Jülich bridgehead
The bridgehead in the Rhenish Jülich is a fortress from Napoleonic times, which was built at the beginning of the 19th century and was supposed to protect the city from the west. It was integrated into the entirety of the works of Fortress Jülich .
Building description
Coordinates: 50 ° 55 '14.8 " N , 6 ° 21' 0.7" E
The bridgehead is designed as a crown work and has a width of about 800 meters, a depth of about 300 meters and a height of about ten meters. It essentially consists of earth supported by walls. On the wall there are barrel-vaulted hollow trusses for the installation of guns and for defense with small arms, they also serve for section defense should an enemy have conquered a section of the wall. To the west, the width of the bridgehead is divided by two half bastions and one full bastion . In contrast to the bastions of the citadel and the city fortifications from the 16th century, which are all full bastions (completely filled with earth), the bastions of the Kronwerk are empty bastions that have no filling. The unofficial names of the bastions are:
- Zoobastion, also Bastion No. I.
Northern half-bastion, named after the bridgehead zoo that is located around it. Described by the French as a right bastion .
- Middle bastion , also bastion No. II
Middle full bastion, a carriage house for the artillery once stood here. A Y-shaped cavalier was planned here, but it was never built.
- Building yard bastion , also bastion No. III
Southern half-bastion, named after the municipal building yard, which had its home in its vaults after the Second World War. Because of its proximity to the heights around Aldenhoven, which offer a favorable position for attack, the bastion is designed to be much stronger than the other two and is provided with a high cavalier. Described by the French as a left bastion .
In front of the escarpe of the bridgehead lies a wide, water-filled ditch. Behind the escarpe there is a continuous gallery with numerous notches for infantry defense. Several moats and an extensive glacis were in front of the structure.
The bridgehead protected the strategically important crossing over the Rur . Since the Jülich Fortress with its wide-span external works was also intended to serve as a base for a field army, the protection of the bridge was of particular importance: not only should the enemy not be allowed to use it, but it should also be available to their own troops. The lock bridge , newly built by the French, was able to dam the course of the river through the built-in lock gates and flood the entire area south of the fortress and around the bridgehead ( indonation ) in order to make it more difficult for an attacker to approach. On the city side there were some light fortifications in the form of a 1.25 m thick and 2.5 m high wall with loopholes to prevent bypassing at low water. The walls facing the Rur, the foundations of which are still preserved and which are indicated today by a hedge, are built in a bastion-like shape so as not to offer any blind spots.
The only free-standing building on the site of the “building yard bastion” is a war powder magazine built in 1806 similar to that on the St. Salvator bastion of the Jülich citadel . Both magazines are almost identical in their plan, but the one in the citadel is much larger. Like its bigger brother, the building is one of the first structures in the city to be built using the metric system and consists of a heavy barrel vault with light blind side walls that should fall over in the event of an internal explosion, thus protecting the vault from destruction.
The bridgehead is of great architectural and art historical importance, as it is the only surviving example of the fortress construction technology of the French Empire at the beginning of the 19th century in Germany .
Planned final expansion of the bridgehead in the model
Model of the bridgehead after completion
history
Late antiquity to the 17th century
The Rur crossing has been of strategic importance since Roman times and a reason for the emergence of the vicus Iuliacum . In late antiquity, the Romans built a fort here to protect the river crossing and the road station in Jülich. With the emergence of the Jülich Fortress in the 16th century, the protection of the Rur Bridge became more important as it was the only way to approach the fortress from the west. At the same time, it was still an important road construction on the way from France and Belgium to the Rhine. As early as the 17th century, depictions of the city show small fortifications at the head of the Rur Bridge, which probably also played a role during the sieges of Jülich, but which turned out to be short-lived, probably simple earthworks.
French period
It was not until the French, who moved into Jülich in 1794, placed greater emphasis on protecting the Rur crossing. They planned a major extension of the fortress, which was to serve as an important stage fortress between the Rhine border and metropolitan France, and of course the protection of the river crossing and the road was of crucial importance. In addition, the permanent place was supposed to serve as a support for a moving army, whereby of course the control of the river crossing was extremely important - it enabled one's own troops to move quickly from one side of the river to the other and denied the enemy this ability. Work on the new bridgehead began in 1799, and the Lutheran church at this point had to give way to the new building. Shortly before the planned completion, Emperor Napoleon visited the construction site in 1804 and found the work not particularly successful - it was oversized and also vulnerable due to its proximity to the heights towards Aldenhoven. A smaller bridgehead connected to a fort on the hill in question would have served the purpose better, but it was too late to reschedule because of the considerably advanced construction. It was limited to strengthening the south bastion (today the building yard bastion) by means of a raised upper wall. A corresponding expansion of the other two bastions was also planned, but was not done for reasons of cost. In 1808 the new fortress was completed.
The bridgehead experienced its only practical test during the siege of Jülich in 1814, but there was only sporadic fighting and the work remained undefeated. The Allies limited themselves to a blockade of the fortress to keep the crew there, and built their own bridge over the river further south. The bridgehead was simply bypassed, and the city's crew was far too weak to risk a sortie. The Prussians took over the bridgehead when the city fell to them in 1815 and kept it in good condition until Jülich was decongested in 1860.
After the French occupation
After that, the facility was left to its own devices and used for other purposes. During the Franco-Prussian War there was a POW camp here, and in 1893 a military swimming pool was set up in the ditch in front of today's zoo bastion. In 1911, the old country road that had led around the bridgehead to the south was replaced by a new road that ran through the fortress, part of the curtain wall had to be removed. In 1929 the bridgehead was converted into a public park, and as early as 1934, following plans by Ludwig Moshamer, it was converted into a National Socialist Thingstätte , some parts of which have been preserved, e.g. B. the foundations of the former stage between the central and zoo bastions to the surface of the ditch. A Rhenish company used the extensive casemates to grow mushrooms .
Second World War
During the Second World War , the bridgehead was the scene of bitter fighting between German (340th Volksgrenadier Division ) and American units ( 9th US Army ) in late 1944 and early 1945 and was badly damaged in the process. During the war, valuable holdings from the Jülich city archive and local history museum were stored in a vault on the bridgehead. This vault was destroyed by a direct bombing hit, and with it the documents and artifacts. After the end of the fighting, the extensive casemates served as refuge for refugees.
Post-war period and current use
In the post-war period, the fortifications fell into disrepair and were overgrown by trees and undergrowth, the arsenal inside was used as a fairground and as a location for a riding arena, the machine park of the municipal building yard was located in the south bastion. There was also an inn along the road, which was demolished in 2006. From the 1970s, parts of the ramparts served as enclosures for the bridgehead zoo, and the first restoration work began in the 1980s.
After severe war damage and decades of decline, the site was integrated into the State Garden Show in 1998 and around 90% of the bridgehead was restored. The interior and the glacis were converted into a large park with extensive gardens. So far only the sides of the central bastion have remained unrestored. Today the Brückenkopfpark Jülich is located there as a local recreation area and event location. The fortress park was included in 2005 as an outstanding example in the street of garden art between the Rhine and Maas .
literature
- Hartwig Neumann : The Jülich bridgehead: a Napoleonic fortress on the Rur . Fischer (Jülich), 1973.
