Gertrudenfriedhof (Oldenburg)

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The Gertrudenfriedhof is located in the Lower Saxony city ​​of Oldenburg north of the city center between Nadorster and Alexanderstraße. There is a multitude of culturally and historically significant tombs on it. The cemetery is dominated by the mausoleum as the burial place of the ducal oldenburg house and the Gertruden chapel , the oldest and only surviving medieval sacred building in the city.

graveyard

The St. Gertruden churchyard was built in the Middle Ages and, due to its location at the gates of the city, was used for the burial of incurable and contagious sick people from the infirmary near the Gertruden chapel, first mentioned in 1345. From the 17th century, citizens who wanted to find their final resting place in nature were increasingly buried in the Gertrudenfriedhof.

In 1649 the Gertrudenfriedhof received a wall with an entrance gate. A Bible verse is carved into the left gate (Job 19, 25), the right gate the words "Oh ewich ist so lanck", which inspired the poet Georg von der Vring to write a poem with the same title.

In 1791 the Lambertifriedhof was closed and moved to the Gertrudenfriedhof. This made the Gertrudenkirchhof the only cemetery in the city until 1874.

The cemetery, rich in classical grave sites, also houses the tomb and mausoleum of Johann Georg von Hendorff from 1791 as well as the memorial for Christian Daniel von Finckh and Albrecht Ludwig von Berger , who were executed by French occupiers in 1813 , have recently become home to local poets, among others Georg Ruseler , the artists Anna Maria Strackerjan and Horst Janssen , the physician Wilhelm Heinrich Schüßler and the social worker Edith Ruß are buried. There is also a memorial in the cemetery for Oldenburg soldiers who died in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 as well as a tomb for the French soldiers from the same war with 22 names.

mausoleum

The mausoleum

From 1785, on the occasion of the death of Friederike von Württemberg, the construction of the mausoleum began on the northeastern edge of the cemetery grounds. The wife of Oldenburg Duke Peter Friedrich Ludwig von Holstein-Gottorp died in November 1785 and was buried there after completion of the mausoleum in 1790, as the previous princely crypt was no longer to be used due to the planned new building of the Lamberti Church .

This mausoleum was the first building in Oldenburg in the classical style, which determined the architecture in the city over the following decades. Duke Peter Friedrich Ludwig himself was involved in its implementation and intervened several times decisively in the planning of the architect Johann Heinrich Gottlieb Becker . If his design provided for a building with a lantern and a baroque coat of arms in the gable, the Duke removed these two parts with two strokes of the pen. The mausoleum also became the burial place of the regent and his successors in 1829. The members of the ducal oldenburg house are buried here to this day. Peter Friedrich Ludwig's sarcophagus bears the inscription: To be father of the country was his highest profession.

The mausoleum is now classified as a monument of national importance. It was extensively restored in 2012/2013. For the first time, the public was given the opportunity to view the inside of the building in November 2013.

The Oldenburg Cultural Heritage Foundation (SOK), managed by the Oldenburg landscape, has been taking care of the restoration of numerous historically valuable graves since December 2014 and has now found its first supporter. The VR Foundation of the Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken is investing 10,000 euros in six properties in Northern Germany. "We consider the area to be historically very significant and would like to preserve it for posterity," says the chairman of the Harald Lesch Foundation. These include the grave stele of Count Detlev Hans von Schmettau from 1795, which was made by the Copenhagen court sculptor Johannes Wiedewelt. The grave of Wicherine Gerhardine Johanne Georg (1837), where not only the stele but also the preserved iron fence are to be restored, as well as the grave column for Johann Hermann Detmers (1831) should also be emphasized. These and other graves are located in the immediate vicinity of the recently fully restored ducal museum on the Oldenburg Gertrudenfriedhof. It is a valuable ensemble of historical tombs and gravestones, all of which urgently need to be renovated, otherwise they would be left to decay. Experts also call the area “the parlor”.

chapel

Gertrudenkapelle

Construction of the chapel was first mentioned around 1250. It was in the year 1428. Originally, the band was one of the no longer existing infirmary . The original building consisted of a single-nave brick church with a west tower. In 1481 the church was given a new vault with figurative and ornamental representations, which were covered when plastering was carried out around 1600. The chapel was repainted around 1680. These paintings were partially exposed for the first time in 1908 after being covered several times and have been restored in several, as yet unfinished, steps since 1964. A bronze bell hangs in the tower, which was first cast by the Rincker brothers in 1950 for the Kirchentag in Essen . The bell weighs 637 kg and is tuned to the tone g´´. It bears the inscription “Rejoice in the Lord always”.

