Augustinian Monastery (Erfurt)

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The church of the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt

The Augustinian monastery in Erfurt is a former monastery of the Augustinian hermits , built from 1277 , in which Martin Luther lived as a monk between 1505 and 1511. In the lion and parrot window of the choir window of the Augustinian church of the monastery is the model of the Luther rose . After the Reformation , the monastery became the property of the Evangelical Church in 1525 ; In 1559 it was secularized by the city of Erfurt . In 1945 parts of the monastery were destroyed in an air raid. The Augustinian monastery has been the official seat of the Erfurt-Nordhausen provost since 1994. The building is mainly used as a conference and meeting center. The monastery is a recognized cultural monument according to the Thuringian Monument Protection Act .

history

Beginnings and expansion

Augustinian monastery in the 16th century
Central nave of the Augustinian Church
Floor plan of the Augustinian Church in 1890
Luther cell

Since 1266 there was a settlement of the Augustinian hermits in Erfurt . These were temporarily expelled from 1273 after disputes with the city, but returned for good in 1276. Its seat was the church “St. Philippi and Jacobi ”on Comthurgasse. In 1277 the construction of the monastery began. The funds for the extensive construction work were raised in the following centuries through alms and the sale of indulgences . Until 1518 the construction of the library , Katharinenkapelle, the chapter room , the church tower, a cloister , the nave, the woad houses and the new priory between the library and the woad houses were financed. Particularly noteworthy about the preserved buildings are the stained glass windows of the church , made between 1310 and 1340, as well as the outer pulpit , which testify that sermons were also held outdoors for large crowds at that time.

The school of the monastery was important. In it, founded by Heinrich von Friemar (the elder), the general studies were offered. From the beginning of the 14th century, the monastery library was also built. The library building was completed in 1516. Martin Luther was a member of the monastery between 1505 and 1511 . He was ordained a priest in 1507 and read his first mass here on May 2nd, 1507 .

reformation

Johannes Lang , a good friend of Luther, became prior of the monastery in 1522 and prepared the Reformation in Erfurt and the surrounding area. In the same year Lang resigned from the order along with many of the monks. In 1525 the church was handed over to the Johannesgemeinde. In 1556 the last monk died. The monastery was finally secularized in 1559.

From 1561 the west wing and the Priory were from Ratsgymnasium used the city. For this purpose, the dormitory was converted into accommodation for the students. The school existed until 1820. The monastery library was damaged in the course of the Reformation, but came back to life in 1646 when the library of the Evangelical Ministry moved here. From 1669 the Protestant orphanage used part of the former monastery.

The Augustinian hermits settled in Erfurt again in the middle of the 17th century, albeit in a different location: they converted the Valentinerhof next to the Wigbertikirche into a monastery. In 1822 this monastery was also closed.

19th century

The New Priory was demolished in 1821 because it was in disrepair and the funds for renovation were lacking. The west wing of the monastery was used from this time, after school, together with the old priory, the library and the Waid houses of the Martinsstift, an institution that took care of the education of orphans and neglected children. From 1840 to 1846 the west wing and the priory were rebuilt according to designs by Karl Friedrich Schinkel , with the connecting passage between the west wing and the library being built. This renovation and modernization remained piecemeal for the time being; the church itself had to be closed in 1844 because of dilapidation.

Only a letter of appeal to King Friedrich Wilhelm IV brought an improvement . With funds approved by him, the church was rebuilt in 1848, after the failure of the Frankfurt National Assembly , in the neo-Gothic style into the seat of the Erfurt Union Parliament . Otto von Bismarck was one of the members of this parliament . After the end of the short-lived parliament, the premises were again used as a sacred building in 1852, and the church was consecrated again in 1854.

20th century

The basement of the Augustinian Library, which was bombed in 1945, in 2005
Current "place of silence" in the former air raid shelter (267 bombs killed)

Reconstruction From 1936 to 1938, the church and part of the monastery were reconstructed in the style of the 14th century under the direction of the architect Theo Kellner . Essentially, the church can still be seen in this condition today after the severe war damage was repaired. The ground floor of the library building was also redesigned to be used for museum purposes. The war prevented the realization of further plans.

