Gängeviertel (Hamburg)

Coordinates: 53 ° 33 '19.4 "  N , 9 ° 58' 59.8"  E

Gängeviertel (1893)

As Gängeviertel were in Hamburg , the most heavily built-up residential areas in some parts of the Old Town and New Town called. Most of the Gängeviertel were built up with half-timbered houses, the apartments of which were mostly only accessible through narrow streets, partly angled or labyrinthine backyards, gateways and the eponymous corridors between the houses. The town, which was still divided into small medieval structures within the ramparts, was increasingly dense due to the growing population, so that the Gängeviertel reached its greatest extent with a high population density in the 19th century. Middle and poorer sections of the population lived in the districts, and there were also small businesses. Due to the poor hygienic conditions, but also due to social and political endeavors, the first renovation measures by demolition began as early as the end of the 19th century. The last larger Gängeviertel was demolished in the 1960s. A few isolated buildings in these quarters have been preserved to this day.

history

Brauerknechtgraben around 1900

Bakers broad gear today

Since the houses were very close together, traffic with carts or carts was only possible to a limited extent. The residents were either supplied with drinking water by water carriers or they drew their daily needs directly from the canals . However, these inner-city canals also took in excrement and rubbish in every form.

As early as 1797, the French doctor Jean-Joseph Menuret had published a book which, in its German translation , bore the title Trial on the City of Hamburg in terms of health, or letters on the medical and topographical history of this city . On the occasion of the cholera epidemic of 1892 , the doctor Robert Koch wrote to the Kaiser: “Your Highness, I forget that I am in Europe. I have never encountered such unhealthy dwellings, plague dens and breeding grounds for every infectious agent as here. "

Not least because of the unsustainable hygienic conditions, the city intended to carry out a planned renovation of the Gängeviertel after the cholera epidemic of 1892. As early as 1883–1888, the old town quarter on the Großer Grasbrook was demolished for the construction of the Speicherstadt . 24,000 people lost their apartments without replacement and had to look for a new place to stay in the already overcrowded Gängeviertel of the old or new town or give up their harbor and work-related living. With the construction of Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse in 1893, a wide route was drawn through the slums of the northern Neustadt. Although this measure was not one of the unavoidable renovation work, it, like the rampart regulation, contributed to the removal of decrepit houses and narrow corridors. The cholera epidemic of 1892 and the dock workers' strike of 1896/97 made the untenable conditions particularly clear and prompted the Senate and the citizenship to designate new redevelopment areas, demolish old houses and erect modern buildings and wide streets. After the Gängeviertel of the southern Neustadt (1903–1914), the construction of Mönckebergstrasse (1908–1914) began in the old town . The intention was to connect the main train station with the town hall and the stock exchange. The city acquired the necessary land, carried out the necessary infrastructure measures quickly , taking into account the planning of the elevated railway that had already begun in 1890, and auctioned the freed land to the highest bidders. The rest of the action was left to the market and hoped that the former residents would either settle in the remaining Gängeviertel or in the new workers' settlements that were just being built in Barmbek or on the Veddel . After the First World War , this project was continued in the neighboring district to the south, in which the so-called Kontorhausviertel was built between 1921 and 1930 .

In the Neustadt, from the edge of the port over the Großneumarkt to the Gänsemarkt , a closed milieu of the Hamburg workers developed. Many Hanseatic townsfolk referred to it as a “hotbed of crime” and therefore also called the “criminal quarter”. The redevelopment in this third designated redevelopment area only began after the National Socialist seizure of power . The quarter was not only the stronghold of the Communist Party (KPD) - people even spoke of "Little Moscow" - here was also the real center of Jewish life in Hamburg. However, by the beginning of the 20th century this had almost completely shifted to the Grindelviertel . One of the first measures taken by the National Socialists was to demolish the former main synagogue at Kohlhöfen in 1934.

However, under changed architectural and urban planning measures, an appealing residential area was created which, in contrast to the previous renovation measures, sought a reference to the demolished cityscape with street names and spatial structures.

The last remaining remnants of the quarter were lost in World War II or were removed from 1958–1964 in favor of the construction of the Unilever House and the construction of Ost-West-Straße . Minimal remnants of the once extensive quarter are still preserved with the half-timbered eaves houses on the west side of the baker's width corridor and the corner house Dragonerstall (second half of the 18th / early 19th century). These and the buildings in the immediate vicinity between Valentinskamp, Caffamacherreihe and Speckstrasse have been under monument protection since 1953.

The last closed courtyard development with half-timbered buildings from the 17th century has been preserved with the Krameramtsstuben near the main St. Michaelis church.