Gertrudenlinde

Ludwig Strackerjan: Superstition and legends from the Duchy of Oldenburg. P. 149

There is an old legend about the linden tree in the churchyard of the Gertrudenkapelle, which the author Ludwig Strackerjan reproduced in 1867 as follows:

“A girl, it is said, was sentenced to death innocently and was brought to the place of execution in front of the gate. On the way she grabbed a dry twig lying on the ground, put it upside down, the upper end down, into the earth and said, “As true as this twig will break out and grow into a mighty tree, so truely am I innocent!” The girl was executed; but the branch came to life, grew and flourished, and became the tree that now adorns the churchyard. (...) Some state that the girl served in a rich government and did not want to be at the will of the son of the same. Then, they say, the son took some silver spoons from his parents and hid them in the girl's trunk. When the spoons were missing and searched all over the house, they were finally found in the suitcase; the girl was found guilty of stealing them and sentenced to death. "

- Ludwig Strackerjan, 1867

The circumference of the linden tree is said to have been more than 15 Oldenburg feet [1 Oldenburg foot = 0.2958 m], it is said to have had a broad canopy of almost 50 feet in diameter on all sides, which formed a second crown at the top. In an old travel report in the Oldenburg city archive you can read that the first - already very old - linden tree was supported on 28 pillars in 1656 and that in summer there was a pulpit on the tree trunk, in front of which services were held in the open air. In 1960 an offshoot of the ancient linden tree was replanted at the entrance to the Gertrudenkirchhof.

literature

  • Michael W. Brandt: The Oldenburg Mausoleum - burial place of a new dynasty . In: Jörgen Welp (Red.): Dedicated to the well-being of Oldenburg: Aspects of the cultural and social work of the House of Oldenburg, 1773–1918 (= publications of the Oldenburg landscape . Vol. 9). Published by the Oldenburg landscape, Isensee, Oldenburg 2004, ISBN 3-89995-142-5 , p. 65 ff.
  • Wilhelm Gilly: Revolutionary architecture on the Oldenburg Gertrudenfriedhof . In: Oldenburger Jahrbuch , Vol. 70 (1971), pp. 1–29 ( online )
  • Wolfgang Runge: Churches in the Oldenburger Land Volume III. Church districts Oldenburg 1 and 2 , Holzberg, Oldenburg 1988, ISBN 3-87358-298-8 , pp. 59–96
  • Reinhard Meyer-Graft: The wall paintings of the Gertrudenkapelle in Oldenburg , in: Hans-Herbert Möller (Hrsg.): Restoration of cultural monuments. Examples from the preservation of monuments in Lower Saxony (= reports on preservation of monuments , supplement 2), Lower Saxony State Administration Office - Institute for Monument Preservation , Hameln: Niemeyer, 1989, ISBN 3-87585-152-8 , pp. 206ff.
  • Wilhelm Gilly: Medieval churches and chapels in the Oldenburger Land. Building history and inventory. Isensee Verlag , Oldenburg 1992, ISBN 3-89442-126-6 , p. 102 f.
  • Hans von Seggern, Bernd Franken: History and stories about the St. Gertruden-Kirchhof , 3rd edition, Isensee, Oldenburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-936957-00-6

Web links

Commons : Gertrudenfriedhof  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b German Foundation for Monument Protection: Help for the tomb v. Hendorff . ( Memento of October 8, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Denkmalprojekt.org
  3. ↑ Felix Zimmermann in the "Oldenburg Local Section" on January 12, 2012 ( Memento of the original from December 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.oldenburger-lokalteil.de
  4. ↑ Kulturland Oldenburg Edition 2.2010 ( Memento of the original from January 8, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.oldenburgische-landschaft.de
  5. ↑ Kulturland Oldenburg, edition 3.2013
  6. ^ Nordwest Zeitung November 22, 2013. Accessed November 24, 2013 .
  7. ^ Zempel-Bley, Katrin: Restoration of historically valuable graves. OOZ - Oldenburg online newspaper, December 22, 2014.
  8. ↑ Wolfgang Runge: Churches in the Oldenburger Land , Volume 3, Holzberg Oldenburg 1988
  9. ↑ Ludwig Strackerjan: Superstition and legends from the Duchy of Oldenburg. Volume 2. (edited by Karl Willoh) Oldenburg 1867, p. 149.

Coordinates: 53 ° 8 ′ 54.3 "  N , 8 ° 12 ′ 53.4"  E