time. In the meantime, the start of construction was planned for mid-2009, the construction costs were given in the 2008 budget at around 29 million euros.
Since the Old Bridge, the inner-city most under-utilized bus is connection, the track for recording should tram - tracks are preparing to set up a tram connection from the Konstablerwache over the old bridge to Sachsenhausen later. The existing five lanes including the turning lanes should be retained and the bridge should have separate pedestrian and bicycle paths on both sides. To do this, however, the bridge would have had to be widened. After the Osthafenbrücke was to be opened two kilometers east as a new Main crossing in 2013 , the city parliament decided not to widen the bridge and only to renovate the existing one - for a comparatively cheap 4.5 million euros. The renovation work took place between June and December 2014. In favor of the bicycle and footpaths, the middle fifth lane for left-turners was dispensed with. The bridge received new sandstone parapets and a new lighting system.
The development of the Maininsel and the Müllermain
A special feature of the Alte Brücke is the Main Island , which has changed its shape again and again over the centuries. On the older plans, e.g. B. Merian's plan from 1628, you can see three small islands above the Old Bridge, while below the bridge there was only a sandbank in the river. These islands have largely disappeared on city maps of the 18th century. It was not until the 19th century that pictures and plans show an island again, which was criss-crossed by several small canals , the inlets and outlets of the bridge mills.
At that time, the Sachsenhausen bank of the Main was much further south than it is today. The around 20 m wide high quay with the riverside road and the 23 m wide deep quay were only created after 1880, until then the Main reached directly to the facades of the first houses. Above the bridge, the Sachsenhausen city wall extended to the river. The Mainarm between the island and the Sachsenhausen bank is still called the Müllermain because it conducted the river water to the two bridge mills and the Sachsenhausen mill located a little further west on the bank .
When the New Old Bridge was built, the Main Island was also fortified. Today it is about 300 m long and 30 m wide. The bridge divides it into an upper and a lower island. It is densely overgrown with tall trees, mainly poplars and willows , and is a breeding area for numerous water birds . It is also an important resting place for migratory birds . The island is therefore not open to the public. Although it is not under nature protection , the city's magistrate committed itself in its decision of June 23, 1977 to treat it in this way.
The narrow Müllermain is closed to shipping due to its shallow water; there are only a few floating jetties there for pleasure craft.
From 2005 to 2006, a new building for the Portikus exhibition hall for contemporary art was built on the Main Island west of the bridge . The massive brick building with a steep gable roof and a pointed gable facing the bridge is a design by the architect Christoph Mäckler , according to whose plans the old bridge was also renovated in 2014. The name of the building Neuer Portikus is originally derived from the portico of the portico of the old city library on the Obermainbrücke. The exhibition hall was located there for many years until it was relocated from 2003 to 2005 when the Old City Library was rebuilt.
Architect Mäckler also planned a 30 meter high building east of the Old Bridge. It was to include a passage for the rowing club and a restaurant in the lower part, and four condominiums on the upper floors. However, the project was controversial, as it would have built a largely natural area in the middle of the city and threatened several trees and the breeding grounds of numerous birds. In addition, according to a citizens' initiative, the originally intended non-profit character would have turned into a “private investor's dream” with construction costs of 4 million euros. After the citizens' initiative had collected more than 6,000 signatures and several opposition factions had filed motions against the building in the Frankfurt city parliament, the CDU and Greens majority factions there spoke out against the building in a joint press release, the project is thus off the table.
Buildings on the old bridge
The bridge towers
The two bridge towers were first mentioned in a document in 1306 when they were destroyed by floods and ice . In 1342 the Sachsenhausen tower fell victim to the flood again, but was immediately rebuilt. Its attic was decorated with five turrets. In 1729 he received a striking clock .
The Frankfurt bridge tower was richly decorated with paintings: in 1392 the passage was painted with a fresco of the martyrdom of Christ , around 1500 the council had a so-called Judenschandbild, the Judensau , added. Despite all the submissions from the Jewish community, this testimony of public anti-Judaism was preserved until the tower was torn down, and it was even renewed again and again.
On the south side (the bridge side) the tower facade had a sundial and an imperial eagle since 1502 , on the north side (the urban side) an urban eagle (the same situation has been preserved on the Eschenheimer tower to this day ). In 1610 the painter Philipp Uffenbach added an illustration of freedom from bridges .
