Great Synagogue (Düsseldorf)

Synagogue on Kasernenstraße with the subsequent rabbi's house, right the first building of the General local health insurance , left the district office , 1910 Photo

View of the Great Synagogue with the parish hall on Kasernenstrasse

cross-section

The Great Synagogue on Kasernenstrasse in Düsseldorf was built in 1903 according to the designs of the architect Josef Kleesattel in the neo-Romanesque style, set on fire on November 10, 1938 and the ruins demolished on November 29 of the same year.

history

From the end of the 19th century, the city of Düsseldorf planned to fundamentally redesign the district on Königsallee and Kasernenstrasse, in particular to create space for the settlement of banks and representative administrative buildings of the then booming steel industry. The barracks of the Lower Rhine Fusilier Regiment No. 39 and other regiments that had moved to Ulmenstrasse in Düsseldorf-Derendorf in 1897/1898 were demolished and the parade ground was built on. To compensate for the fact that a “significant part of the old Düsseldorf was sacrificed”, the city made “offers of acceptance of building policy” to the population.

In this context, the plan was also made to build a new synagogue, especially since the number of members of the Jewish community as well as that of the entire population of Düsseldorf rose sharply. Historicism , abandoned at the beginning of the 20th century, was to find a continuation in the architecture of the new building of the Jewish community.

The Cologne architect Ludwig Paffendorf initially designed a synagogue building in which the “Syrian” ( early Christian and Byzantine ) styles were combined with Romanesque styles. However, in 1903 the design by the Rhenish church architect Josef Kleesattel was carried out in the neo-Romanesque style. The Great Synagogue of the liberally oriented Jewish community was inaugurated on September 6, 1904, had an organ and offered space for around 800 men and 500 women.

The smaller Orthodox community, which rejected the new building because of the organ, set up a prayer room in 1904 at Bilker Strasse 37, later at Poststrasse 4. The East Jewish immigrants had their own prayer rooms in several districts of Düsseldorf. The rural communities of Gerresheim and Benrath also had their own synagogues, as did the cities of Neuss and Ratingen, which are now part of Düsseldorf's Jewish community.

From 1907 to 1912 the Great Synagogue was the place of activity of the important rabbi and representative of German liberal Judaism Leo Baeck . Under his successor Max Eschelbacher , a memorial in honor of the fallen parishioners of the First World War in the form of a mourner, created by Leopold Fleischhacker , was erected on the southern outer wall .

Street side of the memorial plaque for the Great Synagogue in Kasernenstrasse

Building side of the plaque

The Great Synagogue on Kasernenstrasse was desecrated on the night of August 11, 1929, the tenth anniversary of the Weimar Constitution , with the inscription Jud verrecke and a smeared swastika . On the night of November 9-10, 1938, it was desecrated again, now in the wake of the November 1938 pogroms , which had been organized by the National Socialist regime for the entire area of the German Reich. In the course of the Düsseldorf pogrom, at least seven people were killed and many were mistreated. The Düsseldorf District President Carl Christian Schmid , who was married to a Jew, was forced to resign. In the course of these controlled actions, SA men first devastated the interior of the Great Synagogue and then set it on fire. Its ruin was demolished on November 29, 1938. The other synagogues were also destroyed. The Handelsblatt publishing group is now located on the site of the Great Synagogue . In front of it there is a memorial where commemorative events take place from time to time.

description

Layout

The floor plan showed a central system with many ancillary rooms, such as a foyer, cloakroom, toilets. To the east of the building was the Aaron HaKodesch , behind it were the rooms of the rabbi and the cantor as well as a room for the equipment, the pre-synagogue and the mikveh . The crossing of the central system was 15 meters, on three sides of which were the women's galleries , on the fourth side above the Aaron HaKodesch a gallery for the singers and the organ . A dome rose above the crossing, flanked by corner towers. The building was faced with light Vosges sandstone. Lowermendiger basalt lava was used for the plinth and outside stairs. The pillars of the galleries were made of Labrador granite. The roofs of the crossing dome and the two side towers were covered with copper, the other roofs with slate. The building was connected to the community and school building via an open arch hall.

Great Synagogue , Kasernenstrasse (1910)
Great Synagogue after the desecration on Constitution Day 1929 (August 11)
Düsseldorf, Haroldstrasse with synagogue (right) postcard from 1908.

literature

Architects and Engineers Association of Düsseldorf (ed.): Düsseldorf and its buildings. L. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1904, pp. 141f.
Barbara Suchy: Synagogues in Düsseldorf. In: Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Düsseldorf (ed.), Angela Genger and Kerstin Griese (edit.): Aspects of Jewish life in Düsseldorf and on the Lower Rhine. Düsseldorf 1997, pp. 60-75.
Barbara Suchy with the collaboration of Ulrich Knufinke: Synagogues in Düsseldorf. From 1712 to the present , Ed. Förderkreis der Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Düsseldorf eV in cooperation with the Jewish community Düsseldorf, Small series of the Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Düsseldorf Volume 3, Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 2013, 64 pp.
Theo Lücker: Düsseldorf - around Karlstadt. Verlag der Goethe-Buchhandlung Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf 1990, pp. 229–232. (Location of the former synagogue, today a simple memorial)

Web links

Commons : Great Synagogue (Düsseldorf) - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

^ Jürgen Wiener: Introduction to the architectural history of Düsseldorf. In: Roland Kanz, Jürgen Wiener (eds.): Architectural guide Düsseldorf. Dietrich Reimer, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-496-01232-3 , pp. XI – XXII, on this p. XVI.
↑ Monument in honor of the fallen parishioners of the synagogue, sculptor Fleischhacker , in administrative report of the state capital Düsseldorf, from April 1, 1922 to March 31, 1925, p. 112
^ Hugo Weidenhaupt: Brief history of the city of Düsseldorf. 9th revised edition, Düsseldorf 1983, p. 176.
^ The burning synagogue on Kasernenstrasse after the Reichskristallnacht on November 10, 1938

51.220217 6.775067Coordinates: 51 ° 13 ′ 12.8 ″ N , 6 ° 46 ′ 30.2 ″ E

[Wiener_Einführung_XVI-1] Jürgen Wiener: Introduction to the architectural history of Düsseldorf. In: Roland Kanz, Jürgen Wiener (eds.): Architectural guide Düsseldorf. Dietrich Reimer, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-496-01232-3 , pp. XI – XXII, on this p. XVI.

[2] Monument in honor of the fallen parishioners of the synagogue, sculptor Fleischhacker , in administrative report of the state capital Düsseldorf, from April 1, 1922 to March 31, 1925, p. 112

[3] Hugo Weidenhaupt: Brief history of the city of Düsseldorf. 9th revised edition, Düsseldorf 1983, p. 176.

[4] The burning synagogue on Kasernenstrasse after the Reichskristallnacht on November 10, 1938