Yellow barracks

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Yellow Barracks Aachen before 1914
View from Elsassplatz

The Yellow Barracks was an imposing building complex built in the Wilhelmine Baroque style in the east quarter of Aachen , the name of which refers to its yellow brick facade. The building was erected by the then Prussian government outside the Aachen city center and commissioned on September 20, 1882, and demolished in the 1960s in the course of the construction of new residential complexes and the construction of the Kennedy Park . In the course of its eventful history, the yellow barracks had been used alternately by several military associations and police units and, after the Second World War, served as an emergency shelter for the Aachen population returning from the evacuation. Today only eight columns remain from the entrance area and mark the main entrance to Kennedy Park.

history

Rear view

The first units after the opening were the district command and the 1st Battalion of the 5th Westphalian Infantry Regiment No. 53 , which had been stationed in Aachen since 1877 and had been distributed to other facilities, the yellow barracks, which was then located in 1890 the 2nd Battalion also found its way into it. After these two battalions were moved to Cologne-Kalk at the end of 1893 , the Fusilier Regiment "Prince Karl-Anton von Hohenzollern" (Hohenzollernsche) No. 40 moved into the vacated barracks on March 15, 1895 . After this was again relocated to Rastatt in 1910 and assigned to the XIV Army Corps as a Prussian regiment, the Lützow Infantry Regiment (left Rheinische) No. 25 finally took over the building. From here this regiment was used at the beginning of the First World War with the conquest of Liège . In the further course of this war this unit had to accept the loss of 137 officers and 3,637 NCOs and men.

According to the provisions of the Versailles Treaty , the Rhineland was demilitarized after the First World War and, as part of the Allied occupation of the Rhineland , was occupied by the French and Belgians, among others. The French and later the Belgians took over the Yellow Barracks, among other things, from which they were withdrawn in 1929 as part of the evacuation of the 2nd occupied zone. After a thorough restoration and renovation, a Prussian police station then moved into this building complex. But a few years later, on March 7, 1936, it served again as a barracks, this time for Infantry Regiment No. 39, later 78, of the German Wehrmacht .

Weeks before the start of the western campaign in May 1940, the German occupation of the barracks was significantly increased, so that the accommodation options were no longer sufficient, which led to billeting in private houses in the vicinity. During this time, the Yellow Barracks also held an "open day" once a year to bring the population closer to everyday life in the barracks. During the bombing raids on Aachen in August / September 1944, the building complex remained relatively unscathed with the exception of minor impacts, only the provisions and horse stables were largely destroyed.

Friendship stone Aachen-Halifax

After Aachen surrendered on October 20, 1944, the barracks were abandoned by the soldiers and now served as emergency accommodation for the Aachen population returning in droves from the evacuation, who were looking for reasonably intact living space. Between 1946 and 1950, craftsmen from Halifax in West Yorkshire / England took part in the preliminary renovations of the building , which led to friendship between the two cities, whereupon host families in Halifax took in around 60 young people from Aachen as guests, and in 1979 it became the city ​​twinning Aachen -Halifax led. Around 70 to 80 families, as well as the community home “ Jugendwohl-Aachen-Gelb Kaserne ” and later an additional 30 smaller businesses, welfare institutions and the police station 4 found a temporary place to stay in the former barracks. However, since this was not built with small units for purely residential purposes and the sanitary facilities and washrooms were only available as common rooms, this coexistence turned out to be extremely difficult. Only after the housing shortage in Aachen had gradually calmed down through intensive new construction in the course of the 1950s, more and more families were able to leave this emergency shelter.

Pillars of the Yellow Barracks

After it became known at the beginning of the sixties that the federal government, as the legal successor of the Reich, no longer had any claim to the former barracks building and the surrounding area, the city of Aachen bought the entire area with a resolution of September 15, 1961 and decided to use this area for two to develop new residential towers with a new green area, the later Kennedypark. Since a complete conversion of the barracks building into residential units was more expensive than a new building, the first partial demolition work began in 1962/63, the last parts of the building were then finally cleared in early 1965. Only eight columns in the Doric style from the entrance area were left to provide optical access to the newly created Kennedy Park. One of these pillars carried a plaque in memory of the past with the inscription: These pillars formed the gate entrance to the barracks, in which from 1910 to 1918 the Infantry Regiment von Lützow (1st Rhine), No. 25, was located. In the struggle for the people and the fatherland, 137 officers, 3,637 NCOs and men, the great majority from Aachen and the surrounding area, lost their lives in the 1914-1918 World War. Honor your memory. For reasons not known in detail, this plaque has meanwhile been stolen in a night-and-fog operation.

Today a so-called "Yellow Brick Path" still reminds of the former Yellow Barracks, which informatively connects historical points of the area.

literature

  • Rainer Monnartz: The garrison and military history of the cities of Aachen, Eschweiler and Stolberg 1814–1960 , Aachen 2010, ISBN 978-3-86933-043-3

Web links

Commons : Yellow Barracks  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Outline from the history of the Westphalian Infantry Regiment No. 53
  2. ↑ History of the Fusilier Regiment No. 40
  3. ↑ History of the Lützow Infantry Regiment (1. Rheinische) No. 25
  4. ^ City partnership Aachen-Halifax
  5. ↑ Sporty on the trail of the Yellow Barracks , In: Aachener Zeitung of November 5, 2012.

Coordinates: 50 ° 46 ′ 25.1 ″  N , 6 ° 7 ′ 0.1 ″  E