The gates of the bridge towers were closed at night so that no one could cross the bridge at night.
Since the Frankfurt bridge tower was built earlier, it was also called the old bridge tower . It served as a prison , and in 1693 the torture was moved here from the Katharinenpforte. In 1616 the heads of Vinzenz Fettmilch and three other leaders of the Fettmilch revolt were attached to the south side of the tower. Johann Wolfgang Goethe reports in Poetry and Truth that they still hung there 150 years later, one of the heads was still there until the bridge tower was finally demolished in 1801. The Sachsenhausen bridge tower was demolished in 1769. The large town hall tower , the Lange Franz , was built based on his model at the beginning of the 20th century .
The bridge mills
In 1411 the first mill was built on the bridge. It was by far the largest and most important mill in Frankfurt. It was destroyed in 1635 in the aforementioned battle between Swedish and Imperial troops. Two somewhat smaller mills were built in their place, one in the west, towards Sachsenhausen, and one in the east, towards Frankfurt. These mills also had to be renewed again and again, e.g. B. 1718 after a fire caused by lightning . In 1852 the western mill was demolished and a steam-powered pumping station was built in its place from 1856 to 1858 , which supplied the Sachsenhausen nurseries with water from the Main. The pumping station was shut down and demolished in 1890. The eastern mill stood until 1914, when it was demolished with the old bridge. The Frankfurters born in the two mills were called Gickel citizens .
The Katharinenkapelle
Already at the beginning of the 14th century there was a small chapel, probably made of wood, on the bridge, which was destroyed in the flood in 1306. In 1322, Albrecht von der Hofstatt mentioned a new chapel by the Sachsenhausen bridge tower in his will . The beautiful and richly decorated chapel was not completed until 1338 and was consecrated to Saint Catherine on September 27 , the patron saint of boatmen. As early as 1342, the chapel was destroyed by the Magdalen flood and was not rebuilt. A few years later, the patrician Wicker Frosch founded the Katharinenkirche in Neustadt . In 1866 and 1878, during construction work, the remains of the chapel were actually found in good condition at the place mentioned in the written sources.
More buildings
The rat house was on a pillar on the east side of the bridge from 1499 to 1569. In the 15th century rats had taken over the city. The supervisor in the rat house, the rats knife , paid for each killed a rat Heller , cut off her tail as a receipt and threw the rest in the main. The fines that the Jews had to pay for violations were used for the financing. In 1569 the rat house was converted into a powder magazine after some citizens had apparently started to use rat breeding as a source of income.
On the western side of the bridge to the north of the non-vaulted pillar, there were the two secret chambers mentioned since the 15th century , public lavatories for men and women. They were donated by the council.
Rowing became popular in the course of the 19th century and has been pursued on the Main since that time. With the "Frankfurter Ruder-Verein von 1865" , the first rowers ' association was founded in Germany on July 28th, 1865. From 1871 the first international regatta was organized on the Main. Since then, the association has also been based on the Main Island. The boathouse between two pillars of the Old Bridge was built in its current form in 1948.
The monument to Charlemagne
On August 23, 1843, on the thousandth anniversary of the division of Verdun , the Städel Art Institute donated a statue of Emperor Charlemagne to the city . The sculpture made of red Main sandstone, a work by the sculptor Johann Nepomuk Zwerger , was erected on the eastern central pillar of the bridge facing the city. When the Old Bridge was demolished in 1914, the statue was placed in the courtyard of the Historical Museum . During the bombing raids in March 1944 , the statue there was badly damaged (head and hands were destroyed). In 1986 it was re-erected in front of the entrance to the Historisches Museum am Römerberg after the sculptor Edwin Hüller had redesigned the figure's head and hands. In 2011 the museum was demolished for a new building and the sculpture ended up in the depot for the time being. When the plans for the expansion and necessary renovation of the Old Bridge were discussed, the population wanted to put the sculpture back in its original place on the bridge. Since the city's finances did not allow such a project at the time, the Brückenbauverein Frankfurt e.V. was founded for this purpose in 2006 . V. chaired by the architect Christoph Mäckler . At the end of 2014, the city council decided to leave the original in the new building of the Historical Museum and instead set up a copy on the Old Bridge , where the Brickegickel was located from 1967 to 2013. Mayor Feldmann inaugurated the monument on October 1, 2016.
