Gnadenkirche (Berlin-Mitte)
The Grace Church was a Protestant church in disability Park in Berlin district of Mitte . Because of the origin of the community from the Invalidenhaus and also the occasional use of the church in connection with the Invalidenfriedhof , it was colloquially known as the Invaliden Church .
History of the Gnadenkirche
Emergence
In addition to the military parish, a civil parish had belonged to the military pastoral office of the Invalidenhaus since the end of the 18th century. The civil parish of the territorially extensive parish grew to 25,000 members in the 19th century, despite the transfer of parishioners who lived east of Chausseestrasse to the Sophiengemeinde and the formation of the Dankeskirchengemeinde am Wedding . Only the chapel of the invalid's house was available to the civil parish. In 1866 it had become independent and should get the long-awaited church of its own. The Catholic civil parish succeeded a little earlier with the construction of the parish church of St. Sebastian .
The construction of the Gnadenkirche was preceded in May 1890 by the establishment of the Evangelical Church Building Association under the patronage of Empress Auguste Viktoria . The church building association had set itself the task of "fighting the religious and moral emergencies in Berlin and other cities in the industrial areas" by supporting church building projects in order to counteract the growing influence of social democracy in the working class. In this sense, the project received financial support from a well-known body and help in removing bureaucratic obstacles.
After settling a dispute with the city of Berlin over the costs and the military treasury over the property for the church, the foundation stone was laid on June 11, 1890 . The name "Gnadenkirche" is explained by the fact that the building plot in Invalidenpark was made available free of charge by the German Reich to the State of Prussia and a "gift of grace" from the imperial family of 300,000 marks . It was given the name on May 23, 1890. The building itself was dedicated to the memory of the recently deceased Empress Augusta and was therefore also called the Empress Augusta Memorial Church. The Gnadenkirche was inaugurated on March 22, 1895 in the presence of the imperial couple, the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of Baden and several princesses and princes.
Until World War II
The church was built by the architect Max Spitta in the early Romanesque style. Spitta was based on the models of the Staufer Romanesque , the 13th century Church of St. Peter in Sinzig and the Limburg Cathedral . The glass windows were designed and produced by the Frankfurt glass painter Alexander Linnemann .
The church had 1,550 seats, of which 950 were permanent in the lower nave, 490 in the galleries and 110 in the upper side aisles around the chancel. In front of the royal box there was a carved wood figure of a squire wearing the Hohenzollern shield, created and donated by wood sculptor Gustav Kuntzsch , Wernigerode . The tower was about 69 meters high.
The construction costs amounted to around 800,000 marks (adjusted for purchasing power in today's currency: around 5.43 million euros) and the costs for the interior furnishings to around 200,000 marks. This sum was raised as follows: In addition to the gift of grace, the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of Baden, the Grand Duke of Weimar and the Prince of Hohenzollern gave a total of 200,000 marks; the united circle synods 100,000 marks. 345,000 marks were donated from individual churches, collections of the Evangelical Berlins, from the provinces, especially from the Rhine Province. The Gnadenkirchen parish paid the rest of the costs itself.
The Gnadenkirche also served as a place for celebrations at funerals in the nearby Invalidenfriedhof, which were sometimes, as with Manfred von Richthofen or the Admiral Ludwig von Schröder , state funerals. In the time of National Socialism the pastors belonged to the German Christians ; one always began his services with the ceremonial carrying of the swastika flag into the church. During the Second World War, a bomb hit the crossing tower so badly that rubble and the large bell fell into the nave. Services could no longer take place.
From World War II to 1967
The church initially used bombed-out people and other homeless people as emergency shelter. In the post-war period , looters robbed the interior of the church, which had been left open, and removed valuable materials, including the leaded glass windows . The community did not repair it and the East Berlin authorities did nothing to stop the beginning of the decline. After non-ferrous metal thieves also covered the copper roofs of the church towards the end of the 1940s, its masonry, which was now exposed to the weather, fell into disrepair. The ruins of the Gnadenkirche were blown up in 1967 . The Gnadengemeinde is now part of the Evangelical Church Congregation am Weinberg (until December 31, 2013: Evangelical Church Congregation Sophien ) in the parish of Berlin Stadtmitte .
