Georg Adolf Demmler

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Pauline Soltau: Georg Adolf Demmler in 1873

Georg Adolf Demmler , also: Georg Adolph Demmler (* December 22, 1804 in Berlin ; † January 2, 1886 in Schwerin ) was a German architect , socialist and politician first of the left-liberal South German People's Party (DtVP) and later of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (SAP ) , whose buildings shape the cityscape of Schwerin to this day.

biography

Childhood and youth

Georg Adolf Demmler was born out of wedlock to the 45-year-old chimney sweep master Johann Gottfried Demmler from Güstrow and the six years younger Catarina Maria Meincke, a widowed daughter of the brewery owner Mau. For this reason, his mother moved to Berlin before the delivery, where Demmler lived with a foster family up to the age of nine. There he attended a private school where children from the age of five were accepted and prepared for high school. In addition to civil architecture and free hand drawing, mathematics and map drawing were also part of the class.

In 1813 Georg Adolf's father separated from his wife and from then on lived with the mother of his son. He was subsequently confirmed as her son by a so-called revocation patent from 1816. Demmler had a socially secure livelihood from childhood. His father was very wealthy and had a respected social position as a state chimney sweep and as a member of the Güstrow citizens' committee. The boy was brought to Güstrow, where he attended grammar school until 1819. With additional private lessons in linear drawing, architectural and free hand drawing, the father promoted his son's talent for building. At the age of 14, Georg Adolf Demmler drew his first building plan for a house.

Years of study and beginning of the architectural career

Dobbertiner monastery church

After finishing high school Demmler studied at the Berlin Building Academy , where he was a student of Karl Friedrich Schinkel and Friedrich Gottlieb Schadow . Because of his membership in the old Berlin fraternity Arminia since 1821 , he was expelled from the university in 1823. He found a job as a surveyor in Potsdam . On July 18, 1823 he was sworn in as a building manager . Not least because of Schinkel's intercession, Demmler was accepted into the Mecklenburg civil service in 1824 , initially without a fixed salary and as an assistant to the master builder Carl Heinrich Wünsch . In 1825 he avoided being called up for military service by hiring a servant , i.e. a representative who performed military service in his place.

As early as 1823 Demmler presented his first drafts for the construction of a new bell tower of the Dobbertiner monastery church to the monastery captain Rittmeister Georg Friedrich von Raven auf Müsselmow in Dobbertin, but these were put on hold for the time being. It was not until February 9, 1825, that he was commissioned to build the tower according to Schinkel's designs, which he began in 1829 and completed in 1837. The twin tower system in Mecklenburg has remained without any regional model or successor.

In Mecklenburg service

State Chancellery Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
Schwerin Castle

In Mecklenburg services Demmler worked mainly in Schwerin , the capital of the Mecklenburg-Schwerin region . From 1830 he was also a teacher at a Sunday school in Schwerin operated by Freemasons , where he taught apprenticeships free of charge. In 1832 he was appointed master builder. Since his parents died in quick succession in the same year and left him with a large fortune, Demmler undertook several art tours through German cities this year and the following, including Frankfurt am Main , Heidelberg and Munich .

On December 9, 1833, he married Maria Henriette Zickermann, the daughter of a Schwerin military council . The marriage remained childless after two miscarriages. The Mecklenburg-Schwerin advertisements of December 18, 1833 read: Your marital union, which took place yesterday, obediently report. Master builder Demmler, Henriette Demmler, b. Zickermann. Schwerin, the 10th Decmbr. 1833.

In 1835 Demmler was appointed Grand Ducal Mecklenburg-Schwerin state master builder. The Grand Duke Paul Friedrich , who entered government in 1837 , supported the architect who was supposed to implement his ambitious expansion plans for Schwerin, and in the same year appointed him court architect and in 1841, the last year of his only five-year rule, court building councilor . Demmler, who came from a humble background, met with resentment among court officials, especially as the builder had direct access to the prince and enjoyed his personal trust.