The Brickegickel
The Brickegickel (bridge cock) is inextricably linked with the history of the Old Bridge . In 1401 a crucifix was placed on the middle arch of the bridge, the cross arch, to mark the location of the deepest fairway . At the top of the crucifix was a golden rooster , as a symbol of vigilance, but also of repentance for Peter's betrayal of his Lord Jesus . The cock was supposed to warn the sailors to be vigilant if they had to steer their ship through the current under the narrow arch of the bridge. In addition, executions took place here for centuries. When the condemned man's last glances fell on the Brickegickel, the rooster exhorted him to repent , while the crucifix promised divine grace and forgiveness of his sins .
The brick wall had to be renewed five times over the centuries:
- The first sank in 1434 during a hurricane in the Main,
- The second was shot down by Swedish troops in the Thirty Years' War in 1635 . It had already been damaged during the siege of Frankfurt in the Prince's War in 1552.
- The third sank in the floods on December 16, 1739 when the bridge collapsed and was no longer found.
- The fourth was made with a new base and a crucifix - both in late Baroque forms - in 1750 and stood on the Old Bridge until it was demolished in 1914 and on the New Old Bridge built in its place from 1926 to 1945 . The shape of the late baroque sandstone plinth and the art locksmith's work of the crucifix also originated from this period. During the Second World War , two arches of the bridge were blown up by the German Wehrmacht on March 26, 1945 in order to stop the advance of the US Army . The base and crucifix were destroyed, the brick wall fell into the Main, but could be recovered. It was then kept in the Historical Museum . Upon investigation, it turned out that it had several bullet holes, which it probably received on October 31, 1813 during skirmishes between French and Bavarian troops.
- The fifth was placed on the renovated Old Bridge on December 7, 1967, along with faithful copies of the lost plinth and crucifix.
- The sixth Brickegickel was built in September 1994 after its predecessor was stolen in 1992. A donation from Helmut Gärtner, long-time Frankfurt mayor, on the occasion of his election to the First City Council of Eschborn enabled it to be made by the sculptor Edwin Hüller , who also designed the 1967 predecessor. Today's Brickegickel is made of bronze and covered with a layer of gold . From 2013 to 2017 the Brickegickel was renovated and on November 13th 2017 it was re-erected on the upstream side in the middle of the bridge, i.e. at its historical location.
Say about the old bridge
The Brothers Grimm pass on the story of the Sachsenhausen Bridge in Frankfurt in their German sagas :
“In the middle of the Sachsenhausen bridge, two arches at the top are partly only covered with wood so that this can be removed in times of war and the connection can be easily blocked without breaking anything. There is the following legend about it:
The builder had made himself obligated to complete the bridge by a certain time. When this approached, he saw that it was impossible, and when there were only two days left, in fear he called on the devil and asked for his assistance. The devil appeared and offered to finish building the bridge last night, if the builder would give him the first living being to walk over it. The contract was made, and last night the devil completely finished the bridge, without a human eye in the darkness seeing how it was going.
When the first morning came, the builder came and drove a rooster across the bridge in front of him and delivered it to the devil. But this man wanted a human soul, and as he saw himself betrayed, he angrily grabbed the tap, tore it up and threw it through the bridge, from which the two holes were made which to this day cannot be walled up because everything that has been worked on during the day collapses again at night. A golden cock on an iron rod is still a landmark on the bridge. "
This legend is told in a very similar way about other bridges, e.g. B. the Teufelsbrück , the stone bridge in Regensburg and the construction of the cathedral and the bridge in Bamberg . Instead of a rooster, however, other living beings are often driven across the bridge, e.g. B. a billy goat or a chamois . Ancient traditions were probably behind these bridging legends, e.g. B. the belief in pagan river gods , which could only be appeased by a sacrifice . In addition, since ancient times, bridge building has been one of the most difficult and most admired technical tasks; for superstitious natures it was easy to imagine that he could only succeed with the help of supernatural powers.
With the fighting between Swedish and imperial troops in August 1635, the legend of the Swedish Shot is connected :
“On the iron cross on the Sachsenhausen bridge hangs an iron image of Christ with a deep gunshot wound in the right calf. But that's how it went.
