Belief Church (Berlin-Tempelhof)
The Faith Church is a Protestant church in the Friedrich-Franz-Straße the Berlin district in Tempelhof . The design comes from the Charlottenburg architects Ferdinand Köhler and Paul Kranz, who had already taken on the construction of the secondary school opposite . The three-aisled hall church built in the First World War is part of the contemporary reform architecture , the plastered masonry structure does not have any historicizing decor in its external appearance.
history
The urbanization of Feldmark began in the middle of the 19th century , from the year the empire was founded until 1900, the number of inhabitants in Tempelhof rose from 1417 to 9991. On February 12, 1892, Tempelhof was parished out of the Britz parish. In 1894 the pastor of Tempelhof and in 1895 also the church authorities suggested the construction of a second larger church next to the old Tempelhof village church . In 1901 the patronage was with the Tempelhofer Terraingesellschaft, which made a plot of land on the corner of Kaiserin-Augusta and Friedrich-Franz-Strasse available for the construction of the church and parish hall in exchange for the replacement of the patronage. In 1903 a church building association was founded, two years later the parish council decided to build a second Tempelhof church.
The foundation stone was laid on March 29, 1914 and the church was consecrated on August 29, 1915 . The First World War broke out during the construction phase. Originally, the windows were supposed to be heroically designed for the eternal memory of this “great time”; ultimately, peaceful motifs were used. The naming of the church was also controversial. Initially the patriotic parish church council favored the Victory Church or the Crusader Church , but then the name Religious Church was chosen.
The tower clock could only be completed with wooden hands in 1915. The copper roof was confiscated in 1918 and replaced with bricks.
On January 30, 1944, the church roof was damaged by fire bombs and air mines in an Allied air raid , but the brickwork and ceiling held up. The concrete ceiling had burned all the incendiary bombs harmlessly. However, all windows were destroyed by air mines and it rained into the interior of the church. A makeshift repair began in August 1945. The windows were redesigned in 1951 in the Art Nouveau style. The roofs were not covered until 1952. The organ and tower clock were repaired in 1955. The church, which was restored with the simplest means, was inaugurated again on September 11, 1955. In 1959 and 1960 the listed church was partially rebuilt.
building
The square-like forecourt, open to Friedrich-Franz-Strasse, is U-shaped with the church, three rectories and the parish hall. The church has a recessed choir and a semicircular apse , its side walls are simply plastered and only divided by rectangular window strips. The central nave of the hall church received a barrel-vaulted coffered ceiling made of reinforced concrete , which rests on fluted pillars . The narrow aisles are equipped with galleries . The 50 meter high, rectangular tower with the open vestibule made of Kirchheim shell limestone faces the street. It is only structured in the upper part by plaster strips and a cornice . The entrance hall is on the ground floor of the tower.
Originally a tower was planned with pitched roof, he did not see the parish council sufficiently large urban out, so was a four-meter tall tower with a reset bell storey and arch - sound arcades built to a steep hipped roof covered.
The cast steel bells - bronze was reserved for ammunition production during World War II - were ordered from the Bochum Association for 14,700 marks . Added to this were 3,430 marks for the belfry .
| Bell jar | Chime | Weight (kg) |
Diameter ( cm) |
Height (cm) |
inscription |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | c ' | 1810 | 167 | 135 | NOW WE BECAUSE HAVE BEEN RIGHT / THROUGH FAITH SO WE HAVE PEACE / WITH GOD OUR LORD JESUM CHRIST / ROME. 6.1 |
| 2. | it' | 1080 | 143 | 115 | LOVE NEVER ENDS. /1. Cor. 12.6 |
| 3. | ges' | 870 | 126 | 105 | HOPE DOESN'T LET BE SHAMED. Rom. 5.5 |
Because the authorities were not interested in cast steel bells , the bells survived both world wars.
Furnishing
The old chandeliers and the depictions of the apostles on the balustrades have been preserved. In front of the apse is the cut travertine altar . The altar retable , designed in 1915 by the history and church painter Ernst Christian Pfannschmidt and made with antique elements, depicts Captain von Kafarnaum as a "hero of faith" in reference to the heroic struggle of the German soldiers in World War I. The pulpit created by the wood sculptor Kähler contains a relief with the representation of the Knights Templar in Tempelhof. The number “1247” next to the relief refers to the year the place Tempelhof was first mentioned, the number “1540” to the introduction of the Reformation . The windows destroyed in World War II were replaced in 1951/1952 by glass windows with symbolic symbols and biblical quotations based on a design by Egon Stolterfoth.
organ
The organ with 3573 pipes and 55 registers was built by W. Sauer Orgelbau in 1915. Its special technical feature, a remote unit with a sound channel to the apse that was supposed to generate an echo, has not proven itself. Due to the bomb damage, water seeped into the apse through the sound exit hole, so it was closed. More information can be found here. The organ was last repaired in 1991 by the company Alexander Schuke Potsdam Orgelbau .
literature
- Günther Kühne, Elisabeth Stephani: Evangelical churches in Berlin. Berlin 1978.
- Klaus-Dieter Wille: The bells of Berlin (West). History and inventory. Berlin 1987.
- Hans-Jürgen Rach: The villages in Berlin. Berlin 1990.
- Architects and Engineers Club Berlin e. V. (Ed.): Sacred buildings. (= Berlin and its buildings , part VI.) Ernst & Sohn, Berlin 1997.
- Georg Dehio : Dehio manual of the German art monuments, Berlin . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 2006.
Web links
Coordinates: 52 ° 27 '38.8 " N , 13 ° 22' 44.8" E