The bell
overview
The Bochum Association produced the three bells of the Gnadenkirche using an innovative cast steel process. They were considered a sensation because of their unusually clear sound. The bells were hung in the round bell chamber, the diameter of which was 8.70 m. The suspension / operation was carried out using an anti- friction bearing and rope wheels. The cost of manufacturing the bells and accessories totaled 7,594 marks. All three bear the name of the foundry on their shoulder: Bochum Association for Mining and Cast Steel Manufacture Bochum .
| No. | designation | lower diameter (mm) |
Height (mm) | Weight (kg) | Chime | inscription | image |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Little bell | 1385 | 1225 | 1090 | ? | unknown | |
| 2 | Medium bell | 1570 | 1380 | 1590 | ? | Front: Auguste Victoria Empress and Queen / (the coat of arms of the Empress) / “Römer XII.12. Be vigilant in hope / patient in tribulation, keep praying ”. / Fulgura Frango, PS.93.4 Reverse : Dedicated to the Gnadenkirche in Berlin in the year of the Lord 1894 . |
|
| 3 | Big bell | 1885 | 1655 | 2640 | ? | unknown |
The Auguste Victoria Bell
The middle bell donated to Empress Auguste Victoria was shown at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 . When the church was blown up in 1967, it was the only one that remained, but was to be scrapped with the consent of the local council and was put in a junkyard in Berlin-Weißensee . The pastor of Malchow discovered them there , bought them as a private buyer and kept them on his property. When he was transferred to Stadtilm in Thuringia in 1979 , he took her with him. After the turn of the year 1989/1990 the municipality Wattenscheid-Leithe bought it from him, had it restored and put it back into service. In February 2011, the Leithe parish sent the bell back to Berlin. Since then, the Auguste Viktoria bell has been in the Invalidenfriedhof. After the construction of a bell tower, the bell was able to ring for the first time on June 28, 2013.
literature
- Ernst von Mirbach : The first three churches of the Empress for Berlin: Redeemer Church , Assumption Church , Grace Church , published by Julius Sittenfeld, Berlin 1,901th
- Wilhelm Lütkemann: German Churches - Volume 1 - The Protestant Churches in Berlin (Old City) . Verlag für Volksliteratur, Berlin 1926, p. 74 ff .
- Günther Kühne, Elisabeth Stephani: Evangelical churches in Berlin. Christlicher Zeitschriftenverlag (CZV), Berlin 1978, ISBN 3-7674-0158-4 , p. 389.
- Architects and Engineers Association of Berlin (ed.): Berlin and its buildings , part VI, sacred buildings . Verlag Ernst & Sohn, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-433-01016-1 , p. 90 f., 373, fig. 199 .
- Laurenz Demps : The Royal Invalid House in Berlin. History and development of its site , Sandstein, Dresden 2010, ISBN 3-940319-43-0 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Laurenz Demps : The royal house of invalids in Berlin. History and development of its site , Dresden 2010, pp. 155–157
- ↑ Vera Frowein-Ziroff: The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. Origin and meaning (= The Buildings and Art Monuments of Berlin, Supplement 9). Berlin, Gebr. Mann 1982, ISBN 3-7861-1305-X , p. 108
- ↑ Angela Beeskow: The furnishings in the churches of the Berlin Church Building Association (1890-1904). With a contribution to the iconography of Protestantism . Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin 2005, ISBN 978-3-7861-1765-0 , pp. 84, 106, 276, 360 ff., 425.
- ↑ a b General Evangelical Lutheran Church Newspaper. Vol. 28, No. 13, March 29, 1895, Col. 306.
- ^ Laurenz Demps: The royal house of invalids in Berlin. History and development of its site , Dresden 2010, pp. 192–196, illustrations p. 195
- ↑ Lost Churches: Gnadenkirche , accessed April 14, 2018.
- ↑ a b compilation of the bells delivered to Berlin and the surrounding area ; Bochum Association, around 1900. In the archive of the Köpenick Church of St. Josef, viewed on August 6, 2019.
- ^ Laurenz Demps : The royal house of invalids in Berlin. History and development of its site , Dresden 2010, p. 196.
- ↑ Bell of the Grace Church from Bochum back to Berlin
- ↑ Auguste-Viktoria-Glocke sounds over Berlin for the first time since the Second World War, accessed on June 28, 2013.
Coordinates: 52 ° 31 '45 " N , 13 ° 22' 35" E