Controversy about the Gängeviertel "Valentinskamp"

Open day in the Gängeviertel on October 25, 2009

Empty backyard in Speckstrasse, April 2009

In 2008 the Dutch investor Hanzevast Capital nv wanted to acquire the building complex between Valentinskamp, ​​Caffamacherreihe and Speckstrasse from the city of Hamburg. Around twelve houses with valuable, largely original old buildings should be demolished according to plans (2009) to 80%. The rest should be refurbished and increased. In accordance with the contract, the investor paid the purchase price in installments, namely a part in advance and further installments after the building permit issued in September 2009.

To the complex include the following 1987-2001 under preservation asked building: Valentinskamp 34 and 34a, as a timbered building probably from the 18th century, and a late founder temporal factory buildings, Schier's Passage (Valentinskamp 35, 36, 37, 38, 38 a-f , 39) as a complete system consisting of the front building with courtyard and commercial buildings from the period from 1846 to 1865 and the late founding apartment buildings Caffamacherreihe 37–39 / 43–49 by the architect Carl Feindt. This quarter had been empty since around 2002 and the houses were falling into disrepair. A popular initiative campaigns for the preservation and meaningful use, including through artistic and creative activities. Since August 22, 2009, under the patronage of Daniel Richter, around 200 artists have been occupying the Gängeviertel and are demanding both space for creative people and the complete preservation of the historic building. In November 2009 the manifest “Not In Our Name, Brand Hamburg” was proclaimed. The initiative called Get Started aims to create “a self-administered, public and lively district with cultural and social uses”. On December 15, 2009, the Hamburg Senate announced that the sale to Hanzevast would be mutually reversed in order to enable “a project conception with a broader public consensus”. The payments already made of almost 2.8 million euros were reimbursed to the Dutch investor.

However, the listed building Valentinskamp 40-42, consisting of the front building, intermediate building and hall wing, did not come into the possession of Hanzevast. A theater was operated in the building since 1809, which later became known beyond Hamburg as Tütge's Etablissement . After being used as a ballroom, it was revived in the 1920s as a printing press for the Hamburger Volkszeitung and in 2005 as the Hamburger Engelsaal theater .

By 2011, the Gängeviertel and its surroundings up to the Großneumarkt had expanded through the influx of various galleries, such as Feinkunst Krüger or the Heliumcowboy gallery and the use of previously vacant shops as studios by Hamburg artists, etc. a. Pittjes Hitschfeld (formerly Galerie Abriss ), developed into a lively cultural and art center in Hamburg.

In autumn 2013, extensive renovation of the Gängeviertel was initiated, starting with the ensemble in the Caffamacher row 43–49. The renovation work is expected to last eight years and cost around 20 million euros. The construction of 80 affordable apartments, artist studios and commercial space is planned. A cooperative founded by the local artists will manage the houses after the renovation.

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  Valentinskamp 32 (2014)

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  Speckstrasse (2014)

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  Gängeviertel from above

Quotes

“Schreiber this recently visited poor people in Hamburg. His way led him into a narrow passage with tall buildings on both sides, apartment above apartment to the left and right and again apartment in the other, almost all of them nested close together ... The most hideous plague air from the gutters sometimes fills the narrow street in which the residents look into each other's windows. Under some of these houses there are again entrances to new labyrinths. The interior of these second courtyards can only be reached by bending over. When I stepped into one of these corridors, windows and doors were open to the left and right, noise, scolding and spectators and listeners for both, old people and children, prostitutes and boys made up the population between the merging walls. On the left again was an even narrower line of apartments; the breath was hindered by the sticky air that had developed at this point; here on the right the family wanted lived in a formal cave; In the lower part of the wretched barracks, a couple who had run together were quartered almost in the dark, a kind of chicken staircase led upstairs, where again two or three independent parties had their shelter; everything was bristling with dirt of all kinds on the walls, windows, floors; 5 children and 3 women and a barely grown boy with his prostitute ate and drank here together. Cheekiness, despair and utter stupidity cast dark shadows on the facial features of those gathered to complete the picture of the physical and moral misery that lived here. "

- Johann Hinrich Wichern (1847)

