Brickegickel
The Brickegickel (bridge gockel, high German: bridge cock ) has been the landmark of the old bridge in Frankfurt am Main since 1401 . It has been renewed five times over the centuries. It is inextricably linked with the history of the bridge and is the subject of one of Frankfurt's most famous legends .
The history of the Brickegickel
In 1401 a crucifix was placed on the middle arch of the bridge, the cross arch, to mark the location of the deepest fairway . The Brickegickel, together with the two bridge towers , can already be seen on the oldest illustration of the bridge from the Bedebuch from 1405 .
At the top of the crucifix was a golden rooster , as a symbol of vigilance, but also of repentance for Peter's betrayal of his Lord Jesus . The cock was supposed to warn the sailors to be vigilant if they had to steer their ship through the current under the narrow arch of the bridge.
In addition, executions took place here for centuries . The Frankfurt court files that have been preserved show that between 1366 and 1613 around 130 people were drowned in the Main . In the 15th century it was the most common form of the death penalty in Frankfurt. According to the embarrassing court rules of Emperor Charles V , the so-called Constitutio Criminalis Carolina , drowning was the intended punishment for theft , infanticide , incest , breaking the original feud , poisoning and abortion .
The course of an execution is described in Lersner's Chronicle : The convicts - which also included women, because women sentenced to death were generally drowned - were taken from the bridge tower in which they were imprisoned to the old bridge to the statute , because one tends to judge : the brick gickel on the cross arch. There they tied their knees, arms, hands and necks and pushed them on a board over the bridge railing into the Main. When the condemned's last glances fell on the Brickegickel, the rooster should exhort them to repent , while the crucifix promised them divine grace and the forgiveness of their sins .
At this point the current of the river was strongest, so that the convicts were immediately carried away and drowned. When the water level was high, the corpse was only landed outside the city, so there was no need to worry about it. Only when the water level was low could a drowned person wash ashore on Frankfurt territory. In this case the body was buried in the cemetery at Gutleuthof . In contrast to the other executions, drownings also took place at night in order to avoid the usual gatherings of people on the bridge.
The fate of the Brickegickel
The brick wall had to be renewed five times over the centuries:
- The first sank in a violent storm in the Main in 1434,
- The second was shot down by Swedish troops in the Thirty Years' War in 1635 . It had already been damaged during the siege of Frankfurt in the Prince's War in 1552. After the besiegers left, the victorious Frankfurters wrote:
So you have to say
How it happened in Frankfurt
They pulled like mutes
Is a great mockery to them
Then they almost shot
Probably a foot from the rooster
I am sure you believe me
That he still has to limp
- The third brick wall sank on December 16, 1739 when the bridge collapsed, together with the base and crucifix, and was no longer found.
- The fourth was made with a new base and a crucifix - both in late Baroque forms - in 1750 and stood on the Old Bridge until it was demolished in 1914 and on the New Old Bridge built in its place from 1926 to 1945 . The shape of the late baroque sandstone plinth and the art locksmith's work of the crucifix also originated from this period. During the Second World War , two arches of the bridge were blown up by the German Wehrmacht on March 26, 1945 in order to stop the advance of the US Army . The base and crucifix were destroyed, the brick wall fell into the Main, but could be recovered. It was then kept in the Historical Museum . Upon investigation, it turned out that it had several bullet holes, which it probably received on October 31, 1813 during skirmishes between French and Bavarian troops.
- The fifth was erected on December 7, 1967, together with true copies of the late baroque base and crucifix on the renovated Old Bridge, but on the eastern side. All of his predecessors stood on the west, downstream side of the bridge.
- The sixth Brickegickel was built in September 1994 after its predecessor was stolen in 1992. A donation from Helmut Gärtner, long-time Frankfurt mayor, on the occasion of his election to the First City Council of Eschborn enabled it to be made by the sculptor Edwin Hüller . Today's brick wall is made of bronze and covered with a layer of gold , which was renewed in 2014. From 2013 to 2017 he was in the workshop for restoration, supported by the "Bridge Building Association". On November 17, 2017, the Brickegickel was unveiled again at its traditional location, above the middle of the fairway, on the top of the river.
