Altewiekring 70
Coordinates: 52 ° 15 ′ 37 ″ N , 10 ° 32 ′ 30 ″ E
The Altewiekring 70 building on the corner of Altewiekring and Helmstedter Straße in Braunschweig is a residential and commercial building built in 1892, in which August Merges , the politician and later President of the “ Socialist Republic of Braunschweig ”, lived with his family from 1917 .
Building description
The building is a four-storey residential building with a full basement with a front facing the intersection with the entrance to the shop. Each floor contains two residential units each with four rooms and a kitchen, whereby the apartment on the ground floor next to the shop was cut differently and integrated into the business area. This was used as a slaughterhouse until the 1970s . The facade is structured differently according to the architectural style of the time and, like the auxiliary building, is clad with yellow bricks. The roof is two-story. Blind windows are let into the neighboring property on the south side, as well as in some parts of the east facade. The plot area is very small at 316 m². In addition to the residential building with around 220 m² of floor space, there is also an outbuilding with around 20 m². This was built as a stable and coach house and has a narrow driveway to the Altewiekring. There is only a strip of about two meters to the neighboring property to the east.
War damage and renovation
During the Second World War , the attic storey in the south-western part was damaged, the originally built attic on the west side was not rebuilt in the course of the repair. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, some renovation work was carried out to improve the quality of living: conversion of the pantries next to the kitchen into shower rooms, division of the shared toilets into two areas assigned to the apartments, installation of a central heating oil supply and removal of the coal furnace, replacement of the old windows through undivided, double-glazed turn-tilt windows and renewal of the roofing. At that time, this was a widespread renovation strategy for the houses of this building era. The facade was later renovated.
monument
According to the monument topography of the Federal Republic of Germany as of 1996, the building belongs to a listed group of structures between Leonhardstrasse and Kastanienallee: "The houses No. 70 and 71 from 1891 as well as the complex No. 72, 73 and 74 combined with a uniformly designed facade are from the same builder / architect Mason Wedler. This is again the typical plaster / brick facades in the style of the time. "
history
Site plan and land acquisition
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In Ludwig Winter's site plan from 1889, the Altewiekring between Helmstedter Strasse and Leonhardplatz is not yet lined with buildings. On the east side, the plots of the parallel and already built Kurzen Straße ended. Only on Leonhardplatz is the Raabe house already listed, which was not built with a shop typical of corner houses.
The later property at Altewiekring 70 belonged at least partially to the already fully developed neighboring property at Helmstedter Strasse with today's house number 144. In May 1891, the 43-year-old owner Schlachtermeister Joseph Stitz sold the built-up part of the 820 m² property that is listed in the land register No. 3474, to the Wahrendorf couple from Cremlingen for 30,000 marks . They took over the shop interior and continued the slaughterhouse. He sold the northwestern gusset between Helmstedter Strasse and Altewiekring with an unspecified size for 4,000 marks to the 35-year-old master mason Wedler from Braunschweig. In the purchase contract, only the distance of 2.3 m to the gable wall of the existing house is specified.
Only a short time later, on July 28, 1891, the purchase contract between Wedler and the later owner August Böcker (also 35 years old) was signed at the notary Kuhn on the Theaterpromenade in Braunschweig, and the property was given as "3 a 16 sqm". The contract refers to the construction of the house that has already begun and a building permit from the city building authority. The completion date of all buildings was set for March 1, 1892 and the handover of the entire residential and commercial building including the outbuildings was set for April 1, 1892. The purchase contract includes a detailed breakdown of costs for all trades, which ends with 41,928.49 marks and a property price of 12,700 marks. The purchase price was 55,000 marks.
Slaughterhouse and owner
August Böcker, who by then had already been operating a slaughterhouse on the Steige in Braunschweig, moved into the newly constructed building and started operating his slaughterhouse in the immediate vicinity of the Wahrendorf operation from October 1893 at the latest. Both companies existed side by side until the 1960s. He and his family moved into the apartments on the upper floor, journeymen and assistants lived under the roof or in the rooms next to the slaughterhouse on the ground floor.
His son Walter also learned the butcher's trade and temporarily worked in his father's business. However, as a result of military service , he became an invalid and died in 1930. After his father's death, also in 1930, the company was continuously leased to various butchers. Like the grocery stores in the immediate vicinity, the shops were closed during the 1970s. The shop was then rented to an advertising agency and later to various other businesses such as bicycle dealers and hairdressers. In 2018 there is a bicycle manufacturer there.
Walter Böcker left behind a woman with three daughters who continued the administration as a community of heirs after the death of their mother and lived there. The quality of living on the Altewiekring deteriorated steadily due to the increasing volume of traffic, so that the property was sold in 1977. It has now passed to different owners and is privately owned. An heiress lived in the grandfather's apartment on the third floor until 1993.
