Building of the State Police Directorate Thuringia

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The monumental building of the State Police Department of Thuringia on Andreasstraße in Erfurt was built from 1937 to 1939 as an extension for the district and regional court located on Domplatz . The architect Wilhelm Pook built it in a predominantly neo-baroque style; architecturally it is a typical representative of Prussian state architecture under National Socialism . From 1948 the building was used as the Ministry of Economics of the State of Thuringia , from 1952 by the People's Police and from the end of the 1950s as the Erfurt district administration of the Ministry for State Security . Since 1990 it has been the seat of the Thuringia State Police Department and the Erfurt Police Department.

location

Police building at Andreasstrasse 38 (built 1937–39, photo 2015)
Police building Andreasstraße 38 (photo 2015)
Corner tower of the police building at Andreasstrasse 38 (photo 2014)
Plaque "1949" (instead of an earlier sovereign eagle relief) on the current police building (2016)
Memorial sign on the police building at Andreasstrasse 38 (photo 2015)

The elongated building is located at the foot of the Erfurt Petersberg , in the southern half of Andreasstrasse (No. 38) on its west side. To the south of it is the brick building of the former prison (1878), which is now the Andreasstraße memorial and educational center of the Ettersberg Foundation . Deutsche Telekom buildings are located north of the police headquarters . Opposite, on the other side of the street, is the Andreas Church .

History of construction and use

For capacity reasons, an extension was necessary in the 1930s for the courthouse on Domplatz, which was completed in 1879. This was to be built in the neighborhood on Andreasstrasse, beyond the prison. The former barracks 4 of the Erfurt Infantry Regiment No. 71, located here on the "Schusterberg", was demolished. A photo in a newspaper from March 1937 shows the barracks and a residential building south of it. The architect Wilhelm Pook , who had been building the representative, new Prussian government service building on Hindenburgstrasse, today's Arnstädter Strasse, was commissioned with the large extension . The construction in Andreasstraße took place from 1937 to 1939. In August 1939 the impressive, over 100 meter long structure "with plaster on bricks" was described in the press as almost finished, a photo shows still open windows and scaffolding.

In 1944, the then mayor Walter Kießling commissioned the photographer Georg Aderhold, employed by the city library, to take professional, systematic photos of Erfurt's old town - probably in anticipation of its destruction by the air raids on Erfurt . On three photos from August to October 1944 one can easily see the - at least externally - completed imposing "authority building". Whether it was a striking building that survived the frequent air raids and artillery fire in April 1945 unscathed, and how it was used during the war and in the immediate post-war period during the time of the American and Soviet occupation zones (SBZ) is only partially documented. One learns from a competent Erfurt contemporary witness: During the war, the Air Guard Command (FluKo) for Erfurt was in the basement. On other floors of the then so-called "New Justice Building", the "New Building of the Regional Court", from February 1944 up to 70% of its capacity was secured from bombed out furniture. The "Special Commissioner for Furniture Recovery" and his office reported this to the Lord Mayor on March 10 and May 23, 1944.

In July 1945, the Soviet secret police locked "crowds of political prisoners" in the building. After that it was used by the "Staatliche Konsumkontor", from 1948 by the Ministry of Economics of the State of Thuringia, and from 1952 by the Erfurt district administration of the GDR Ministry for State Security. A large-format photo from 1952 shows a Stalin poster or cloth across all six windows above the main portal . In November 1989 the authority in Erfurt was renamed "Office for National Security" (AFNS). From December 4, 1989, during the Peaceful Revolution , the "Stasi building" (and the neighboring remand prison) was the first of its kind in the GDR to be occupied by demonstrators, who primarily prevented the further destruction of documents from the State Security Service. A small plaque to the right of the main entrance to the building commemorates this action: "LIBERATE FROM THE FETELINES OF FEAR". On December 4, 1989, this building of the GDR State Security was occupied by citizens of the city of Erfurt. "Since 1990 the building has served as the headquarters of the Thuringia State Police Department and the Erfurt Police Department.

"With its history of construction and use, the administration building is a material testimony to German history in the 20th century and the social upheavals of this time". The building dates from the time of National Socialism and not from "1949", which is what one thinks when reading a corresponding large, widely visible board (size of two windows on the third floor) from the GDR era high above the entrance portal, and what is in the The consciousness of the Erfurt population. The actual building history is largely unknown to her due to a lack of clarification.

architecture

The following description is based largely on the list of monuments of the Free State of Thuringia.

The listed building is "an important representative of the administrative and state architecture of the 1930s to 1940s. The historical design and structural elements have largely been preserved in an authentic manner, both inside and out".

Historicizing, predominantly neo-baroque elements were added to the originally rather sober design by the architect Wilhelm Pook after the intervention of the regional president of the Erfurt administrative district, Otto Weber, and the Prussian Ministry of Justice in Berlin.

