Berka (Sondershausen)

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Berka
City of Sondershausen
Coordinates: 51 ° 20 ′ 52 ″  N , 10 ° 55 ′ 41 ″  E
Height : 186 m
Residents : 978  (Oct 2009)
Incorporation : December 31, 1997
Postal code : 99706
Area code : 03632
map
Location of the Berka district
in the town of Sondershausen
Church of St. Viti in Berka
Church of St. Viti in Berka

Berka an der Wipper is a district of the town of Sondershausen in the Kyffhäuserkreis . Berka was first mentioned in a document on June 15, 1128. At the end of 1997 the place was incorporated into Sondershausen.

Geographical location

The village is located east of Sondershausen on the Wipper River in the Wippergau between Hainleite and Windleite . The Filsberg nature reserve connects to the so-called Small and Large Loh. Further west in the Berkaer Flur is a marshland called "Marteborn", which has a diameter of about 50 m.

history

Documented names of the village are: Bercha, Bergka, Bercke and Berke.

In the 11th century there is said to have been a castle or a Vorwerk in Berka that was owned by the Jechaburg Abbey . The Counts of Rothenburg and Kirchberg also registered ownership claims, so that there were disputes. The Archbishop of Mainz then arranged for an exchange. Rodulf, Margrave of the Altmark , got the Vorwerk; Jechaburg the village of Huson in the Geschling (or also known as the grass ). Later the Vorwerk came into the possession of the Counts of Schwarzburg , who passed the property on as a fief to the Lords of Rüxleben, von Sondershausen and von Bessingen, among others. As early as 1900, there was nothing left of the castle or the Vorwerk.

The Goethe parent company is a rarity in the village . During the Thirty Years' War , Hans Göthe built this house on the walls of the previous building in 1656. The builder was the great-great-grandfather of Johann Wolfgang Goethe . His second son, Hans Christian, settled in Artern as a farrier . His son Friedrich Georg Göthe went to Frankfurt am Main as an innkeeper . Despite intensive research, Goethe never found out about his ancestors from Berka, so that he never got to know this village. The village church of St. Viti was built in 1723 and hangs a church bell cast in Erfurt in 1704 ; this has a diameter of 1.35  meters .

Next to the church, the princely domain was built in 1852 from green sandstone blocks . It consisted of the former lands of the Vorwerk. Berka was one of the “kitchen villages” of the princely court. That meant that the village had to supply the princely court kitchen of the Residenzschloss in Sondershausen with vegetables. Berka belonged until 1918 to sub-rule of the Principality of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen .

From 1937 to 1940, an army ammunition plant (Muna) was set up in an earlier "Glückauf" mine , and work continued until 1945. The facility was then cannibalized by the Red Army . On December 28, 1945 there was an accident in which 16 people, mostly women, fell victim (eight of them from Berka). In the event of a fire, poisonous gases had developed underground. During the GDR era, part of the facility served as an ammunition depot until 1990 , initially for a motorized rifle regiment, then for a tank regiment of the NVA .

Berka was occupied by the US Army around May 10, 1945 and handed over to the Red Army in early July. This set up the first existing Soviet missile unit with captured German missiles . Also V2 rockets were tested here by the Red Army.

Until 1968 village news was still shouted with a hand bell. After that, the latest news was distributed via village radio .

On December 31, 1997, the village of Berka on the Wipper lost its independence and was incorporated into the district town of Sondershausen with around 1000 inhabitants.

Attractions

  • St. Viti Church
  • Memorial in the churchyard (with name boards) for the fallen of both world wars and for the six women and two men from Berka who perished in the ammunition accident in shaft IV in December 1945: "In memory of our victims 1914-1918 and 1939-1945"
  • Farm building from the former domain
  • Goethe headquarters
  • Residence Goethe-Str. 13, built as a farmhouse after 1700

literature

  • First mention of Thuringian cities and villages up to 1300; Ed .: Harald Rockstuhl, 2001, ISBN 3-934748-58-9
  • Declaration of love to a city - Sondershausen, Ed .: Image archive Röttig, 2000
  • Architectural and art monuments of the principality of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, first issue: Die Unterherrschaft, 1886, author: F. Apfelstedt

Club life in Berka

Web links

Commons : Berka  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ StBA: Changes in the municipalities in Germany, see 1997