Bismarck Tower (Ingelheim)
The Bismarck Tower in Ingelheim am Rhein in the Mainz-Bingen district in Rhineland-Palatinate was built in honor of the first German Chancellor, Prince Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898). The observation tower planned by the architect Wilhelm Kreis (1873–1955) on the Westerberg above the city has a height of 31 meters. It was built with arched walls and neo-Romanesque elements and inaugurated in 1912.
history
Planning time
The plans for the construction of a Bismarck tower in the region were pursued from March 1902 by the Rheinhessen local branch of the Pan-German Association . The Waldeck district on the Westerberg above Ober-Ingelheim was chosen as the construction site . The community not only provided a plot of land on the hill free of charge, but also agreed to build a dirt road leading there . On August 18, 1902, the foundation stone for the tower was laid for the first time on the Waldeck - it was the anniversary of the Battle of Gravelotte in the Franco-German War , in which soldiers from the Grand Duchy of Hesse also fought in 1870 . Despite the laying of the foundation stone, construction did not begin because there was not enough money available.
In order to finally tackle the construction, the Mainz lawyer Heinrich Claß founded the Rheinhessischer Bismarckverein in June 1906 and took over its chairmanship. Contrary to the original plan, the new sponsoring association decided not to erect a so-called fire column based on the Götterdämmerung model by Wilhelm Kreis. Instead, the architect was commissioned to work out a new design for a lookout tower. Exactly five years to the day after the first foundation stone was laid, on August 18, 1907, the foundation stone was laid for the second time on the Waldeck and construction of the tower actually began.
construction time
However, the construction work initially made little progress due to problems with the subsoil, because the foundation had to be laid out much more complex than planned and the money initially available was quickly used up. In order to reduce construction costs, a huge Bismarck figure originally planned on the front was dispensed with. In 1910 the tower was largely completed, but now people were not satisfied with the compact and blunt-looking structure. For this reason, a dome resting on a ring wall and pillars was added to the viewing platform until March 1912 . On May 12, 1912, the Bismarck Tower in Ingelheim was finally inaugurated.
The cost of the tower was originally estimated at 27,000 gold marks . Ultimately, however, the final bill was more than 65,000 marks, plus 2,500 marks as a fee for the architect Wilhelm Kreis and various follow-up costs. The Bismarck Society had to bear the costs until 1915.
Time after the First World War
After the First World War and the end of the inflationary period , the Bismarck Tower was repaired for the first time in 1925 because all doors and windows had been destroyed in the meantime. In the 1920s and 1930s, Bismarck commemorations, solstice celebrations and the like took place regularly at the tower . A highlight was a large fireworks display on the night of June 30th to July 1st, 1930, when the occupation of the Rhineland officially ended.
Time after World War II
After the Second World War , the Rheinhessischer Bismarckverein was dissolved and the tower became the property of the city of Ingelheim am Rhein in 1953. At the end of the 1980s a bronze plaque was placed next to the tower entrance with the inscription " Bismarck Tower, built by the Rheinhessischer Bismarckverein, architect Professor Wilhelm Kreis, August 18, 1907 Laying of the foundation stone, May 12, 1912 inauguration, height 31 m ".
Since 2002 the Bismarck Tower has been optically transformed into a giant candle every year after dark during Advent . The tower itself is bathed in red light with spotlights. A steel structure is being installed on the tower dome, on which numerous halogen lights emulate a white, flickering flame.
architecture
Original design Götterdämmerung
When planning the Bismarck Tower in Ingelheim, it was taken into account from the outset that it would be related to similar monuments in the area. The tower, with a height of almost 30 m, was planned quite generously from the start in order to be able to keep up with the imposing Niederwald monument , which stands a good ten kilometers downstream on the other, right-hand side of the Rhine. In addition, the Ingelheim Tower was supposed to be a worthy addition to a huge Bismarck national monument, which was planned opposite the Niederwald monument on the left bank of the Rhine above Bingerbrück . This national monument had been in planning since 1907 and was due to be inaugurated in 1915, but was never built.
