Bechtolsheim bell tower
The Bechtolsheim bell tower is located next to the simultaneous church of St. Maria and St. Christopherus in the Rhenish Hesse community of Bechtolsheim .
The bell tower in its current form was built in 1907. It is not a church tower , but belongs, like the bells and clock, to the local community. The denominational parishes have the right of usufruct. The parish tower therefore has no direct connection to the sacred structure , the sacristy is closest to the tower.
On September 22nd, 2012, the “Museum in the Bell Tower” was opened.
Building history
Previous buildings
Defense tower
The bell tower was built between 1726 and 1729 on top of the medieval defensive tower , which is older than the neighboring simultaneous church, which was built between 1482 and 1492. For this purpose , a bell house was added to the defense tower, which had been in ruins since the village fire in 1695 without a helmet .
“… Windows were designed as sound holes with Gothic pointed arches in the shape of a donkey's back. Hence the striking height, namely one floor more than today. Instead, the helmet was lower, so the total height is pretty much the same in the past and today. "
At this point in time, the civil parish was the owner of the bell tower, as the then Catholic priest described it in the appendix to the local chronicle of 1857:
"The tower of the church is the property of the civil parish and there are three heavy bells in it, which form a harmonious ringing ( F major seventh )."
Fire caused by lightning in 1904
A lightning strike in the night of August 1, 1904, caught fire in the roof and the bell house. The bells melted due to the great heat and the bronze dripped down, and the modern clockwork, which was only procured in 1894, was destroyed.
The two pastors documented the events at that time. The lightning must have struck between 3:30 and 3:40 a.m. Since there was no lightning rod , the tip of the helmet started to burn. In the opinion of the Catholic pastor, it would still have been possible to put out the fire with little water at this point in time if there had already been a water pipe and an elevated tank for sufficient water pressure in the village. So the fire spread. Burning wooden beams falling down broke through the sacristy roof, so that the neighboring simultaneous church was also in great danger. At 4:30 a.m., the bells, cast in Kaiserslautern in 1880, with a total weight of 50 quintals, rang for the last time before they began to melt due to the intense heat and the burning spire collapsed. The tower clock , which was only acquired in 1893/94, was also destroyed. A piece of the bell melt was kept in the files for permanent memory. The tower was well insured so it could be rebuilt in 1907. In the same year the water pipe and the elevated tank were built.
Bell tower from 1907
After the old bell tower burned down and collapsed in the night of August 1st, 1904, the local council decided to rebuild it on December 22nd of the same year. The groundbreaking ceremony took place on April 29, 1907 on the foundation of the old tower. The construction costs amounted to 16,927 marks (corresponds to approximately 103,086.62 euros today).
The tower is closed like a block and has a rectangular shape with a base area of 5 × 7 meters. The stone masonry is not plastered. The bell chamber is 11.7 meters high, is made of wood like the spire and is covered with the same slate as the simultaneous church.
A certificate was deposited in the tower knob as a time capsule with the following text:
“The community bell tower, which was destroyed by lightning in the night of August 1, 1904, was rebuilt in the summer of 1907. Today the old cross with the new knob and old cock was raised and thus re-erected as a symbol of the community of Bechtolsheim. IT DONE AUGUST 30, 1907. "
The tower and bells were inaugurated on November 25, 1907. The tower clock and the movement with a Graham escapement were made by JF Weule from Bockenem in the Harz Mountains and cost 2,000 marks (equivalent to around 12,180.14 euros today). A master carpenter from Alzey built a cabinet around the clockwork to protect the clockwork from dirt and dust. On the cabinet doors it reads: “The step of time is three-fold, the future is hesitant.” And “The now has flown away as fast as an arrow, the past stands still forever.”
Between September 1974 and May 1975 the tower was extensively renovated. The knob with the document written in 1907 was also taken down and after the renovation was completed, a new document made of Japanese paper was placed in the knob next to the old tower document . The history of the parish bell tower and the bells as well as the legal relationships between the political parish and the two parishes were handwritten on this, signed by the mayor, the alderman, the council members, the Protestant pastor and the chairman of the Catholic parish council, who is also the chairman of the building committee of the simultaneous church was. In the box, the commemorative publication from 1972, 100 Years of the Fire Brigade, 10 Years of the Musikzug and all the currency coins valid at the time, were added, as well as the commemorative coins Albrecht Dürer and Nikolaus Copernicus , during whose lifetime the construction of the neighboring simultaneous church took place.
Bells
First set of bells (1765)
According to a list by Pastor Schilling on October 28, 1854, the large bell, cast by Georg Friedrich Schrader from Frankenthal in 1787, carried a crucifix on one side and an image of Our Lady on the other and was consecrated in honor of the Most Holy Trinity. The middle bell was cast by Michael Caspar Schrader in Worms as early as 1765 and carried an image of Our Lady with the baby Jesus. The smaller bell with a crucifix was cast by Georg Friedrich Schrader in 1791.
