Fort Grand Duke Constantine

overall view

Painting by CF Stanfield (1838)

Aerial photograph (2016)

The Fort Grand Prince Konstantin is a fortress on the Karthaus in Koblenz, completed in 1827/28 and largely preserved .

history

Establishment

As part of the Prussian fortress of Koblenz , the Fort Grand Prince Konstantin was built on the outermost mountain spur of the Hunsrück southwest of the city center of Koblenz at a height of 110 meters. This is an area that was probably inhabited as early as the 9th century, where a Carthusian monastery last stood.

→ Main article : Koblenz Charterhouse

On June 23, 1818, the Prussian state acquired the former monastery, the Berghof and the property belonging to it from the Lower Saxony merchant Christian Seidensticker for 47,222 thalers (85,000 Rhenish guilders) . At that time the monastery complex still consisted of eight buildings. As early as the summer of 1816, the monastery was set up as barracks for the pioneer units involved in the construction of the nearby fortress of Emperor Alexander . After completion of the fortress, the monastery complex was demolished except for the priory building at the end of 1821. After a project by the fortress engineer Heinrich Ferdinand Schuberth , construction began in 1822. On September 12, 1825, the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III. Occasionally a visit to the plant in honor of the Grand Duke of Russia, Konstantin Pavlovich , who was also present , named Fort Grand Duke Konstantin . In 1827 work on the fort was largely finished. In 1828 the priory building, which was still used as accommodation, was demolished and a war bakery was built on the foundations.

The last major construction project was the second war powder magazine in 1862/63 using an old monastery cellar.

In addition to Schuberth, the following engineering officers were involved in the construction of the fort in the construction phase until around 1827:

• August Wilhelm Beyse
• Friedrich Peter Favreau (born February 16, 1793 in Berlin; † January 12, 1866 in Magdeburg), joined the Prussian engineer corps from the volunteer hunters in 1815, in Koblenz from 1823–1824, and most recently as captain in Magdeburg.
• Ludwig gardener

Abandonment and partial destruction

In 1886, the entire Koblenz fortress was downgraded as a fortress of the 2nd line, the state of which can only be preserved. The fort was abandoned on January 23, 1900 and abandoned as a fortification on January 27, 1903. Around 1910, a 2.5-meter-wide wooden gallery was built along the entire inner facade in order to be able to use the casemate corps better for accommodation, workshops and offices. After losing the First World War , France in particular insisted on the complete destruction of the Koblenz fortifications. On February 13, 1922, the decision was made to completely demolish the Grand Duke of Constantine. Since the complex, like the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress, is characteristic of the Koblenz cityscape, the German Entfestungsamt applied for the fort to be preserved, which the Allies ultimately approved. From April to the end of August 1922, therefore, only the two war powder magazines and the war bakery were removed, the corridor to the Emperor Alexander Fortress destroyed, the earth cover on the roof of the casemate corps removed and the main trench filled in.

Second World War

The Koblenz police chief, SA Brigade Leader August Wetter , who himself lived in a large villa at Simmerner Strasse 50 not far from the fort, had his command post relocated to the fort's throat tower on September 25, 1944. Before that, a three-storey air raid shelter with a 2 meter thick concrete ceiling had been installed in the northern part of the casemate corps to protect against the Allied air raids . Presumably the wooden gallery building was removed from the entire inner facade. There were also several tunnel bunkers for the residents of the surrounding houses and those traveling to the main train station. There are three in the rock wall under the fort facing Simmerner Strasse. Another tunnel from Prussian times runs directly below the Kehlturm. Its entrance is on the east side of the tower shaft. As the city center was increasingly destroyed, the air raid warning command was relocated to the bunker at the end of November 1944. It stayed there until the beginning of March 1945. On March 17, 1945 the attack of III. Battalion, Infantry Regiment No. 345 of the 87th US Infantry Division from Hunsrückhöhenstrasse to the Karthauses and via the districts of Moselweiß and Goldgrube to the city center. The cornerstone of the defense and thus also the last German resistance in the left bank of the city was the Fort Konstantin in this area. After heavy artillery and tank bombardment, the crew (five officers and 70 men) surrendered under the command of Captain Franz Josef de Weldige-Cremer on March 19.

post war period

Abandoned facility

Casemate Corps (1991)

Gate system after fire (1994)

Shortly after the end of the war and until March 1972, the fort served as an emergency shelter for families who had been bombed and who had fled. Then the window openings and the main gate were bricked up. The littered plant increasingly fell into disrepair. There were frequent arson attacks. In 1985 an illegal tire store burned down in the war bakery, and a little later a fire destroyed the wooden gate at the main entrance. Only the throat tower was still used as a location for a filling transmitter for the Goldgrube and Oberwerth districts since December 1958 . During a long-term renovation of the tower as part of the expansion of the B 9 , deep cracks in load-bearing parts had to be filled in 1985 and ceilings stabilized with concrete and steel anchors. In 1987 the tower received a new external plaster. The Rhenish Carnival Museum has been located here since April 2001 .