The Bismarck tower in Ingelheim was originally planned as a so-called fire pillar and not as a lookout tower. They wanted to use the Götterdämmerung model by the architect Wilhelm Kreis . With his model design, he had won a competition of the German student body in 1899 . According to an idea of the student body, a network of pillars of fire should be set up all over Germany in order to light large braziers on certain days in honor of Bismarck. The Bismarckian Column from the Götterdämmerung model was built as a so-called type construction a total of 47 times in the German Empire until 1911 .
However, minor changes to the original design of the Götterdämmerung model were made at the Ingelheim Tower during the planning phase . The intention was to attach a huge Bismarck figure to the shaft of the column instead of an imperial eagle .
New design
Since the construction work could not start despite the first laying of the foundation stone on August 18, 1902 due to lack of funds, the construction project was taken over by a new sponsoring association in 1906. Contrary to the original plan, he decided not to erect a so-called "Götterdämmerung" model of fire pillar, but to commission the architect Wilhelm Kreis to build a lookout tower. Kreis, who was born in Eltville in the Rheingau on the opposite bank of the Rhine from Ingelheim, gladly accepted this lucrative assignment. For the new design, he adopted various elements from the first (such as the square floor plan , the half-columns at the corners and the Bismarck figure on the column shaft), but planned the lookout tower to be even more monumental than the fire column. The construction work itself was not supervised by Kreis, but by the Mainz architect and contractor Oscar Hauswald .
According to the new design, the Bismarck Tower in Ingelheim am Rhein was erected after a second foundation stone was laid on August 18, 1907 on a square floor plan of around 14 by 14 m. The tower itself is also designed in a square manner, but the very massive effect is softened somewhat by semi-columns at the corners and a round upper floor. The walls are designed as a basement , which means that the stone blocks are only roughly carved (embossed) on their outside. The main building material used was limestone , which was quarried in Ingelheim near the construction site on ( Westerberg itself and on the nearby Mainzer Berg ).
The Bismarck Tower is divided into three parts: it has an approximately four-meter-high base level, the approximately twenty-meter-high tower body and finally an approximately three-meter-high upper floor with a viewing platform above . You enter the tower through an archway in the neo-Romanesque style, which is lined by two half-columns with simple cube capitals . There is a small above the entrance balcony , on the parapet of sandstone the inscription " To honor Bismarck is" appropriate.
The balcony is already at the level of the lower level of the tower body, from here the balcony is also accessible through a small door. The same height as the balcony door about two meters are high on the other three sides of the tower, such loopholes attached looking wall openings. Similar openings are also found on all four sides in the upper third of the tower body. The corners are rounded off by half-columns, the end opposite the upper floor is formed by a cornice with a toothed frieze running around the tower .
The upper floor is set back a little compared to the tower body. In contrast to the square floor plan of the tower, it has a round shape, which makes the half-columns more prominent at the corners. In addition, the bossed walls of the upper floor are broken through on all four sides with three openings each and the half-columns are loosened up by small wall niches, so that the massive effect of the tower body is somewhat softened.
Inside the tower body there is a right-turning spiral staircase made of concrete , which has 111 steps and three platforms . It is attached to the inside of the tower walls and secured by a railing. On the upper floor there is a counterclockwise iron spiral staircase that has 13 steps and leads to the viewing platform.
last changes
Although the Bismarck tower in Ingelheim was largely completed in 1910, it was decided to make further changes. For reasons of cost it was decided to do without the huge Bismarck figure originally planned on the front. Instead, more money was invested to make the compact and dull looking tower even higher. First, a ring wall made of quarry stones with an inner radius of almost three meters was built on the viewing platform . A dome resting on pillars was placed on top of this until March 1912 , making the tower four meters taller and reaching its current height of 31 meters.
See also
literature
- Günter Kloss, Sieglinde Seele: Bismarck Towers and Bismarck Columns. An inventory. Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 1997, ISBN 3-932526-10-4 .
- Sieglinde Seele: Lexicon of the Bismarck Monuments. Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2005, ISBN 3-86568-019-4 .
Web links
- Website about the Bismarck tower in Ingelheim am Rhein.
- Bismarck Tower Ingelheim at bismarcktuerme.de
- The Bismarck tower of Ingelheim am Rhein in the directory of cultural monuments in the Mainz-Bingen district. (PDF; 1.6 MB)
Coordinates: 49 ° 57 '34.51 " N , 8 ° 2' 7.31" E