During his service, Demmler drafted most of the plans for the stately expansion of Schwerin. The first major project in the Mecklenburg service was in 1824 the construction management for the college building designed by Carl Heinrich Wünsch , which served as the seat of the government of the Grand Duchy and today houses the State Chancellery of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . The highlights of his work were the reconstruction of the castle , the new construction of the arsenal at Pfaffenteich, the Marstall, the court theater in Schwerin and many more (see buildings and designs ). His own house ( Demmler-Haus ) clearly demonstrated Demmler's preference for round arches and tower structures. In his second creative phase in the 1860s, he also worked as a landscape planner on the area around the Pfaffenteich and created a park. According to his design , the Paulsstadt was laid out as a new district around the arsenal on the west bank of the pond . Demmler's work was not limited to representative buildings, but also included the Schwerin infrastructure. In this way, he ensured a better connection between the unplanned suburb and the old city center. This building program fitted in with the plans of Paul Friedrich, who moved the residence from Ludwigslust back to Schwerin. Buildings in other cities in Mecklenburg are also based on Demmler's plans, for example the Ernst Barlach Theater in Güstrow . Demmler played a key role in perfecting the buildings in Heiligendamm and built perhaps the most private building for the ducal couple there, the Alexandrinen-Palais .

Civic engagement

In 1826 Demmler had entered the Schwerin Masonic lodge Harpokrates zur Morgenröthe , which cultivated liberal ideas. Even before the revolution of 1848 he was socially committed. Above all, he campaigned for fair wages and health and accident insurance for workers and craftsmen and, although he was more of a liberal himself, began to sympathize with the workers' movement. For "his" castle workers, he set up a fund for sickness and accident benefits. He also designed systems for socially graded wage payments. In 1864 a building trade school was founded on his initiative. Demmler was one of the authors of the five-volume work “Mecklenburg. A yearbook for all estates ”, which appeared from 1844 to 1848 and was banned by the censors several times . In 1845 Demmler was elected to the Schwerin Citizens Committee. From this point on he was also a member of the city's reform association until 1849. Above all, he campaigned for freedom of the press , a reform of local laws and a constitutional reform for all of Mecklenburg.

In 1849 he campaigned massively against the Freienwalder arbitration award , which was supposed to repeal the new constitution of 1849 and reintroduce the old constitutional constitution. He called on all civil committees and representations not to agree to the arbitration award. For this reason in particular, he was put under pressure in 1851 by the new government installed by the prince for alleged disloyalty. He then submitted his resignation, was dismissed without a pension and also had to leave the citizens' committee. Demmler's personal relationship with the princely family around the new Grand Duke Friedrich Franz II remained good. Thanks to his parental inheritance, he was not dependent on the pension. The building of the palace was completed by Friedrich August Stüler , who made numerous changes. In the following years Demmler became politically active throughout Germany and Europe and took part in numerous congresses of the labor and trade union movement that was forming. After long trips through Europe, including England, Scotland, France, Italy and Switzerland, he returned to Schwerin in 1857, where he was again a member of the Citizens' Committee.

Turn to social democracy

Poster for the repeal of the Socialist Law in 1890. Honoring the dead, including Demmler (top left).

In 1859 he was one of the founders of the German National Association in Frankfurt am Main, to whose left wing he was from then on. Since that year he has also regularly participated in the foundation festivals of the educational association for workers in Hamburg . In 1861 he was elected chairman of the Mecklenburg Trade Association. However Demmler remained as an architect active: He drove the system to the New Cemetery (now Old Cemetery) above, which opened in 1863, and put 1863 the magistrate of the city an "expansion and beautification plan of the residence city of Schwerin" before which an expansion of City to the south and east and especially the changes around the Pfaffenteich provided.

Demmler was a delegate of the Lausanne Congress of the International Workers' Association (IAA) . As a result he was one of the founders of the Peace and Freedom League in Geneva in 1867 , which sought to create the United States of Europe in order to avoid future wars on the continent. From then on he also supported the efforts of the IAA financially. His negative attitude towards a unification from above with the help of " blood and iron " under Prussian leadership as well as the constitution of the North German Confederation led him to participate in the establishment of in 1868 left-liberal DTVP in Stuttgart to participate, about what contact with the Saxon People's Party were , a radical democratic and left-liberal party with socialist approaches, in which August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht from the Association of German Workers' Associations (VDAV) played an important role and under whose influence it increasingly took a socialist direction. In 1868 Demmler took