In September 1993 the association PRO KONSTANTIN e. V. founded to protect the fort from further deterioration and to secure the building fabric. On September 11, 1994, it was opened to the public for the first time. In July 1995 the first grave finds were made in the inner courtyard. In the course of the restoration of the Prussian court level under the direction of the Archaeological Monument Office , the crypt of the former monastery church as well as the original floor and large parts of the ovens in the vaulted cellar of the war bakery were exposed. In 2005 the restoration of windows and exterior doors in the south wing of the casemate corps began. The restored and partially reconstructed main gate could be re-installed in November 2007. Another fire on January 5, 2013 caused major damage in the association's exhibition area. The permanent exhibition Koblenz during World War II has been located in the bunker since 2015 .

The Grand Prince Konstantin Fort is a protected cultural monument according to the Monument Protection Act (DSchG) and is entered in the list of monuments of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate . The structure has also been part of the Upper Middle Rhine Valley UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2002 . Furthermore, it is a cultural asset marked with the blue and white trademark according to the Hague Convention .

garrison

Since 1831 the casemate corps and since 1850 the throat tower had been prepared to accommodate the troops. Which is why Engelke assumes that the fort has remained permanently " inhabited " since then . However, there is no evidence of units stationed there either in the regimental histories in question or in the address books of the city and the administrative district of Koblenz. Only Wischemann claims that the fort temporarily housed the " musicians " (the 42-man music corps) of the Guards Grenadier Regiment No. 4 . In fact, the detailed chronicle of this unit only shows the regimental chamber and workshops there. It is therefore likely that the fort was only used as a regimental warehouse and workshop (for example for gunsmiths and tailors) by the units stationed at the Emperor Alexander Fortress until around 1910. In addition, there are verifiably offices of the fortification administration. The three barracks built at the entrance to the fort in the early 1870s, which were replaced by a single wooden shed in 1878, were not intended to be used as accommodation for the troops.

After the First World War, the Allied occupation troops were followed in 1919 by the Americans, who had films shown in the courtyard to look after the troops, and in 1923 by the French. Finally, in the 1940s, the German Wehrmacht temporarily had an army release point in the fort.

Building description

Within the Alexander system, the Fort Grand Duke Constantine primarily took on the task of securing the steep slopes of the Karthauser plateau towards the Rhine and Moselle. The throat tower guns covered an area up to about the middle of the island of Oberwerth on the Rhine and almost to the Kemperhof on the Moselle side. In addition, the guns in the casemate corps secured the rear of the Kaiser Alexander stronghold, while the open gun emplacement on the war bakery dominated the Rhine plain.

The fort consists of the three-winged casemate corps on the southwest side with an adjoining inner courtyard, from which a ramp in the north leads to a slightly lower plateau with the foundations of the former powder magazine and a connecting passage (covered path) to the throat tower, a caponier at the foot of the mountain. The war bakery rises above the vineyard slope on the east side. The north side with the air raid shelter is on a rocky steep slope.

Casemate Corps

Casemate Corps

Left part (Rhine side)

Right part with main entrance

The casemate corps is a wall-like system with 19 axes , which consists of three wings with two angles protruding to the southwest. The 18 casemates on the ground floor, with a main entrance in the fifth axis from the north, have arched windows on the outside , which were expanded in place of the cannon loops after being softened, some are flanked by rifle loops. There are 12 casemates in the basement, three in the north and nine in the east, with no basement in the middle, and two more in the second basement at either end. Originally, the unadorned casemates on the glacis side were surrounded by a walled dry moat, which has only been preserved in the southeast. Its security was taken over by three trench weirs, of which the Rhine side was exposed. The arched main gate, which was only accessible via a wooden bridge until 1887, is framed by a rectangular panel made of red sandstone . Above it rises a log house-like tower with three drop slits and a flat triangular gable . In the middle of the top is a Prussian eagle made of bronze and the words “ Fort Grand Duke Konstantin ” and “ Built from 1822 to 1827 ”. There is another log house-like tower above the fifth axis from the east. Both attachments housed the cannon lifts, with the help of which the guns could be transported to the roof.