Karl Oberle found out that the middle bell broke when the victory tolled after the Franco-Prussian War . The Frankenthal bell caster Andreas Hamm cast them. In the contract with the political community and the two denominational communities dated May 22, 1872, the three parties undertook to pay one third of the costs, which was 67 fl. 23 kr. mattered. At the ring of mourning for Grand Duke Ludwig III. Another bell broke, the clapper of another had become unusable.
Second set of bells (1880)
The Kaiserslautern bell founder Max Faber then poured the bell over. On June 20, 1880, the tones e , f sharp and g sharp were agreed with the political community . In a postscript, the two church councils agreed to pay the same amount as before, namely a third of the total amount . The share was 967.73 marks. These bells bore the inscriptions:
- Your name should be unity
- Joy meant to this village
- Peace be your first ring
They are reminiscent of The Song of the Bell by Friedrich Schiller . This set of bells was destroyed by fire after a lightning strike after 24 years.
Third set of bells (1907)
After the fire in 1904, Franz Schilling cast three new bells in Apolda in 1907 for 6145 marks (equivalent to around 37,423.48 euros today). Two of them were drafted on May 22, 1918 for armament purposes.
Fourth set of bells (1924)
In 1924 the bells Faith (tone e) with 22 quintals (1100 kg) and love (tone g) with 13.5 quintals (675 kg) were purchased, the latter was dedicated to the memory of those who fell in the World War . Both bore the ownership notice of the community of Bechtolsheim , the coat of arms of the community and “Schilling Apolda poured me”.
With the hope bell (tone a) that remained in 1918 , they formed a Te Deum chime, which was consecrated on April 27, 1924.
The cost was 7,032 Reichsmarks (RM) (this would be around EUR 29,162.28 today). This time the two parishes promised to pay 20 annual installments of 50 RM each to the political parish without a contractual agreement. In the same year, the Herford electricity works installed an electric bell for 2647 RM (this would correspond to about 10,977.32 euros today).
The two bells Faith and Love were again used for armament during the Second World War .
Fifth set of bells (1954)
The current set of bells consists of three bells of different sizes, which were financed by donations from residents amounting to 15,000 DM . Neither the local congregation nor the two parishes had to participate. The bells were made by the F. W. Schilling foundry in Heidelberg based on the pattern of the fourth set of bells on October 20, 1954. They have the same name and the ownership notice of the Bechtolsheim community with coat of arms.
On November 27, 1954, the bells were delivered by train and then guided through the village in a festive procession and consecrated. At the consecration of the bell, the main teacher (as the keynote speaker), District Administrator Heinz-Eberhard Andres and Mayor Franz Mann spoke .
- The big bell bears the name Faith and the inscription Glory to God in on highest and peace on earth . It weighs 927 kg, sounds in e and cost 7200 DM (this would correspond to around 18,656 euros today, adjusted for inflation).
- The middle bell bears the name love and the inscription: The fallen for the fatherland. I gave my ore - they gave their heart . It weighs 523 kg, sounds in g and cost 3240 DM (today, adjusted for inflation, this corresponds to around 8,395 euros).
- The little bell bears the name Hope and the inscription: Ring bell, ring peace in every heart, ring me homeward . An additional bell hammer is used to strike every quarter, half, three quarters and full hour. The small bell weighs 358 kg, sounds in a and was exchanged for the old bell.
The Bechtolsheim bell dispute from 1954 to 1964
A seven-year-long legal dispute, the so-called Bechtolsheimer bell dispute about the right to ring for deceased citizens who belong to another or no denomination, was only opened in 1964/65 by the Federal Administrative Court in Berlin in favor of the bourgeois community, with the reason:
- "In Bechtolsheim, the bells of the grave [...], according to the general opinion of the residents, mean a secular honor for the deceased and not a part of the religious order"
decided.
The trigger was the Protestant pastor Hans Hörr, who had only been in office for two years in 1954, who raised an objection when the community servant let the bells ring for a free Protestant deceased citizen. Pastor Horr demanded that the bells should no longer be rung according to the instructions of the congregation, but only according to his or her Catholic colleague's decision. Hörr only wanted to grant the municipal council the right to so-called police bells, i.e. only in the event of fire, storm and other danger.
The local council and even the Protestant church council and finally also the legal committee of the district council rejected this proposal. The superior authority, however, the Darmstadt-based church leadership of Hessen-Nassau , made itself the advocate of the pastor's wishes and in 1957 brought an action before the Neustadt an der Weinstrasse administrative court . This was followed by the seven-year legal dispute that was decided for the civil parish.
stamp
On June 23, 2007, to mark the 100th anniversary of the bell tower, the post office issued a special postmark, which at the same time referred to the wine festival taking place in Bechtolsheim.
Since 2009 there is a pilgrim's stamp of the Rheinhessischer Jakobsweges , which runs through Bechtolsheim and on which the bell tower is depicted.
museum
On September 22nd, 2012, after more than five years of planning and two years of renovation, the "Museum in the Bell Tower" was opened with a ceremony.
