Secret door
A secret door is a hidden wall passage that is not immediately recognizable as a door and is known only to a small group of “ initiated ” people. In the continuation, a secret door can have a secret passage , it can lead to labyrinths , to hidden rooms ( secret rooms or panic room ), it can be intended as an escape or rescue possibility (e.g. priest's hole ).
task
Depending on the purpose, the secret door opens a secret entrance, a secret exit or a secret passage. Long before safes existed, secret doors were a way of protecting valuable things and hiding them from unauthorized access. A secret door to a 2,500 year old tomb with three mummies was found behind a shelf in an Egyptian tomb in Saqqara .
Construction
size
The size of a secret door can range from gates to the smallest of doors. B. in secretaries or other pieces of furniture. When it comes to furniture, one usually speaks of a secret compartment.
nature
Wall cladding in particular, such as paneling or wallpaper , is ideal for secret doors. In many cases, furnishings are used to camouflage the secret door . Here are tapestries , shelves or closets used.
Trap doors that are embedded in the floor are made by skillfully incorporating them into the floor covering or by simply camouflaging z. B. with a carpet to a secret door.
camouflaged trap door of the Viet Cong
opened trap door of the Viet Cong
In the right pilaster there is a secret door to a priest's hole (Partingdale House, Middlesex )
Locking mechanism
A secret door usually has no door handle and is locked by a mechanism that is not recognizable as such from the outside. Here can lever , rod , wire rope hoists , counterweights , motors , remote controls and more are used. A secret door can also be locked with a door lock and key, and the keyhole can be hidden.
Examples
- In Sanssouci Palace , Frederick the Great got through a secret door hidden by a bookcase from the bedroom to his library with books by his favorite authors such as Marc Aurel , Homer and Voltaire .
- In Eutin Castle there is a secret wallpaper door that connects the Duke's room through the tower on the south side with the Duchess's rooms.
- In Karlsberg Castle , the Duke had his room connected to his mistress' apartment by a secret staircase . For this purpose, the architect had a wall cabinet made with the label “Filing Cabinet”, which supposedly contained government papers and was always locked. Inside there was a sliding door that could be easily lifted, and a staircase that led along the wall into a second closet in the mistress' room, which was also always locked.
- The Suuremõisa manor in Estonia has a double false ceiling with rooms built into it. The squire could enter this through a secret door in a cupboard.
- There is a secret door in the Richard library in Kynžvart Castle . The library of Dalhousie Castle , Belvoir Castle and Osterley Park also have well-known secret doors on the bookshelves.
- In what is now the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam , Anne Frank's family hid from July 6, 1942 to August 4, 1944, hidden behind a secret door that was hidden by a bookcase.
- Josef Fritzl kept family members hidden and imprisoned behind a secret door in a dungeon . Secret doors were also used in Marc Dutroux and other kidnappings to hide the victims.
Popular culture
literature
In many children's books , a secret door becomes the subject of the plot and thus arouses curiosity and interest in reading .
Computer games
In many PC games ( adventure and fantasy games) the game can only be continued through a secret door that has to be found and opened. For example, in the course of the game of Legend of Grimrock , a secret door is crucial in many places. In Maniac Mansion , one of the first point-and-click adventures , it took two people to open the secret door. One had to hold down the lever on the banister while another could go through the open secret door.
Movies
In agent and adventure films , in addition to doors, for example, the rear walls of the fireplace also rotate, or doors were attached to the rear wall of a cupboard, which open and reveal weapons hiding places or exits.
- Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt (gun hideout in the garage / kitchen)
- Résiste - uprising of the interns , Till's office is only accessible via a secret door and a slide
- Catweazle (TV series 1970–1974) with Geoffrey Bayldon (time travel)
Web links
- Secret doors and panic room in a luxury suite
- Pinterest: Photo gallery with various secret doors
literature
- The "library defends itself ..." (PDF; 147 kB)
Individual evidence
- ↑ "The Underground Temple" at Damanhur
- ↑ RP Online: Mafia Boss Escape through Secret Door , January 13, 2009, accessed July 15, 2013
- ↑ Der Standard: Spectacular find behind secret door Archaeologists found a 2,500 year old grave in Egypt.
- ↑ Archaeologists discover pearl-covered mummy ( memento of March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on July 16, 2013
- ↑ Secret door the size of a house entrance
- ↑ The Reporter: Through the Duke's Secret Door , July 27, 2011, accessed July 15, 2013
- ↑ Johann Christian von Mannlich : Rococo and Revolution - Memoirs of Johann Christian von Mannlich . Revised version of the edition by Eugen Stollenreiter. Koehler Verlag, Stuttgart 1966, p. 209
- ↑ Baedeker Baltic States: Keyword Suuremõisa Manor Castle, page 148, ISBN 3-8297-1052-6
- ↑ Schloss Kynzvart (Königswart) ( Memento from September 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), German photo gallery, accessed June 6, 2018
- ^ The secrets of Belvoir Castle ( Memento of April 20, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) by Nicola Shulman, March 27, 2013, accessed on July 17, 2013
- ↑ Osterley's library restocked , with photos of the open secret door, September 30, 2011, accessed July 17, 2013
- ↑ C64-Wiki: Maniac_Mansion , animation shows opening the secret door, accessed on July 17, 2013