Apartment of August Merges and his family
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According to the Braunschweig address book , August Merges was registered at Marstall 12 in 1912 and in 1917 at Ölschlägern 29 on the third floor with the professional title of travel agent. Presumably this concerns his work at the Braunschweiger Volksfreund . In the 1918 address book it appears at Altewiekring 70 on the second floor. He and his family lived in the southern part of the building, i.e. in the right part when viewed from the Altewiekring.
In the address book from 1919 the entry reads:
- Merges, August, President d. Republic of Braunschweig, Altewiekring 70 II.
The address book from 1920 lists him under his originally learned trade as a tailor , later (among other things in 1929) the professional title is “vorm. Cutter".
The entire family is listed in the owner's house records that have been handed down, so the entry 1920 with consecutive numbers (verbatim reproduction) reads:
- 16 Aug. Merges Secretary 3.3.70 Malstadt Krs. Saarbrüken
- 17 Minna Merges wife 10.5.81 Brügen b. Alfeld
- 18 Walter Merges son 10/19/01 Dellingsen b. Gandersheim
- 19 Alfred Merges son 10.4.00 Dellingsen b. Gandersheim
- 20 Otto Merges Sohn 7/31/05 Dellingsen b. Gandersheim
- 21 Grete Merges daughter 18.9.03 Dellingsen b. Gandersheim
- 22 Liesbeth Merge's daughter 6/10/07 Braunschweig Heidbergstr. 26 moved 6.10.29
The corresponding list from 1925 also gives the job titles for the children:
- Merges August 3.3.70
- Merges Minna 5/10/81
- Merges Walter Sohn typesetter 10/19/01
- Merges Grete's daughter art weaver September 18, 2003 (Note: Margarete)
- Merges Otto Sohn printer 7/31/05
- Merges Lieseth's daughter Lerling (note: should be called Lisbeth apprentice)
- Krull Artur Schlosser 18.1.98 (Note: Arthur, husband of Margarete Merges)
The rent payments, which after the inflation of 1924 amounted to 14 marks per month and rose steadily, have also been handed down. On March 31, 1931, Merges wrote to the owner:
- "Dear Mrs. Böcker!
- You thereby to the gefl. Acknowledgment that I will pay the statutory rent according to § 1 of the Reich Rent Law for the apartment in your Altewiekring 70 II home from the next permitted date.
- with best regards
- August merges.
- Braunschweig, d. March 31, 1931 "
After August Merges' death on March 6, 1945, his widow continued to live in the apartment with her daughter Margarete and her husband Arthur Krull until her death in 1974. Margarete ran an artificial pottery. Her husband died in the 1960s and she left Altewiekring in the late 1970s.
Otto Merges was registered on the ground floor of Jahnstraße 24 in 1939 and was listed there as a pensioner in 1970 . Walter later lived on the 2nd floor at Salzdahlumer Straße 65, his job title was calculator in 1942 and also a pensioner in 1970.
Oral traditions
The following has been handed down from various previous neighbors and from Walter Böcker's daughter Irmgard (born 1913): When she came home from the garden on what is now Georg-Westermann-Allee in Braunschweig in 1919, in the late phase of the November Revolution , the entire street was Lined up up to the attic of the house with soldiers looking for merges but not finding it. In the 1930s, the owner had a picture of Hitler hanging in her living room before the National Socialists came to power . On official occasions, the swastika flag hung on the Altewiekring , while August Merges hoisted the red flag at the back .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Notary Albert Kuhn: Document 2531, Wedler-Böcker sales contract , Braunschweig July 28, 1891, PDF available in WikiCommons.
- ↑ Wolfgang Kimpflinger: City of Braunschweig II (= Institute for Monument Preservation / Lower Saxony State Administration Office [Hrsg.]: Monument topography of the Federal Republic of Germany . Architectural monuments in Lower Saxony). Niemeyer CW Buchverlage, Hameln 1996, ISBN 3-8271-8256-5 .
- ↑ Notary Otto Gerhard: Document 13049, purchase contract Stitz-Wedler-Wahrendorf , Braunschweig May 25, 1891, PDF available in WikiCommons.
- ^ Notary Albert Kuhn: Document 2531, Wedler-Böcker sales contract, Annex A , Braunschweig July 28, 1891, PDF available in WikiCommons.
- ↑ August Böcker: Shopping Guide for A. Böcker Butcher , from October 1,893th
- ^ Braunschweigisches Adreßbuch 1912. Technische Universitäte Braunschweig, accessed on September 17, 2019 .
- ^ Braunschweigisches Adreßbuch 1919. Technische Universitäte Braunschweig, accessed on September 17, 2019 .
- ↑ August Böcker: Shopping Guide for A. Böcker Butcher , extract residents directory for 1920, available in WikiCommons.
- ↑ August Böcker: Shopping Guide for A. Böcker Butcher , extract residents directory for 1925, available in WikiCommons.
- ↑ August Merges, handwritten card to L. Böcker, 1931, available in WikiCommons
- ^ Braunschweig address book 1965-1966. Retrieved May 4, 2018 .