Destruction Towards the end of the Second World War , as part of the air raids on Erfurt on February 25, 1945, the entire monastery area was severely affected by a British bombing raid with two mine bombs . The library building and the woad houses were completely destroyed by a direct hit, the enclosure was badly damaged, especially the winter refectory with the old priory, the southern part of the west wing and the building connecting it to the library. The church, the cloister, the orphanage and the guest house were also badly damaged. All the buildings that had stood still lost their roofs, windows and doors due to the air pressure of the detonations, including the Augustinian Church itself. Their wooden pointed barrel vaults had shifted considerably. The four extremely valuable stained glass windows of the chancel from the 14th century were only preserved by being moved to the Hohenfelden village church in good time . The sandstone figures of important Erfurt personalities on epitaphs in the interior were protected by a wall. The large Walcker organ suffered less damage, the smaller one considerable damage.

Numerous Erfurters, mostly women and children - many from the Protestant orphanage - had sought refuge in the cellar of the monastery library, which was designated as a public air raid shelter. 267 people were killed in the air raid. A rescue team made up of soldiers from the Erfurt Panzer Regiment was the only survivor to rescue a 7-year-old girl who lost an arm from the rubble. Theodor Mundle, pastor of the Augustinian parish, was among the dead. In the years that followed, the cellar was called the "death cellar". A plaque with the names of the victims on the ruins of the monastery continued to remind visitors of the tragedy until 2010. By contrast, a plaque on the outside wall of the monastery, which had referred to the "Anglo-American terrorist attack," even during the turn of 1990 removed.

The artistic equipment of the library building, including the prayer room for the orphans, was completely lost in the air raid. A large part of the valuable books in the Martinsstift was also destroyed. This library had 3200 volumes. By outsourcing to village churches in the vicinity of Erfurt, however, the book holdings of the Evangelical Ministry have largely been saved. Losses occurred when the books were temporarily stored outdoors after they were returned.

After 1945, the Erfurt lawyer Selmar Bühling represented the community and the monastery against property claims by the city of Erfurt and the state of Thuringia until he fled to West Berlin in 1949 for political reasons .

Reconstruction Shortly after the end of the war, the reconstruction of the destroyed and damaged buildings began with great difficulty. The former Wehrmacht pastor Siegfried Hotzel , who looked after the Augustinian community from April 1945 until his retirement in 1960, played a major role in this. The rubble was cleared by a "construction team" of trained so-called politically charged men under the direction of the architect Jakob Wassum. The management of the reconstruction was entrusted to the well-known Erfurt architect Theo Kellner , assisted by the town planning officer Karl Tetzner. When Kellner went to Frankfurt am Main, Tetzner took over full construction management. He was supported by the architect Käthe Menzel-Jordan and the civil engineer Richard Fischer.

From 1946 to 1957 the church, the cloister, the east wing and the guest house were restored. In 1947, the four medieval church windows in the area of ​​the high choir, which had been relocated due to the air raids, could be used again with the help of Hajna, a specialist in church windows, who had fled from Prague. Both organs were repaired under the direction of the master organ builder Laux from Gispersleben with spare parts from West Germany. The Luther cell had become leaky due to damage, was seized by the sponge, blocked, broken off and then rebuilt: in monastic simplicity, as it is also today.

Further events In 1960 the Protestant Preacher's School moved into the monastery, which existed until 1993. In 1980 an exhibition about Martin Luther was inaugurated on the grounds of the monastery. In the same year the library of the Evangelical Ministry also moved in . Since the Chairman of the State Council, Erich Honecker, recognized the Augustinian monastery as one of four Luther memorials in the GDR, the planned demolition of the west wing and the construction of a swimming pool on the site of the Augustinian monastery did not take place. In 1988 a church conference center was opened, and in 1990 the office of the provost of the Erfurt district was relocated to the old priory.

On September 28, 1989, as part of the Peaceful Revolution in the church with almost 1000 visitors, an information evening of the then still opposition rallying movement Democratic Awakening took place, at which the pastor and later SPD member of the Bundestag Edelbert Richter explained the goals of the movement. In 1989/1990 there were other political events in the church.

New building of the library
Cloister

In 1996 the first four sisters of the evangelical community Casteller Ring moved into rooms of the monastery, which restored a use similar to the original purpose. However, the community withdrew from Erfurt at Easter 2011.