literature

This section needs to be revised: According to WP: LIT, the aim here is not to be complete, but to select the most important works. Partial or marginal aspects should rather be cited in the form of individual references .
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• Heinrich Asher: The Gängeviertel of the old town and the possibility of breaking through it. A sketch. Hamburg 1865.
• Waldemar Bartens: Sähle, booths, cellars. The homes of the poor . In: 1789 save and donate. News from everyday life in Hamburg. Exhibition catalog of the museum education service of the cultural authority. Hamburg 1989.
• Otto Bender: The Hamburg Neustadt 1878–1986. City views of a family of photographers . With explanations by Ulrich Bauche . Hamburg 1986.
• Geerd Dahms: The Hamburg Gängeviertel - underworld in the heart of the city , Osburg Verlag, Berlin 2010 ISBN 978-3-940731-53-1 .
• Richard J. Evans : Cholera and Social Democracy. Labor movement, the bourgeoisie and the state in Hamburg during the crisis of 1892 . In: Arno Herzig u. a., Ed .: Arbeiter in Hamburg. Lower classes, workers and the labor movement since the late 18th century . Hamburg 1983, pp. 303-214.
• Richard J. Evans: Death in Hamburg. City, society and politics in the cholera years 1830–1910 . Hamburg 1991.
• Richard J. Evans: The "red Wednesday" in Hamburg . In: Heinrich Erdmann: Hamburg in the first quarter of the 20th century: the time of the politician Otto Stolten . Hamburg 2000, pp. 51-96.
• Gängeviertel e. V., Ed .: More than a quarter. Views and intentions from the Hamburg Gängeviertel . Berlin / Hamburg 2012.
• Michael Grüttner : The world of work at the water's edge. Social history of the Hamburg port workers 1886–1914 . Göttingen 1984.
• Michael Grüttner: The huts of poverty and vice . In: Volker Plagemann, Ed .: Industrial Culture in Hamburg. The German Empire's gateway to the world . Munich 1984, pp. 224-243.
• Michael Grüttner: Social Hygiene and Social Control. The redevelopment of Hamburg's Gängeviertel 1892–1936 . In: Arno Herzig , Dieter Langewiesche , Arnold Sywottek (ed.): Workers in Hamburg. Lower classes, workers and the labor movement since the late 18th century . Hamburg 1983, pp. 359-371.
• JM: The Gängeviertel is not the hub of all vices and crimes: a reply to Dr. Asher's brochure: “The Gängeviertel and the possibility of breaking through it” . Hamburg 1865.
• Elke Pahl : The destruction of the Gängeviertel - an attempt to control Hamburg port workers over their apartments . Autonomie 3, Hamburg / Tübingen 1980.
• Jörg Schilling, Christoph Schwarzkopf: Das (die) Gängeviertel (Hamburg construction booklet 18), Hamburg 2016, ISBN 978-3-944405-27-8 .
• Dirk Schubert: Small housing construction as a family policy in Hamburg 1870-1910 . In: J. Rodriguez-Lores, G. Fehl, Ed .: Die Kleinwohnungsfrage. On the origins of social housing in Europe . Hamburg 1988.
• Dirk Schubert: Serving the art of urban planning - and making the finance deputation happy or: The checkered history of the renovation of the southern old town . In: Ulrich Höhns, Ed .: The unbuilt Hamburg . Hamburg 1991, pp. 46-57.
• Dirk Schubert: Urban redevelopment under National Socialism. Propaganda and reality using the example of Hamburg . In: The Old City . Quarterly for urban history, urban sociology and monument preservation, volume 4/1993.
• Dirk Schubert: From the “outer” to the “inner” urban expansion. To renovate the old town north and to plan and build Mönckebergstrasse in Hamburg . In: G. Fehl, J. Rodriguez-Lores, Ed .: Stadt-Umbau. The planned renewal of major European cities between the Congress of Vienna and the Weimar Republic . Hamburg 1995, pp. 191-211.
• Dirk Schubert: Recovery of the cities. Urban redevelopment in Hamburg 1933–1945 . In: Michael Böse u. a., ... a new Hamburg is emerging ... Hamburg 1986, pp. 62–83
• Christoph Twickel: Gentrifidingsbums or a city for everyone , Hamburg 2010.
• Friedrich Winkelmann: House and shack in old Hamburg. The development of living conditions from 1250 to 1830 . Berlin 1937.
• Clemens Wischermann : Living in Hamburg before the First World War . Münster 1983.

Web links

Commons : Gängeviertel  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Image archive
• Impressions from the Bäckerbreitergang
• "Get going!": Information from the Hamburg Gängeviertel occupiers

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Thomas Hirschbiegel, Jane Masumy: RESIDENTS DESPERATE Save our Gängeviertel! In: Hamburger Morgenpost . May 9, 2009, ZDB ID 291023-8 ( online [accessed November 17, 2017]).
2. ↑ das-gaengeviertel.info
3. ↑ Article Hamburger Abendblatt: Artists occupy demolished houses in Neustadt ( Memento from March 18, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
4. ↑ The Hamburg Gängeviertel - a success story? ( Memento from March 17, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
5. ^ Occupation of the Hearts - Saving the Historic Gängeviertel ( Memento from April 6, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
6. ^ Official press release of the authority for urban development and the environment, Hamburg
7. ↑ This means that the Gängeviertel is traditionally occupied by a number of u. a. culturally motivated squatting in Hamburg since the 1970s.
8. ↑ A quarter gets going. In: Hamburger Morgenpost , October 1, 2013, pp. 12–13.
9. ↑ quoted from Hans Jürgen Teuteberg , Clemens Wischermann (ed.): Everyday living in Germany, 1850–1914: pictures, data, documents. Coppenrath, Münster 1985, ISBN 3-88547-277-5 , p. 35.