Delft clap of thunder
The explosion of a powder tower on October 12, 1654 in the Dutch city of Delft is known as the Delft Thunderbolt ( Dutch Delftse donderslag ) . It was the heaviest explosion in the States General to date . It is reported that their bang could still be heard on the island of Texel 150 kilometers away .
At around 10:15 a.m. that day, a warehouse with gunpowder exploded in the northeast of downtown Delft . Historians believe that hundreds of people perished. The number of victims could never be precisely quantified. Practically every building in the city center was damaged, the area east of Verwersdijk was completely razed to the ground.
Storage of ammunition
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The powder magazine (Kruithuis) , of which the disaster had its origin was, since 1637 in the area of the former Poor Clares - monastery at the end of Geerweg been built. The few who were informed about the existence of the - mainly underground - camp of the Dutch provinces knew it as Secreet van Holland ("Secret of the Netherlands"). About 40 tons of gunpowder were in barrels in this magazine monastery in the neighborhood in earlier Doelenkwartier stored. The city of Delft puts the amount at 80,000 pounds of black powder.
So much is now officially known about the cause of the catastrophe that the arsenal manager Cornelis Soetens entered the powder mill to inspect random samples of the black powder. During the inspection, it is reported that sparks from his ignited lantern spilled over to the powder stores, causing severe deflagrations .
In the years after the establishment of the Secreet, nearby weaving mills had created space for housing developments, primarily in the Doelenstraat . As a result, most of the deaths were recorded among the residents of the street, including the painter Carel Fabritius , who had a studio there.
Immediate consequences
The explosion of the ammunition dump caused serious damage to the city. Hundreds, possibly 1,200, were killed and thousands injured. A quarter of the place was destroyed.
At least 500 houses were irreparably damaged in the “Delft Clap”, 200 of them razed to the ground. The city guard's practice area, called Schuttersdoelen , adjacent to the monastery grounds , was completely devastated. Buildings further away also showed severe damage; all stained glass windows of the Oude Kerk and the Nieuwe Kerk - which were spared during the iconoclasm - were lost. A school building in which 22 students were taught no longer existed.
In the age of deep piety, some believed in the face of the clouds of smoke that the gates of hell had opened and the wrath of God had been signaled to them. At first it took a great effort to clear away the rubble and rescue those trapped in the rubble; few of them survived. Many citizens were out at the time of the explosion to visit the market in Schiedam or a fair in The Hague .
Thanks to a collection that was organized in the cities of the Netherlands for the affected Delft population, the reconstruction of the area could begin quickly. The entire project took a few years. Apartments were built on most of the site. The place where the shooters practiced target shooting was kept free and has been called the "horse market" (Paardenmarkt) ever since . The new firing range was built on what is now called Doelenplein and an artillery magazine was built on the site of the monastery from 1671 . The new powder magazine was built outside the Delft city walls.
Visual arts
The Delft Clap has inspired a number of artists over the centuries. Many painters took the disaster as their subject, and Joost van den Vondel wrote an elegy entitled Op het Onweder van 's Lants Bussekruit te Delft .
The painter Egbert van der Poel , whose child died in the explosion, gave us a lasting picture of the devastation . He painted more than 20 pictures, which depict an almost identical scene: a corpse lies in the foreground, while others are picked up from the floor. In the background the city lies in ruins.
See also
literature
- Sigi Kube: Carel Fabritius - Delft Thunder Clap. In: Sigi Kube: Every finish is difficult. Unusual deaths in history. Bastei Lübbe, Cologne 2016, ISBN 978-3-404-60866-9 , pp. 44–45.
- Jean Nicolas de Parival : Of the misfortune that happened at Delft on October 12th, 1654, with the fire that came into the powder tower. In: Jean Nicolas de Parival: Meaningful, two-part and sad story. Nürnberg 1671, pp. 123–128 ( online at Zeno.org ).
Web links
- Peter Dittmar: 80,000 pounds of powder destroyed proud Delft . In: Welt.de , September 23, 2011
Individual evidence
- ↑ History of Delft ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Official website of the City of Delft)
- ↑ a b Theatrum Europaeum : Volume 7, p. 700 (digitized version of the University of Augsburg)
Coordinates: 52 ° 1 ′ 4 ″ N , 4 ° 21 ′ 31 ″ E