In 1635 the Swedes were in the city and had a heated battle on the bridge with the Frankfurt riflemen. Then a Swede saw the iron image of Christ on the cross, and in anger that the Swedes had so valiantly opposed the Frankfurters, he raised his loaded rifle, aimed and shot at the holy image with a profound curse.
But his unholy rudeness was immediately punished.
The bullet penetrated the iron image half an inch deep, but still ricocheted back and straight into the chest and heart of the anti-Christ Swede, who had therefore shot for the last time.
The dent in the iron calf can still be seen today. "
The old bridge and the law
The freedom of bridges
A special custom , the so-called bridge freedom , has been in force on the Main Bridge since ancient times . Strictly speaking, the bridge lay beyond the city walls and thus outside the city. The bridge gates were closed every evening, staying on the bridge at night was strictly forbidden. Freedom of the bridge was connected with the duty to keep peace on the bridge. Violations were punished with draconian penalties. An illustration that the painter Philipp Uffenbach created for the Frankfurt bridge tower in 1610 shows this very drastically: The picture shows three men in a fight on the bridge. In the foreground you can see the hand being chopped off who started the argument: whoever breaks this bridge of freedom will be judged by his wicked hand. With such representations, the consequences of strife and violence were made clear to those who could not read. In a collection of copperplate engravings created by Daniel Meissner in 1630 , the political treasure chest , there is also a representation of freedom from bridges. In addition to the Latin platitudes not to break the law, to severely punish the evildoers and to protect the good, the board contains the German text: This bridging freedom is capable, that nobody cares about it night or day, driving crime, wanton and violence, Otherwise skin you get your hand off him soon.
The old bridge as a place of execution
In the Middle Ages, drowning was the most common type of execution in Frankfurt. The Frankfurt Council has been responsible for criminal proceedings since 1387. The surviving court records show that between 1366 and 1500 91 people were drowned, followed by hanging with 70 and beheading with 58 cases. In the 17th century only 38 people were drowned, while 133 were hanged and 28 beheaded. The last execution by drowning took place in 1613. According to the embarrassing court rules of Emperor Charles V , the so-called Constitutio Criminalis Carolina , drowning was the intended punishment for theft , infanticide , incest , breaking the original feud , poisoning and abortion .
The course of an execution is described in Lersner's Chronicle : The convicts - which also included women, because women sentenced to death were generally drowned - were taken from the bridge tower in which they were imprisoned to the old bridge to the statute , because one tends to judge : the brick gickel on the cross arch. There they tied their knees, arms, hands and necks and pushed them on a board over the bridge railing into the Main. When the condemned's last glances fell on the Brickegickel, the rooster should exhort them to repent , while the crucifix promised them divine grace and the forgiveness of their sins . At this point the current of the river was strongest, so that the convict was immediately carried away and drowned. When the water level was high, the corpse was only landed outside the city, so there was no need to worry about it. Only when the water level was low could a drowned person wash ashore on Frankfurt territory. In this case the body was buried in the cemetery at Gutleuthof . In contrast to the other executions, drownings also took place at night in order to avoid the usual gatherings of people on the bridge.
The Old Bridge in Painting and Literature
For centuries, the Old Bridge was considered the most important and most beautiful building in Frankfurt. The panorama of the city and the bridge has therefore above all inspired many painters, u. a. Conrad Faber , Matthäus Merian , Anton Kirchner , Anton Radl , Domenico Quaglio , Carl Morgenstern , Friedrich Wilhelm Delkeskamp , Carl Theodor Reiffenstein and Gustave Courbet . In the 20th century, Alfred Oppenheim and Jakob Nussbaum dedicated themselves to the motif. An important representative of the Kronberg painters' colony , Fritz Wucherer , and Otto Meisner created the last depictions of the Old Bridge before it was demolished or captured it in pictures.
Numerous poets dealt with the Main Bridge. Goethe wrote in poetry and truth about the Frankfurt Main Bridge :
“My favorite thing to do is to walk on the large Main Bridge. Its length, its strength, its good looks make it a remarkable building; also from earlier times it is almost the only monument of the precaution which the secular authorities owe their citizens. The beautiful river up and down attracted my eyes; and when the golden cock shone in the sunshine on the bridge cross, it was always a pleasant sensation for me. "
He later judged: "You can almost say that the Main Bridge is the only beautiful monument from earlier times worthy of such a large city."