“ In old ties with the construction workers [...] participated as a delegate of the Schwerin bricklayers 'union at the general assembly of the German bricklayers and stone masons in Leipzig, attended the 1st Congress of Germany's carpenters in Braunschweig and finally took part in the day of the Association of German Workers' Associations in Nuremberg, who set the course for the establishment of the Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP) a year later in Eisenach. "

- Klaus Baudis

Demmler initially opposed the establishment of the North German Confederation because Mecklenburg had to give up part of its sovereignty. After the establishment of the empire , however, he became politically active in the new structures. He ran for election to the 2nd German Reichstag on January 10, 1874 in the constituencies of the Duchy of Saxony-Altenburg and Württemberg 5 ( Eßlingen am Neckar , Nürtingen , Kirchheim unter Teck , Urach ). Here, with 27.3% of the votes cast, he achieved the best election result for a socialist in Württemberg in the 1870s and 80s. In the city of Eßlingen his share of the vote was even 60% and in the city of Nürtingen he also received more votes than the conservative-liberal constituency winner Dr. Georg Friedrich von Lenz , who stood for the National Liberal Party . Demmler still got 33% of the votes in the upper administrative district of Nürtingen. It should be noted that in this election, the SDAP entered into an electoral alliance with the left-liberal German People's Party (DtVP) , according to which the two left-wing parties renounced opposing candidates and the progressive camp was therefore not divided. The literature contradicts itself on the question of which of the two parties Demmler stood for in the election. He ran again in the Reichstag elections in 1876 and 1877, this time definitely for the SAP, in which the SDAP was absorbed after merging with the General German Workers' Association (ADAV) at the Gotha Party Congress in 1875. The last candidacy was successful. Demmler was elected to the Reichstag for the socialists in the Leipzig district, but in view of the Socialist Law of 1878 he waived re-election and withdrew into private life. In 1880 he went on a trip to Italy with his niece Elisabeth Mau.

Demmler Mausoleum Schwerin

Demmler died at the age of a little more than 81 years and was buried in the (today's) old cemetery in Schwerin in the grave chapel designed by himself and built in 1863/64, to which his wife, who died in 1862, was also transferred. Demmler immortalized important Masonic symbols and architectural styles in the burial chapel. The entrance to the chapel is framed by two columns based on the temple of Solomon, which is emphasized by the naming above.

In his will he had decreed that every year 1,000 marks from his family foundation should be paid out to old and sick Schwerin bricklayers and carpenters. However, due to legal disputes, this request was never granted.

Demmlerdenkmal (artist unknown, attribution to Maximilian Preibisch )

Honors and honors

  • In Schwerin:
    • Demmlerplatz and Demmlerstrasse
    • Demmler bust in Demmlerhof , Wismarsche Straße 307/317
    • Demmlersaal in the Schwerin town hall ; here meets u. a. the Schwerin city council
    • Vocational school construction technology Georg Adolf Demmler was a vocational school specializing in construction technology in Schwerin.
  • Streets in the
  • Demmler publishing house in Ribnitz-Damgarten
  • In 1914 the Berlin journalist Bruno Mertelmeyer published Demmler's autobiography of a great master builder with shortened and revised original texts by Demmler.

Buildings and designs

Inner courtyard of the Marstall, 180 degree panorama
  • In the 1820s Demmler drew up plans for public and stately buildings in Schwerin.
  • 1829–1837 twin towers, 1838–1851 exterior reconstruction of the Dobbertiner monastery church
  • 1834/1835: Town hall facade in Tudor style
  • 1836: Theater in Schwerin
  • 1838–1843: Marstall (today the Technical Museum and the State Ministry of Social Affairs and Education)
  • 1845: Start of the reconstruction of the castle (today the seat of the state parliament) and construction of the arsenal at Pfaffenteich (today it houses the Ministry of the Interior)
  • Court theater in Schwerin, which burned down in April 1882
  • Hotel du Nord in Schwerin, demolished in 1909 and the hotel by the new Nordic Hof replaced
  • Classicist Berlin gatehouses and Güstrow gatehouses from 1844
  • His own house (today Mecklenburgstrasse 1)
  • Ostseebad Heiligendamm - by 1870 the "unique classicist total work of art from bathing and lodging houses" was started by the master builder Johann Christoph Heinrich von Seydewitz (18th century), Carl Theodor Severin, and completed by Georg Adolph Demmler.