Since the exhibition marking the 100th anniversary of the bell tower, efforts have been made by the local Heimatverein to set up a tower museum on the ground floor and on the two upper floors. For this purpose, 28,900 euros were made available in December 2009 from the village renewal program of the state interior ministry for the renovation and reconstruction of the listed bell tower. This corresponds to around 50 percent of the total costs. On April 9, 2010, the so-called "first hammer blow" began as the start of the renovation. The first hammer blow took place next to the chairman of the home association, the vice - president of the state parliament Heinz-Hermann Schnabel , the state parliament member Heiko Sippel , the mayor of the community of Alzey-Land Steffen Unger , a district member and the local mayor of Bechtolsheim. The museum was originally supposed to open its doors in spring 2011, but it was inaugurated on September 22, 2012 at 2 p.m. with a ceremony.
In addition to the permanent exhibit, the restored clockwork, temporary exhibitions were held on the three floors.
- Pictures of the bell tower: then and now (2012 to 2013)
- "Postal uniforms from 1800 to 2000" (2013 to September 2014)
- "Bechtolsheim Street Stories" (exhibition opening on May 21, 2016)
The bell chamber cannot be visited. Due to the construction of the bell tower, the museum is not barrier-free.
literature
-
Karl Oberle : History of Bechtolsheim .
- Rheinhessische Druck-Werkstätte Alzey, 1st edition 1951
- Verlag der Rheinhessische Druckwerkstätte Alzey, 2nd expanded edition 1995, ISBN 3-87854-111-2
- Regine Dölling: The Simultankirche in Bechtolsheim (Rheinhessen) . Rheinische Kunststätten, 1st edition 1980, ISBN 3-88094-316-8
- Gerhard Fillinger: 100 Years of Bell Tower - Photo Calendar 2007. Heimatverein Bechtolsheim, MF Druck-Service, Ober-Ramstadt, 2006
-
Heimatjahrbuch Landkreis Alzey-Worms
- 2007: Josef Rick: Rebuilt 100 years ago - the Bechtolsheimer bell tower . Pp. 159-164
-
General newspaper Alzey, Rhein Main Presse
- The dispute over the bell tower has long been history - wine plays a central role in the municipality of Bechtolsheim. Many historical buildings and the town center have been renovated today . February 24, 2004
- Years of dispute about the bells - Bechtolsheimer Heimatverein researches the history of the bell tower . October 14, 2006
Web links
- Video recording of the bells (3:48 minutes) on Youtube ; Published on May 12, 2013
- Video recording of the bells and the silent organ (total running time: 49:16 minutes); Published on July 3, 2015
Individual evidence
- ↑ Josef Rick: Heimatjahrbuch 2007, p. 160 f.
- ^ Karl Diel; in: Heimatjahrbuch 2007, p. 161
- ^ Catholic pastor, in the local history of 1857
- ^ Pastor Neurath: Ortschronik , p. 85, Evangelisches Pfarramt
- ^ Pastor Schmitt: Ortschronik , p. 75, Katholisches Pfarramt
- ^ Karl Oberle: History of Bechtolsheim , p. 80
- ↑ Announcement on the issue of federal coins with a face value of 5 Deutsche Mark (Dürer commemorative coin)
- ↑ Announcement on the issue of federal coins with a face value of 5 Deutsche Mark (Kopernikus commemorative coin)
- ↑ Josef Rick: Heimatjahrbuch 2007, p. 163 f.
- ↑ Josef Rick: Heimatjahrbuch 2007, p. 162
- ^ Bells and laments . In: Der Spiegel . No. 38 , 1964, pp. 72 ( online ).
- ↑ The dispute over the bell tower has long been history - wine plays a central role in the community of Bechtolsheim. Many historical buildings and the town center have been renovated today. In: Allgemeine Zeitung , February 24, 2004
- ↑ Simultankirche Bechtolsheim - bell tower and museum
- ↑ Heimatverein Bechtolsheim
- ↑ Local community Bechtolsheim receives a grant ( Memento from July 22, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) from December 16, 2009
- ↑ Museum in the bell tower - the project in Bechtolsheim is financed . ( Memento from July 18, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) In: Allgemeine Zeitung Rhein Main Presse , March 10, 2010
- ↑ Wolfgang Bürkle: A deep look into history - Bechtolsheim walls are to be converted into a museum . In: Rhein Main Presse , April 13, 2010
- ↑ Invitation to the opening of the “Museum in the Bell Tower” on the church forecourt on Saturday, September 22, 2012; Beginning at 2 p.m. on the website of the home association; July 28, 2012
- ↑ Anita Pleic: Museum in the Bechtolsheimer bell tower opens in September. Work in the Bechtolsheim bell tower is progressing / opening ceremony on September 22nd . on Allgemeine-zeitung.de ( Rhein Main Presse ), August 16, 2012
Coordinates: 49 ° 48 ′ 7.6 " N , 8 ° 11 ′ 31.9" E