For centuries, the Sachsenhausen Bridge was one of the four most famous old bridges in Germany: The Dresden one is the longest and most beautiful, the Prague one the widest and most pious, the Regensburg one the strongest and the Sachsenhausen one the reddest . The Frankfurt poets Friedrich Stoltze , Adolf Stoltze and Karl Ettlinger left a particularly large number of poems about the Old Bridge. Among the poets of the 20th century, Fritz von Unruh should be highlighted, who lived for years within sight of the Old Bridge. For the consecration of the bridge in 1926 he wrote the festival poem.
The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer lived at the Schöne Aussicht in the immediate vicinity of the Main Bridge since 1843 . In his treatise on noise and noise (1851) he is particularly angry about the damned infernal cracking of the whips of the carters in the echoing streets of the cities:
"With all due respect for the sacred usefulness, I don't see that a guy who moves a truckload of sand or dung from the place should gain the privilege of getting every thought that arises in ten thousand heads (half an hour's walk) in the Nip germs. "
It is likely that the Frankfurt carters triggered this anger when they drove their teams with loud shouts and cracks of whips and the iron-studded tires of the heavy wagons rumbled over the pavement of the tramline and the old bridge:
"But that a fellow who, with unmarried mail horses, or on a loose cart horse, riding through the narrow streets of a populous city, or even walking next to the animals, with a fathom-long whip, claps with all his strength, does not deserve to be dismounted at five To receive a sincere cane, all the philanthropists in the world will not persuade me, in addition to all legislative corporal punishments, for good reasons, abolishing assemblies. "
See also
literature
- Friedrich Bothe : History of the city of Frankfurt am Main . Verlag Wolfgang Weidlich, Frankfurt am Main 1977. ISBN 3-8035-8920-7
- Walter Gerteis: The unknown Frankfurt . Publishing house Frankfurter Bücher, Frankfurt am Main 1960.
- Bernhard Müller: Picture atlas on the history of the city of Frankfurt am Main . Moritz Diesterweg publishing house, Frankfurt am Main 1916, reprint by W. Weidlich publishing house, Frankfurt am Main 1976. ISBN 3-8035-8904-5
- Dieter Rebentisch: City on the river - Frankfurt and the Main. Archive for Frankfurt's history and art. Vol. 70. Verlag Waldemar Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 2004. ISBN 3-7829-0559-8
- Wolf-Christian Setzepfandt : Architecture Guide Frankfurt am Main / Architectural Guide . 3. Edition. Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-496-01236-6 , p. 42 (German, English).
- Björn Wissenbach: Frankfurt's Old Bridge. Yesterday Today Tomorrow. Book accompanying the exhibition "It leads across the Main ..." by the Institute for Urban History Frankfurt am Main in cooperation with the Office for Road Construction and Development Frankfurt am Main in the Carmelite Monastery. Editors: Evelyn Brockhoff and Gabriele Dehmer. Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2010, ISBN 978-3-7973-1176-4
- Carl Wolff , Rudolf Jung : The architectural monuments in Frankfurt am Main . Second volume. Secular buildings. Völcker, Frankfurt am Main 1898, p. 259–280 ( digital copy [PDF]).
Web links
- Old Bridge (Frankfurt am Main). In: Structurae
- The old bridge. altfrankfurt.com
- The reconstruction of the inner city bridges after the war ( Memento from April 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- Panoramic picture of the old bridge
Individual evidence
- ↑ Johann Friedrich Böhmer (Ed.): Codex diplomaticus Moeno-Francofurtanus. Document book of the imperial city of Frankfurt . First volume. 794-1314. Joseph Baer & Co., Frankfurt am Main 1901, p. 31 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
- ↑ Achilles Augustus von Lersner : The far-famous Freyen realm election and trade city Franckfurt on Mayn Chronica . Frankfurt am Main 1706, p. 19 ( uni-frankfurt.de [PDF]).
- ↑ Johann Georg Battonn : Slave Narratives Frankfurt. The historical introduction . First issue. Verlag des Verein für Geschichte und Alterthumskunde , Frankfurt am Main 1861, p. 206 ( online in Google book search).