Schwerin Castle

Schwerin Castle

During the reconstruction of the palace, Demmler was primarily concerned with redesigning the ensemble of buildings on an island, which had not been a permanent royal residence for 80 years before the residence was moved, in accordance with the requirements and ideas of the time. Above all, he had to transform the accumulation of different styles that had gradually emerged into a unified whole. After a study trip, he decided on the French Loire Castle Chambord as a model. Together with his assistant Hermann Willebrand , who also took over the direct construction management and was in charge until completion in 1857, he drew the designs, including for the castle bridge . Older parts of the building were demolished. Demmler consciously included the existing elements from the 16th and 17th centuries in his new work. Work began in 1843, and at times up to 800 people were involved. In 1847 the first major construction phase was completed with the main tower on the lake side. In addition to Demmler, the architects Friedrich August Stüler , Gottfried Semper and Ernst Friedrich Zwirner , who are known throughout Germany, also worked on the palace.

Publications

  • Pieces of files concerning the dismissal of the Hofbauraths Demmler in Schwerin: together with some remarks linked to this case about the position of the civil servants in the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin . Hoffmann & Campe, Hamburg 1851
  • The expansion and beautification plan of the residence city Schwerin in its origin and historical development from 1862 to the end of August 1866 / communicated and accompanied by comments by GA Demmler. With a map in two sections, four lithographed plates and a graphic representation of the population during the period from 1835 to 1862 with the profitability calculations based on them . Hildebrandt, Schwerin 1866 ( digitized version )
  • To the gentlemen of the German wall and stone masonry trade unions . Bear jump, Schwerin 1868
  • Petition to the Reichstag of the North German Confederation from the board of directors of the bricklaying and carpentry associations in Schwerin. On behalf of and on behalf of their comrades, regarding the trade regulations. With a memorandum from Hofbaurath Demmler on the importance of the rulers' guild roles in Mecklenburg and their value for the journeyman class of all guilds, especially for bricklayers and carpenters . Self-published, 1869
  • New and old. A letter of defense . Hilb's Buchdruckerei, Schwerin 1874
  • How the Epicurean became a socialist . In: Bruno Mertelmeyer: Altmecklenburg. Chats . Hanow, Berlin 1881, pp. 53-62
  • Schwerin Cathedral in its undeniable right to a tower worthy of its size and style. A public warning to the Reverend Oberkirchenrath zu Schwerin . Schmale, Schwerin 1883

literature

  • Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Volume 7: Supplement A – K. Winter, Heidelberg 2013, ISBN 978-3-8253-6050-4 , pp. 229-231.
  • Klaus Baudis: Georg Adolph Demmler. In: Klaus Schwabe: Roots, Traditions and Identity of Social Democracy in Mecklenburg and Pomerania. (= History, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , Volume 9.) (edited by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung , Landesbüro Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania) 3rd amended and expanded edition, Schwerin 2004, pp. 32–37.
  • Bruno Mertelmeyer (Ed.): GA Demmler (1804–1886). The autobiography of a great builder. Bear jump, Schwerin 1914.
  • Sabine Bock , Rudolf Conrades (ed.): Georg Adolph Demmler. Some notes from my life 1804–1886. Thomas Helms Verlag , Schwerin 2004, ISBN 3-935749-45-7 .
  • Margot Krempien: Georg Adolph Demmler 1804–1886. Court building officer and social democrat. Schwerin 1982.
  • Margot Krempien: Schwerin castle builder GA Demmler 1804–1886. A biography . Demmler Verlag, Schwein 1991, ISBN 3-910150-06-3 .
  • Erich Kundel: Demmler, Georg Adolf . In: History of the German labor movement. Biographical Lexicon . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1970, p. 87 f.
  • Georg Adolf Demmler . In: Franz Osterroth : Biographical Lexicon of Socialism . Volume I. Deceased personalities . JHW Dietz Nachf., Hannover 1960, p. 61.
  • Hans-Jörg Sittig: The social question and the "early days" in the Oberamtsstadt Nürtingen (1859–1877). In: Working group history of the Nürtingen workers' movement (ed.): The other Nürtingen. A contribution to the local history of the 100th birthday of the Nürtingen SPD. (Ed. by the SPD local association Nürtingen) Nürtingen 1989, pp. 13–22.
  • A. Stüler, E. Prosch, H. Willebrand (arrangement): The castle in Schwerin. Construction periods: A. Demmler 1844–1851. A. Stüler 1851-1857. With forty plates, a frontispice and forty-one vignettes printed in the text. Ernst & Korn, Schade, Loeillot, Berlin 1869.