21st century

From 2000 to 2003 the monastery buildings were restored and modernized. Since then, large parts of the building have served as a conference center. At the end of 2003, the "Augustinian Monastery Foundation in Erfurt" was established under the care of the German Foundation for Monument Protection . The purpose of the foundation is in particular "the renovation, restoration, maintenance, care and reconstruction (library and forest houses) of the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt and the associated facilities recognized under the Monument Protection Act of the State of Thuringia". In 2004 the Augustinian monastery was also recognized as a cultural monument of particular national importance. In the same year the extensive restoration of the cloister took place.

A nationwide architecture competition was announced for the planned new buildings in place of the library building and the Waidhäuser destroyed in 1945. The first prize was awarded to an architecture firm from Weimar. A design with a flat roof for both buildings and two more that showed a certain resemblance to high-rise bunkers followed.

In 2003, some scenes from the film "Luther" were shot in the monastery buildings.

On October 31, 2006, retired pastor Roland Weißelberg burned himself to death on the monastery grounds in protest against the “creeping Islamization” of Germany, as he wrote in a suicide note. There is no memorial plaque at the scene. Weißelberg's grave is located in the churchyard of St. Petri in Erfurt- Büßleben .

Because of Weißelberg's act, the construction work on the monastery library was postponed. From November 2006 the foundations of the Waidhäuser destroyed in 1945 were restored and the cellar rooms were exposed. In February 2008 the foundation stone was laid for the new library building, in a different function. This was built a little lower, otherwise almost in the earlier cubature with today's building materials, modern facades and with a glass building as a staircase on the north side. The work delayed by the bankruptcy of the construction company in January 2009 was completed in summer 2010. On August 27, the building was inaugurated with a ceremony including a service. The ground floor of the multifunctional building contains conference rooms, and church institutions are housed on the two upper floors. Five million euros have been invested in the construction. The library of the Evangelical Ministry, with 60,000 volumes one of the most important ecclesiastical collections in Germany, remains in the former dormitory of the monastery.

Place of silence

A “place of silence” in the old cellar of the new building commemorates the 267 victims of the British air mine on February 25, 1945. Their name boards are placed inside the buried emergency exit of the former air raid shelter. One plaque describes the destruction of the monastery, another contains the report of a 17-year-old candidate officer about the rescue of the victims. In the Memorial Room and the 2008 presented the Augustinian Monastery Cross International was Nail Cross Community set up. There is no reference to the character of the "place of silence" for the visitor outside.

  • Access to the memorial

  • Memorial room in the former air raid shelter of the library building

  • Plaque for the air raid on February 25, 1945

  • Plaque for the rescue of victims by soldiers

  • First plaque with names of bomb victims

  • Names of all 267 dead

  • Cross of Nails Congregation

The "Waidhäuser" were reopened in September 2008. It is a modern building on partially newly erected foundations, which only resembles an Erfurt woad store in terms of its cubature. It contains 17 guest rooms and a prayer room in the basement.

On September 23, 2011 Pope Benedict XVI visited the former Augustinian monastery as part of his visit to Germany .

From January 2002 to November 2013 Lothar Schmelz was curator ; Carsten Fromm has been the curator of the Augustinian monastery since December 2013.

organ

The organ system of the monastery church was built in 1938 by the organ building company E. F. Walcker & Cie (Ludwigsburg). The instrument consists of the main organ on the west gallery, with main organ, positive and pedal (33 registers ), and the choir organ on the south wall of the choir, with swell and pedal (21 registers). Both instruments are independent and each have their own console , from which the other organ can also be played. The organs were last extensively restored in 1999.

