Keibel assembly

The Artus Court in Gdansk

The Keibel construction group was a department of personnel trained in monument conservation, set up by the Prussian Ministry of Finance , which, under the direction of the architect Jakob Deurer (1898–1960), carried out a construction survey of the architectural and art monuments in West Prussia and Pomerania from 1942 to 1945 .

The group consisted of trained architects , restorers , sculptors and other specialist staff. The central task of the Keibel assembly group was to record the historical fabric of the city of Gdansk. This documentation should help to repair any war damage. Particular emphasis was placed on precise photographic documentation. The focus of the Keibel construction group was on the historic buildings of the city of Gdansk .

Mainly sacred buildings and their interior fittings were recorded. Significant secular buildings such as Danzig Artushof , the Uphagenhaus Danzig and over 100 portals of the city were also documented.

Mehmel organ from St. Jakobi Stralsund

Inventory significant in art history, such as the Mehmel organ in the St. Jakobi Church in Stralsund , was systematically dismantled, documented and stored outside the threatened cities.

The documentation was made in five copies. The original documentation and another copy were intended for the archive of the Prussian Ministry of Finance. One copy each remained on site, with the city curator and with the owner of the monument or the parish concerned.

The original documentation of the assembly was lost in 1945 when the underground bunker of the Prussian Ministry of Finance was blown up. The whereabouts of the other official copies is unknown. Only a working copy that Jakob Deurer made for himself has survived. Deurer brought these documents out of Gdansk in 1945 on a ship of the German Navy, on which he and his family were evacuated, and buried them in the basement of his house in Berlin-Wilmersdorf in 1945 .

In October 1978 Deurer's son, Wolfgang , handed over the entire documentation to the city of Danzig.

literature

• Wolfgang Deurer : Danzig. Documentation of 52 historical churches. Self-published, Wesel 1996, ISBN 3-00-000978-7 , p. 18 f.

Web links

• Page about Jakob Deurer, Akademia Rzygaczy.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Deurer 1996, p. 18, note 2.