- ↑ Böhmer, Urkundenbuch , p. 55 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive )
- ↑ Böhmer, document book , p. 388f. ( Text archive - Internet Archive )
- ↑ Lersner, Chronica , p. 531.
- ↑ Lersner, Chronica , pp. 532f.
- ^ Institute for Urban History, Newsletter, Issue 16, Frankfurt from above. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on July 18, 2013 ; accessed on February 16, 2018 .
- ^ Conrad Faber von Creuznach: Portrait of Gilbrecht von Holzhausen, in the Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main. 1535, accessed March 7, 2018 .
- ^ Conrad Faber von Creuznach: Portrait of Anna von Holzhausen, b. Ratzeburg, in the Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main. 1535, accessed March 7, 2018 .
- ↑ Volker Rödel: Engineering in Frankfurt am Main 1806-1914 , Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1983, ISBN 3-7973-0410-2 , pp. 170f.
- ^ Manfred Pohl: Philipp Holzmann - History of a Construction Company 1849-1899 . P. 130 ( digitized version in the Google book search).
- ↑ Frankfurt's bridge to the wide world . op-online.de, April 2, 2010; Retrieved August 17, 2013
- ↑ City council resolution of July 15, 2004, § 7578
- ↑ FAZ of September 17, 2008
- ↑ Municipal report of May 9, 2008 (PDF; 26 kB)
- ↑ Residential tower on the Main Island: Trouble in (nature) paradise (April 12, 2013). In: Journal-Frankfurt.de. Retrieved April 20, 2013 .
- ↑ Open petition: Main island without a residential tower. In: openpetition.de. Retrieved March 29, 2014 .
- ↑ Currently no majority in favor of the bridge tower (November 7, 2013). In: Group of the Greens in the Römer, press archive. Retrieved March 29, 2014 .
- ^ Website of the bridge building association
- ^ Charlemagne on the website art in public space in Frankfurt am Main
- ↑ Rebecca Röhrich: Why the Frankfurters love their Brickegickel so much. In: fnp.de. November 15, 2017, accessed February 16, 2018 .
- ^ The Sachsenhausen Bridge in Frankfurt . In: Brothers Grimm: German legends . Nicolai, Berlin 1816, Volume 1, pp. 267–268 ( Wikisource )
- ↑ See e.g. BE Hoffmann-Krayer, H. Bächtold-Stäubli: Concise dictionary of German superstition . Berlin / Leipzig 1932
- ^ Karl Enslin : Frankfurter Sagenbuch. Legends and fabulous stories from Frankfurt am Main. New edition. Frankfurt a. M., HL Brönner, 1861, p. 119 ( archive.org )
- ↑ Claudia C. Müller: Jakob Nussbaum (1873-1936). A Frankfurt painter in the field of tension between styles. P. 142, 2002
- ↑ Poetry and Truth. First and second part by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. In: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 13, 2018 .
- ^ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: From a trip to Switzerland via Frankfurt, Heidelberg, Stuttgart and Tübingen in 1797 . Paperless, May 10, 2015, ISBN 978-605037836-8 .
- ↑ Architects and Engineers Association (ed.): Frankfurt am Main and its buildings . Self-published, Frankfurt am Main 1886, p. 412 ( archive.org ).
- ↑ a b Arthur Schopenhauer : About Lerm and Noise . In: Parerga and Paralipomena . Book 2, Chapter 30 ( Wikisource )
Bridges:
Arthur-von-Weinberg-Steg |
Carl Ulrich Bridge |
Kaiserleibrücke |
Offenbach barrage |
Osthafenbrücke |
Deutschherrnbrücke |
Raftsman Bridge |
Ignatz-Bubis Bridge |
Old Bridge |
Iron Bridge |
Untermainbrücke |
Holbeinsteg |
Peace Bridge |
Main Neckar Bridge |
Old Niederräder Bridge |
New Niederräder Bridge |
Europe Bridge |
Barrage Griesheim |
Schwanheimer Bridge |
Leunabrücke |
Werksbrücke Mitte |
Supply bridge |
Factory bridge west |
Sindling Main Bridge
Tunnel:
A-tunnel |
City tunnel
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ferries: Main ferry Höchst.svg){kind=small}