Golden Bear (Leipzig)
The Golden Bear was a historic building in downtown Leipzig . Emerging from an inn, it was a publishing house for 135 years until the University of Leipzig took over in 1866 . It was destroyed in World War II.
Location and shape
The Golden Bear was at number 11 on the east side of Universitätsstrasse, which was called Alter Neumarkt until 1839, opposite the junction with Kupfergasse. To the north it bordered on the Beguinenhaus and to the south on the so-called New Chemical Laboratory.
The building was a relatively simple three-story baroque building with 17 window axes facing Universitätsstraße. A central projecting one storey higher with three window axes structured the facade. Two attic floors were added to the roof area . There were shops on the first floor. The entrance to the building, a gate entrance, was located asymmetrically to the left of the central projectile, on which a bear was attached as a house sign .
history
An Ausspannhof belonging to the Braun family had been on the property since 1521 . Even under later owners it remained Braunens Gasthof until the name Braunen Beehrs Gasthof appeared under an owner Christian Bär (also Beer or Beehr) , so not yet an "animal" bear. Eventually, however, it became Zum Braunen Bär in 1660 and, after the inn sign was gilded , in 1676 the name Zum Güldenen Bär .
At the beginning of the 18th century the inn fell into disrepair. In 1732 the publisher Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf acquired the property. From 1735 to 1738 he had the building described above built by the Leipzig master builder George Werner , with the exception of the attic floor, which was not added until 1799. He set up a print shop in the back building. He kept the house name Goldner Bär, and the publishing house, which was later expanded to become Breitkopf & Härtel , still has the bear in its company logo.
Johann Christoph Gottsched lived in the Golden Bear until his death. Goethe knew the Breitkopf family and was friends with the grandchildren of the house as fellow students. In the second part of Poetry and Truth he writes:
- “ A very pleasant and, for me, healing connection that I made was with the Breitkopfisches Haus. Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf, the actual founder of the family, who had come to Leipzig as a poor book printer company, was still alive and lived in the "Golden Bear", a handsome building on the New Neumarkt, with Gottsched as a housemate. "
and elsewhere
- " He (Gottsched) lived very decently on the first floor of the" Golden Bear ", where the elder Breitkopf had promised him a lifelong apartment because of the great advantage that the Gottschedischen writings, translations and other assistance brought to the plot ."
During Goethe's time in Leipzig, Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf , son of Bernhard Christoph, built the house "Zum Silbernen Bären" opposite the Golden Bear.
In 1867 the publishing house moved from the “Golden Bear” to the building on Nürnberger Straße, which is still used today by Breitkopf & Härtel / Deutscher Verlag für Musik GmbH. The University of Leipzig had already bought the building in 1866 and used it for the Agricultural-Physiological Institute and the Agricultural-Chemical Laboratory, among others.
In 1908/1909 conversions were carried out to restore the old room layout and the restoration of the historic staircase. From 1909 the historian Karl Lamprecht occupied the first and second floors of the Golden Bear with the Institute for Cultural and Universal History he founded . Seminars on regional and settlement history were housed in the attic.
On December 4, 1943, the Golden Bear was bombed . After the site was used as a parking lot for a long time, a large part of the canteen at the park is now used .
literature
- Senate Commission for Research into the History of Leipzig University and Science (Ed.): History of the University of Leipzig 1409–2009 , Volume 5 History of Leipzig University Buildings in an Urban Context , Leipziger Universitätsverlag 2009, ISBN 978-3-86583-305-1
- Horst Riedel: Stadtlexikon Leipzig from A to Z . PRO LEIPZIG, Leipzig 2005, ISBN 3-936508-03-8 , p. 191
- Ernst Müller: The house names of old Leipzig . (Writings of the Association for the History of Leipzig, Volume 15). Leipzig 1931, reprint Ferdinand Hirt 1990, ISBN 3-7470-0001-0 , p. 82/83
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gina Klank, Gernot Griebsch: Lexicon of Leipzig street names. Verlag im Wissenschaftszentrum, Leipzig 1995, ISBN 3-930433-09-5 , p. 213
- ↑ Ernst Müller: The house names of old Leipzig
- ↑ means the old Neumarkt
- ↑ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: From my life. Poetry and Truth , Part Two, Book Eight ( digitized )
- ↑ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: From my life. Poetry and Truth , Part Two, Book Seven ( digitized )
Coordinates: 51 ° 20 ′ 17 ″ N , 12 ° 22 ′ 40 ″ E