From 1937 to 1939 a representative, more than 100 meters long, broadly laid, four-storey plastered masonry building with a hipped roof , flanked by two corner towers , was built on Erfurt's Andreasstrasse .

The main building has a hipped roof - originally covered with slate - (now imitation slate) with rows of 17 narrow dormers each on the front and rear (roof windows later inserted between them). The facade , with a main portal and two secondary portals, is symmetrically structured and has 34 window axes . Both the three central axes, and the axes at the quarter points of the façade with Pilastergliederungen and a portico , similar risalits divided. The other window axes are also designed sparingly thanks to their simple structures. The ground floor windows sit together with the basement windows in a glare field, which is closed at the top by a profiled lintel. The windows on the upper floors are framed with a narrow plaster wall. The hierarchically staggered, different storey heights can also be read from the window sizes: the first floor shows the highest windows, the window height decreases upwards and downwards. On the north side there is still a box window from the construction period , all other windows were built in aluminum in the 1980s . The whole building is on the eaves of a console fries moved. The rear of the main wing, which is barely visible, is designed simply. The building has reinforced concrete ceilings .

The two-sided corner towers on an octagonal floor plan are somewhat presented to the main wing. They are especially responsible for the neo-baroque appearance of the building, including the details of the design. The towers are provided with a grooved base plaster, a plastered corner cuboid as well as a curved, originally slated, roof hood with oval windows and lantern . The floors and windows of the corner towers are at the same height as the main wing.

High above the main portal, under the eaves, a large inscription "1949" can be seen from afar . According to the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments, it is under monument protection, as is the entire building. 1949 was the year the GDR was founded, but this possible explanation cannot be found anywhere on or in the building. If a parallel was drawn to the "Prussian Government Service Building" (today the parliamentary group of the Thuringian Parliament ) in Arnstädter Strasse, which was built almost at the same time and in a similar dimension, a sovereign eagle should have been located at this point until the end of the "Third Reich" . This assumption is confirmed by a close-up look at a photo of the building in Andreasstrasse from October 1944: Large eagle relief instead of the current number "1949".

The Thuringian State Office for Monument Preservation and Archeology was unable to provide any information about the security-relevant interior structure of the current police building.

literature

  • List of monuments of the Thuringian State Office for Monument Preservation and Archeology, Erfurt 2012
  • Kerstin Richter and Rudolf Benl: ERFORDIA TURRITA. Door-rich Erfurt . Sutton Verlag, Erfurt 2013. ISBN 978-3-95400-248-1

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ruins in the middle of the city ... space for the extension of the district court . Thuringian General Newspaper, Erfurt. March 24, 1937
  2. ↑ Erfurt. "In connection". Administration building. Former extension of the regional court. Andreasstrasse 38 in: Ulrich Wieler et al. "Architekturführer Thüringen. From the Bauhaus to the year 2000". Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Universitäts-Verlag, 2nd edition, 2001. ISBN 3-86068-139-7 . P. 136 (small note that no longer appears in the 2006 edition)
  3. ↑ New buildings almost finished . Thuringian General Newspaper, Erfurt. August 27, 1939
  4. ↑ Kerstin Richter and Rudolf Benl: ERFORDIA TURRITA. Door-rich Erfurt . Sutton Verlag, Erfurt 2013. ISBN 978-3-95400-248-1 . Pp. 8, 30, 32, 61
  5. ^ Information from Helmut Wolf, the author of the book "Erfurt im Luftkrieg 1939–1945"
  6. ^ Erfurt City Archives. Current character 005/1/8 B
  7. ↑ The (court) building is still standing . In Erfurter Heimatbrief, No. 21, December 7, 1970. p. 46
  8. ^ Jochen Voit: Andreasstrasse memorial . Christoph Links-Verlag, Berlin 2016. p. 25. ISBN 978-3-86153-885-1
  9. ↑ Christian Misch: in the monument register of the Free State of Thuringia at the Thuringian State Office for Monument Preservation and Archeology. Erfurt, 2012
  10. ↑ Christian Misch in the monument register of the Free State of Thuringia (2012) at the Thuringian State Office for Monument Preservation and Archeology
  11. ^ Arthur Reck: New Prussian Government Buildings. II. New construction of the government service building in Erfurt . Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung. Berlin, October 25, 1941. Volume 61 / Issue 43/44. Pp. 712, 717
  12. ↑ Kerstin Richter and Rudolf Benl: ERFORDIA TURRITA. Door-rich Erfurt . Sutton-Verlag, Erfurt 2013. p. 61

Coordinates: 50 ° 58 ′ 48.1 ″  N , 11 ° 1 ′ 19.7 ″  E