swell

Unprinted sources

Web links

Commons : Georg Adolf Demmler  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Margot Krempien: DEMMLER. In: Biographical Lexicon for Mecklenburg. Volume 5, 2009, p. 117.
  2. ↑ Sabine Bock, Rudolf Conrades: Georg Adolph Demmler. Some notes from my life. 2005, p. 18.
  3. ↑ LHAS 5.11-2 Protocols of the Landtag, Sternberg November 12, 1823, No. 2.
  4. ^ Horst Ende : Architectural treasures from a master hand. Karl Friedrich Schinkel also left traces in Mecklenburg. Mecklenburg-Magazin, regional supplement of the SVZ, March 10, 2006, No. 10.
  5. ↑ during construction inscription on the plaque with names and dates on the southern tower.
  6. ↑ Horst Alsleben : Dobbertin's double-towered church. Reconstruction of the church changed 160 years ago and has remained unique in Mecklenburg. SVZ Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Magazin, October 6, 2017, p. 25.
  7. ↑ Horst Alsleben: Two towers, two builders. The monastery church was inaugurated again 160 years ago, a journey back in time. Mecklenburg & Pommersche Kirchenzeitung, October 8, 2017.
  8. ↑ Mecklenburg-Schwerinsche announcements, Wednesday. 18th December 1833.
  9. ^ Georg Adolf Demmler; Freemasons , on the homepage of the Lodge Eintracht in Freiheit (accessed on January 9, 2013)
  10. ↑ Horst Ende: In the service of three dukes. Georg Adolph Demmler - architect and city planner, social reformer and politician. Mecklenburg-Magazin, regional supplement of the SVZ, December 3, 2004, No. 49.
  11. ↑ See Klaus Baudis: Georg Adolph Demmler , in: Klaus Schwabe: Roots, Traditions and Identity of Social Democracy in Mecklenburg and Pomerania . 3rd amended and expanded edition, ed. v. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. Landesbüro Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Schwerin 2004 (History. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern 9), p. 32–37, p. 34; Available on the Internet at: http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/schwerin/10221.pdf (accessed on May 31, 2014).
  12. ↑ See ibid.
  13. ↑ Ibid, p. 35.
  14. ↑ See ibid .; see. Hans-Jörg Sittig: The social question and the "early days" in the Oberamtsstadt Nürtingen (1859–1877) . In: Working Group History of the Nürtingen Labor Movement, The Other Nürtingen. A contribution to the local history of the 100th birthday of the Nürtingen SPD . Edited by SPD local association Nürtingen, Nürtingen 1989, pp. 13–22, p. 20.
  15. ↑ Demmler himself writes “After the inauguration of the new churchyard [today: old cemetery] took place on July 28, 1863 and my chapel was built, the transfer of the blessed [ie his deceased wife] took place on October 23, 1864 with great participation . “ - Cf. Wolfram Keßler: Demmler's grave. For the preservation and restoration of a monument. In: Georg Adolph Demmler 1804-1886. Ed .: Council of the City of Schwerin, Dept. of Culture. Schwerin 1986. p. 42ff.
  16. ↑ Hoftheater in Schwerin Centralblatt der Bauverwaltung , July 1, 1882, p. 235, accessed on December 12, 2012
  17. ↑ In the luxury hotel is saving today , In: Schwerin-live.de; Retrieved November 18, 2013
  18. ↑ Homepage Doberaner Hof
personal data
SURNAME Demmler, Georg Adolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Demmler, Georg Adolph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German architect, Mecklenburg-Schwerin construction officer and politician (DtVP, SAP), MdR
DATE OF BIRTH December 22, 1804
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH January 2, 1886
Place of death Schwerin