The legend of the Brickegickel
The Brothers Grimm pass on the story of the Sachsenhausen Bridge in Frankfurt in their German sagas :
“In the middle of the Sachsenhausen bridge, two arches at the top are partly only covered with wood so that this can be removed in times of war and the connection can be easily blocked without breaking anything. There is the following legend about it:
The builder had made it mandatory to complete the bridge by a certain time. When this approached, he saw that it was impossible, and when there were only two days left, in fear he called on the devil and asked for his assistance. The devil appeared and offered to finish building the bridge last night, if the builder would give him the first living being to walk over it. The contract was made, and last night the devil completely finished the bridge, without a human eye in the darkness seeing how it was going.
When the first morning came, the builder came and drove a rooster across the bridge in front of him and delivered it to the devil. But this man wanted a human soul, and as he saw himself betrayed, he angrily grabbed the tap, tore it up and threw it through the bridge, from which the two holes were made which to this day cannot be walled up because everything that has been worked on during the day collapses again at night. A golden cock on an iron rod is still a landmark on the bridge. "
This legend is told in a very similar way about other bridges, e.g. B. the Teufelsbrück in Hamburg , the Teufelsbrücke in the Schöllenenschlucht , the stone bridge in Regensburg and the construction of the Bamberg Cathedral and the bridge there. Instead of a rooster, however, other living beings are often driven across the bridge, e.g. B. a billy goat or a goose. Ancient traditions were probably behind these bridging legends, e.g. B. the belief in pagan river gods , which could only be appeased by a sacrifice . In addition, since ancient times, bridge building has been one of the most difficult and most admired technical tasks; for superstitious natures it was easy to imagine that they could only succeed with the help of supernatural powers.
In fact, the bridge was built over two hundred years before the first Brickegickel was built. The first bridge, however, was still made of wood, only the pillars were bricked. A stone bridge was first mentioned in 1276 , over 100 years after the Stone Bridge in Regensburg. The Frankfurt bridge saga is probably a hiking saga , i. H. a transmission of a legend that originated elsewhere. A local peculiarity is that the legend also provides an explanation for the wooden beams that were used to cover the two central arches for centuries. In the event of war, the wooden beams were used to make the bridge impassable quickly without causing major damage. In 1840 the two arches were finally bricked up - without the devil causing the work to collapse again during the night.
literature
- Helmut Bode: Frankfurt saga treasure. Legendary and fabulous stories from the sources and older collections as well as the Lersner Chronicle, retold by Helmut Bode. Waldemar Kramer publishing house, Frankfurt a. M., second edition 1986, pp. 72-74, ISBN 3-7829-0209-2 .
- Friedrich Bothe: History of the city of Frankfurt am Main . Verlag Wolfgang Weidlich, Frankfurt am Main 1977, ISBN 3-8035-8920-7 .
- Walter Gerteis: The unknown Frankfurt . Publishing house Frankfurter Bücher, Frankfurt am Main 1960.
- Brothers Grimm: German legends . Winkler Verlag, Munich 1956.
- Siegfried Nassauer: What the Frankfurter Brunnen tell , Goldsteinsche Buchhandlung, Frankfurt am Main 1921.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Goldischer Gickel in FAZ from November 11, 2014
- ^ Frankfurter Rundschau: Brickegickel in Frankfurt: The rooster is back . In: Frankfurter Rundschau . ( fr.de [accessed on November 18, 2017]).
- ^ The Sachsenhausen Bridge in Frankfurt . Orally, from Frankfurt. In: Brothers Grimm : German legends . Volume 1. Berlin 1816, pp. 267–268 ( Wikisource )
Coordinates: 50 ° 6 ′ 33 ″ N , 8 ° 41 ′ 17 ″ E