Choir organ
I main work C–
1. Quintatos 16 ′
2. Principal 8th'
3. Dumped 8th'
4th Salizional 8th'
5. octave 4 ′
6th Reed flute 4 ′
7th Fifth 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
8th. Principal 2 ′
9. Mixture V
10. Trumpet 8th'
II positive C–
11. Roughly dumped 8th'
12. Reed flute 8th'
13. Quintatos 8th'
14th Ital. Principal 4 ′
15th Gemshorn 4 ′
16. recorder 4 ′
17th Forest flute 2 ′
18th third 1 3 ⁄ 5  ′
19th Fifth 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
20th Sif flute 1'
21st Cymbel IV
22nd Krummhorn 8th'
tremolo
Pedal C–
23. Pedestal 32 ′
24. Principal bass 16 ′
25th double bass 16 ′
26th Sub bass 16 ′
27. Octave bass 8th'
28. Principal bass 4 ′
29 Principal 2 ′ + 1 ′
30th Mixture V
31. trombone 16 ′
32. Trumpet bass 8th'
33. Singing cornet 2 ′
III Swell C–
34. Bourdon 16 ′
35. Flute principal 8th'
36. Darling Dumped 8th'
37. Pointed flute 8th'
38. Undamaris 8th'
39. Principal 4 ′
40. Coupling flute 4 ′
41. Nasat 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
42. Schwiegel 2 ′
43. Principal 2 ′
44. third 1 3 ⁄ 5  ′
45. Fifth 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
46. Scharff V
47. Sordun 16 ′
48. horn 8th'
49. shawm 4 ′
tremolo
Pedal (choir organ) C–
50. Dacked bass 16 ′
51. Violon 8th'
52. Flute 8th'
53. Choral bass 4 ′
54. Peasant flute 2 ′
  • Pair : III / I, III / II, II / I, I / P, II / P, IIIP
  • Playing aids: Register crescendo, general coupler pedal tutti, four free combinations, hand register, storage.

literature

  • Steffen Raßloff , Volker Leppin , Thomas A. Seidel (ed.): Places of the Reformation. Erfurt. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2012, ISBN 978-3-374-03000-2 .
  • Lothar Schmelz, Michael Ludscheidt (ed.): Luther's Erfurt monastery. The Augustinian monastery in the field of tension between monastic tradition and Protestant spirit. Erfurt 2005.
  • Steffen Raßloff: Martin Luther in the crosshairs of SED politics. The place of remembrance Erfurt and the Luther year 1983. In: Messages of the association for the history and antiquity of Erfurt 65 (2004). Pp. 97-123.
  • Siegfried Hotzel: The reconstruction of the Erfurt Augustinian monastery. In: Erfurter Heimatbrief , No. 23, December 8, 1971, pp. 28–41.

Web links

Commons : Augustinian monastery Erfurt  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Siegfried Hotzel : The reconstruction of the Erfurt Augustinian monastery. In: Erfurt home letter . No. 23, December 1971, p. 28 f.
  2. ^ Rudolf Zießler: District of Erfurt. In: Götz Eckardt (ed.): Fates of German architectural monuments in the Second World War. Volume 2. Henschel, Berlin 1978, pp. 475-477.
  3. ↑ Helmut Wolf: Erfurt in the air war 1939-1945. Writings of the association for the history and archeology of Erfurt, Erfurt 2005, p. 176 f.
  4. ↑ Rudolf Mohr, Klaus Ranglack, Christine Riesterer: Erfurt under the Stars and Stripes . Erfurt 1995, pp. 21-23.
  5. ^ Siegfried Hotzel : The reconstruction of the Erfurt Augustinian monastery. In: Erfurter Heimatbrief, No. 23, December 1971, pp. 29–41.
  6. ^ MfS information about a planned meeting to establish an oppositional collection movement “Democratic Awakening”. In: ddr89.de. Retrieved June 8, 2014 .
  7. ↑ alt-katholisch.net
  8. ^ Heinz Stade: Augustinian Monastery. Luther place and meeting place . In: German Foundation for Monument Protection (Ed.): Funding projects in Erfurt . Bonn 2010.
  9. ^ Lothar Schmelz: A new building in place of the former monastery library that was destroyed on February 25, 1945. In: Stadt und Geschichte , 2010, issue 2, p. 17.
  10. ↑ Sonja Pohlmann: The beacon that nobody understands. In: Spiegel Online , November 3, 2006.
  11. ↑ Spiritual library is open to everyone. The library of the Augustinian monastery is inaugurated today . In: Thüringische Landeszeitung , August 27, 2010.
  12. ^ Steffen Raßloff : Memory of a tragedy from the Second World War in Erfurt. In: Thüringer Allgemeine , August 25, 2012.
  13. ^ Farewell to the curator of the Erfurt Augustinian monastery . Press release, September 6, 2013
  14. ↑ Information on the organ

Coordinates: 50 ° 58 '53 "  N , 11 ° 1' 48"  E