The facade of the casemates on the courtyard side is much more elaborate. In the two corners, semicircular protruding stair towers are built in, which tower above the casemates by a full round floor with loopholes-like light openings and a flat conical roof . The casemates themselves have arched doors and paired rectangular windows. They are rounded off by a high, reduced top beam . On both sides there are cube-shaped attachments with a spiral staircase below. All four stairwells and the lower entablature zone between the two round towers are closed off by an arched decorative arcade .

Inside, the casemates are barrel vaulted . The individual interiors are connected with basket-like passages. The vaults in the two cannon lifts have a rectangular cutout for pulling up the cannon parts. In front of the outer wall, a beam wall could be made in two deep folds , which should protect against fire. There are semicircular oven niches on the side walls. In times of peace, the casemates were not designed for permanent occupation by soldiers, only the two guard casemates on both sides of the main entrance were suitable and particularly isolated.

The casemate on the north side is a specialty. It was massively bunkered during the Second World War while largely preserving the existing building stock . The rectangular bunker structure, which also includes parts of the northern terrace, was clad all around with bricks .

communication

As early as 1823, work began on creating an approximately 550-meter-long connecting passage between the Grand Duke Fort Konstantin and the fortress of Emperor Alexander under the direction of the engineer officer Ludwig Gärtner. It ran from the basement of the middle part of the casemate (casemate no. 10) in the fort through the moat weir in front of it, horizontally below the surface of the earth to approximately today's Simmerer Strasse. From here a staircase with 205 steps led to bridging the difference in height to approximately today's Hüberlingsweg and from there it ran underground again to the Kehlreduit (casemate No. 7) of the fortress of Emperor Alexander. The staircase, closed by a barrel vault and about 2 meters wide, was covered with earth on the slope side. There were 35 loopholes in the side wall on the mountain side. In the corridor there were also fresh water and sewage pipes and, since 1859, an electric cable that connected the telegraph in the Reduit of the Alexander Fortress with the “headquarters” down in the city.

patio

In the inner courtyard, a curved ramp for artillery leads to the basement in the fifth casemate from the east. Numerous remains of the original Prussian paving have been preserved along the casemate corps . The crypt of the medieval monastery church, which was found during archaeological excavations in front of the war bakery, can be viewed in the inner courtyard. A driving ramp leads to the lower courtyard on the north side, which in turn opens up the originally covered path with a massive basalt staircase to the throat tower. A stairway from the former Way of the Cross from Koblenz to the Carthusian Monastery has been located here since the 15th century . The powder magazine located under the courtyard had to be razed in the course of the softening and can therefore only be seen in the remains of the foundation.

On the western part of the courtyard there is still the circular entrance to an approximately 8 × 5 m cistern , which was connected to the well cistern in the Reduit of the fortress of Emperor Alexander. In 1884 it was first connected to a well within the Spitzberg barracks and later to an underground elevated tank at the Löwentor.

War Bakery

In the middle on the east side of the courtyard, the war bakery was built using the remains of the priory building (1720–1737) of the Carthusian monastery. It served as a gun platform and contains storage rooms and a large hall with the remains of two large ovens. The old building was demolished in 1828 down to halfway up the ground floor. On the east side, two square corner turrets with loopholes and pyramid roof as well as a connecting battlement wall form the end. The building can be reached via two ramps on the west side. In the south wall two arched doors lead to the latrines , a hygienic achievement in the Prussian fortress construction of the early 19th century.

A long, straight staircase leads from the courtyard level to the cellar rooms on the mountain side, which still belonged to the priory building, and to the basement with the ovens, which stood on the brick platforms that were still in place. This large hall has a barrel vault and stitch caps to the broken windows on the valley side. Around 1900, four buttresses were attached to the outer east wall up to the height of the oven window.

Throat tower

View of the Grand Duke Constantine Fort (east side), seen from the Asterstein

The most visible part of the fortress from the city is the throat tower at the foot of the plateau. A path covered with loopholes until it is softened leads from the lower courtyard of the fort over a no longer preserved bridge to the top floor of the three-storey tower, which leans against the rock on an irregular, south-east rounded ground plan. The part rounded on the valley side has three floors with a very high basement. The upper end is designed as a terrace with a battlements. The straight part on the mountain side only begins at the level of the main entrance with the ground floor and ends in a pentagonal block house with large lunette windows and a flat tent roof that takes up the entrance from the covered path. The basement is provided with gun loops, the first and second floors originally had cannon loops, which were expanded to form arched window openings during the softening process. There are smoke outlets above each. The storeys are separated by cornices. Similar to the fort, the main entrance has a rectangular border made of red sandstone. External walls and floors are 2 meters thick.

