Cemetery I (Gotha)

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Extract from the official Gotha city map from 1905 with the old church in the lower right corner

The cemetery I (also age graveyard called) was one of the old cemeteries of the city of Gotha .

history

The gymnasium of the Arnoldischule stands on the site of the former St. Katharinenkirche
Information board at the gym

As elsewhere, the cemeteries of old Gotha were located as churchyards within the city around the parish and monastery churches until the 16th century. Friedrich Myconius , the important Gotha reformer, ordered the closure and leveling of the old cemeteries around St. Augustin on Klosterplatz and St. Margarethen on Neumarkt in 1542 for reasons of space and hygiene . In their place he had a communal civic church built outside the city wall in front of the Brühler Tor. This cemetery I ( also called Alter Gottesacker since the opening of cemetery II ) was located where the Arnoldischule and the Stadtbad are today between Bohnstedtstrasse and Eisenacher Strasse .

Previously, the monastery buildings of the Cistercian nuns of the Order of the Holy Cross were on the site . The "Kloster zum Heiligen Kreuz" (also known as Kreuzkloster ), founded in 1254, was dissolved in the course of the Reformation in 1524, fell to the city between 1531 and 1540 and was demolished until 1542 for the construction of the new Gottesackers.

In order to be able to cross the Wiegwasser, which flows openly between the city wall and the new cemetery, a wooden bridge was built, which from then on all funeral trains had to pass. The bridge was therefore popularly called the Bridge of the Dead . It only disappeared in 1870 in the course of the canalization of the Wiegwasser and the construction of Werderstrasse (today Bohnstedtstrasse).

In 1656 the small wooden church “St. Katharina ”(later also known as the Alte Gottesackerkirche ), which was converted into the town's garrison church after a renovation in 1712. In 1874 it was demolished due to dilapidation, in the same year the cemetery was closed by a city council resolution of May 15 for reasons of the health police [...] for funerals or for the burial of corpses in tombs or vaults.

In 1904, in preparation for the construction of the city baths, all grave monuments were cleared away and the cemetery grounds were leveled. A few tombstones (e.g. by Myconius, Reyher, Glassius, Buddeus, Perthes and Galletti) were salvaged and placed elsewhere (e.g. in the cloister of the Augustinian Church ). The Stadtbad (1905–1908, today Altes Stadtbad , including a 15,000 mark donation from Johann Ehrenfried Freund ) and the Arnoldischule with gym (1909–1911) were built on the site of the former cemetery .

Graves of important personalities

Among other things, their final resting place was found here: (sorted alphabetically)

Others

A remaining structural remnant of the Old Gottesackers is said to be the plague gate , which was built into the southern wall of cemetery II and walled up, dating from 1554.

Since 2012 a memorial plaque on the gymnasium of the Arnoldischule has been commemorating the Alten Gottesacker , the St. Catherine's Church, which was once located here, and 18 important Gotha residents who found their resting place here.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Andreas M. Cramer: Genuine Goth'sch. Small handbook of the Gotha vernacular…. Gotha 1995, p. 68 f.
  2. ↑ Gothaer Bürgerbuch. Official collection of local statutes, contracts, police regulations and other official regulations. Gotha 1899.
  3. ↑ The information board gives 1665 as the year of birth.
    Wrath of Plobsheim, Wolf Christoph . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 36 : Wilhelmy-Zyzywi . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1947, p. 558 (here year of birth 1655).
  4. ↑ Remembrance of the old church and St. Katharinenkirche…. In: Allgemeine Anzeiger. October 11, 2012.

Coordinates: 50 ° 57 ′ 1 "  N , 10 ° 41 ′ 45.4"  E