German Reformed Church (Magdeburg)

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The German Reformed Church was a church building in Magdeburg in Saxony-Anhalt on Kaiser-Otto-Ring, today at the corner of Lüneburger Strasse and Henning-von-Tresckow-Strasse.

prehistory

The Lutheran Reformation was introduced in the Archbishopric of Magdeburg in the 16th century ; The great majority of the population belonged to this creed in the following centuries. As a result of immigration from the Netherlands and western Germany, small Reformed (Calvinist) communities also formed in the cities .

In 1680 the territory of the archbishopric finally came to Brandenburg-Prussia , whose ruling house had been Calvinist since 1613 . For the Reformed minority - in Magdeburg the "Walloon" (French-speaking) and the "German" - this meant a social upgrading and the stepping out of secrecy. The Walloon Reformed community received the former Augustinian monastery church, now known as the Walloon Church , in 1690/94 . For the German Reformed congregation, the former Dominican church St. Pauli am Breiten Weg, which burned out in 1631, was restored, handed over in 1698 and inaugurated in 1700.

Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben and Karl Friedrich Friesen were baptized here. The church, newly consecrated in 1821, was sold to the post office in 1890, which it demolished in 1895 for the planned new central post office .

history

The foundation stone of the new German Reformed Church was laid on July 10, 1896. The construction management was carried out by town construction inspector Emil Jaehn . Because of the large number of visitors, tickets had to be issued for the inauguration on January 31, 1899.

The neo-Gothic church, carved in sandstone, measured:

Tower height 72 m, roof 28.5 m, length 43 m, width 30.5 m, maximum vault height 21 m, maximum height of the gallery vault 4.5 m, diagonal span of the pillars of the ship 18 m, width and depth of the ship 25 m, height of the upper edge of the gallery parapet 5.5 m.

The main portal was in the west tower. The gallery parapet enclosed the interior in a concentric dodecagon , over which the vaulted dome rose freely. The wide west gallery offered space for choir and orchestra. It was furnished with three large colored windows decorated with flowers. In the main axis were the communion table and the pulpit, made of marble, as well as the organ.

In addition to the concentric rows of benches on the west gallery, rented family boxes were grouped on the north and south pores . A chandelier designed by Jaehn symbolized the heavenly Jerusalem with its twelve gates.

In addition to the main portal, the church had five side entrances.

In 1917 the two largest bells were melted down. On October 20, 1929, the bell could be completed again - as a gift from the brothers Adolf, Heinrich, Johannes and Fritz Mittag. The big bells were melted down again in 1940.

The church was badly damaged in the air raid on Magdeburg on January 16, 1945 and was never rebuilt. In 1955 it was demolished, with a number of stones being used to build the St. Andrews Church in Cracau .

literature

  • Hans-Joachim Krenzke: Churches and monasteries in Magdeburg , City of Magdeburg, City Planning Office 2000, page 99f.

Web links

Coordinates: 52 ° 8 ′ 29.6 "  N , 11 ° 38 ′ 26.3"  E