Next to the main entrance, a spiral staircase leads up to the log cabin. The vault inside is supported by a heptagonal central support. A gun elevator made it possible to transport guns from the ground floor to the log cabin.

literature

• Peter Kleber: Fort Konstantin - building history and task . In: Fort Konstantin. Historic place with a future . Koblenz 2013, ISBN 978-3-936436-24-2 , p. 19-42 .
• Klaus Weber: The Prussian fortifications of Koblenz (1815-1834) (=  art and cultural research . Volume 1 ). 2003, ISBN 3-89739-340-9 , pp. 197-204 .
• Rüdiger Wischemann: The Koblenz Fortress. From the Roman fort and Prussia's strongest fortress to the largest garrison of the Bundeswehr . Koblenz 1978, p. 87-88 .

Web links

Commons : Category: Fort_Großfürst_Konstantin  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Wiktionary: Fort Konstantin  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

• Website of the PRO KONSTANTIN e. V.
• Koblenz Fortress
• Ortwin Reich: From Beatusberg to Fort Konstantin . (PDF; 4.5 MB)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Purchase of possessions, called the Karthaus and the Karthauser Berghof, for the creation of a fortress and an exercise area . In: Official Journal of the Royal Government of Coblenz . tape 3 , no. 27 . Koblenz August 4, 1818, p. 196-198 ( opacplus.bsb-muenchen.de ). See in detail about the sale: Sebastian Gleixner: From the French domain administration to the expropriation by Prussia. The prehistory of the Constantine Fort 1802 to 1821 . In: Fort Konstantin. Historic place with a future . Koblenz 2013, ISBN 978-3-936436-24-2 , p. 9-18 .
2. ↑ Weber, pp. 197-198, 202; Wischemann, pp. 87-88.
3. ↑ F. Wagner: The razing of the Koblenz-Ehrenbreitstein Fortress after the World War . In: Koblenzer Heimatblatt . tape 8 , no. 10 , May 10, 1931, p. 1–3, here p. 2 ( dilibri.de ). Matthias Kellermann: Koblenz Fortress and Ehrenbreitstein. Deconsolidation 1920-1922 - photographs by Joseph Ring . Koblenz 2018, ISBN 978-3-95638-413-4 , pp. 200–207, here pp. 200–201 .
4. ^ Helmut Schnatz: The aerial warfare in the Koblenz area 1944/45 . Boppard 1981, p. 199, 297-298 . Wolfgang Gückelhorn: The Koblenz air raid shelter in the Allied hail of bombs . Aachen 2008, p. 52, 104-107, 112 . Peter Kleber: War Bunker - Refuge - Memorial . In: Fort Konstantin. Historic place with a future . Koblenz 2013, ISBN 978-3-936436-24-2 , p. 83-93 .
5. ^ Reinhard Kallenbach: The fortress as emergency quarters . In: Fort Konstantin. Historic place with a future . Koblenz 2013, ISBN 978-3-936436-24-2 , p. 95-102, here p. 100 .
6. ↑ The Prussian heritage is given new honors . In: Rhein-Zeitung . No. 164 , July 19, 1986, pp. 13 .
7. ↑ Fire in Fort Constantine. Brand throws the club back by many months . In: Rhein-Zeitung . January 8, 2013 ( rhein-zeitung.de ).
8. ^ General Directorate for Cultural Heritage Rhineland-Palatinate (ed.): Informational directory of cultural monuments - district-free city of Koblenz . Koblenz 2013, p. 23 ( gdke-rlp.de [PDF]).
9. ↑ Erich Engelke: Order and cleanliness. Soldier life in Fort Konstantin . In: Fort Konstantin. Historic place with a future . Koblenz 2013, ISBN 978-3-936436-24-2 , p. 57–66, here p. 58 .
10. ↑ Wischemann, S. 87th
11. ↑ Maximilian von Braumüller: History of the Queen Augusta Guard Grenadier Regiment No. 4 . 2nd Edition. Berlin 1907, p. 4 .
12. ↑ Kleber, p. 31.
13. ↑ Kleber, pp. 39-40. Hans Rudolf Neumann: Landmark of the city: The Fort Konstantin. Underground attraction is waiting to be discovered . In: Rhein-Zeitung . No. 188 , August 16, 1985. Cf. also the plan Unteriridische Communication from Veste Kaiser Alexander to Kloster Karthaus in the Koblenz Middle Rhine Museum, signature: 2091/103.
14. ↑ Kleber, pp. 24–42.

Coordinates: 50 ° 21 '2 "  N , 7 ° 35' 10"  E