Hürtgenwald Memorial Chapel (Kleinhau)

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The chapel

The Hürtgenwald Memorial Chapel is in the Kleinhau district of the municipality of Hürtgenwald in the Düren district ( North Rhine-Westphalia ).

It was built between 1966 and 1970. It was inaugurated on October 4, 1970. It commemorates the battle in the Hürtgenwald at the end of the Second World War , in which thousands of soldiers were killed.

monument

The chapel has been entered in the list of monuments under No. 23 since March 20, 1995 . The monument description is as follows:

“In its external and internal appearance, the building is a typical structure from the 1950s. Although the chapel was not built until 1966-70, the plan by the architect Richards dates back to 1954 and was adopted and implemented almost unchanged. A simple structure rises above an L-shaped floor plan, which, with its gable roof towed over the side walls, takes up traditional structures of the Eifel region.

The building is accessed through an open vestibule in front of the chapel, which can be reached via two steps and is closed off by two massive quarry stone walls. The horizontal conclusion is a straight, slightly protruding canopy, which is also supported by two filigree iron supports. The back wall of the vestibule is plastered. The church entrance is on the left, the entrance to a side room on the right. In the plan, the plastered area between the doors is broken through by five small rectangular windows that were not used during construction. The window, asymmetrically shaped by the towing, rises above the vestibule, which still has contemporary colored glazing. The side walls of the chapel are divided into four bays by buttress-like quarry stone wall templates. The recessed wall surfaces are plastered and only broken through by small square windows on the south side. A small roof turret with a bell rises on the slate roof.

The interior of the church is determined by the parabolic shape of the gable window, the shape of the vaulted ceiling reflects the figure of the gable window. A small flat-roofed aisle opens to the south. The entire interior is painted uniformly white. The furnishings are largely based on the architect's designs.

Although the chapel was not built until the end of the 1960s - but plans from 1954 were exactly implemented - one can speak of a typical example of architecture from the 1950s. The characteristic design language of this time was combined here with features typical of the landscape (towing) and materials (quarry stone, slate) to form a harmonious unit. The interior is unchanged down to the last detail. The complex is therefore important for human history - it documents the community's will to rebuild after almost complete war destruction - and it is worth preserving for reasons of architectural and local history. "

memorial

The vestibule covers the epitaph of an unknown soldier who was rescued in Großhau in 1969. The final white wall bears a corpus of Christ without any accessories except for the halo made of barbed wire and the dates of the last two world wars. In this respect, the chapel is one of the memorials for the victims of the world wars.

Building history

The chapel was supposed to serve the church services of the citizens of Kleinhau, but was not approved as such by the diocese of Aachen , because even then there was already a shortage of priests. That is why the plans by the architect Heinrich Richartz were in a drawer for a long time. It was not until 1965 that the community received approval for a mortuary . The then founded church building association collected half of the construction costs of 145,000 DM, the property was donated. It was not until 1973 that the chapel came into the possession of the parish. In the same year the chapel building association founded in 1956 dissolved. Until around 1985, Catholic and Protestant services were regularly celebrated in the chapel, and again in 2009, and since then only sporadically.

Furnishing

Some of the interior furnishings were also donated, such as the so-called Hemingway window, which was designed by the Indener , later Wuppertal glass artist Paul Franz Bonnekamp and donated by the architect. Bonnekamp also designed the parabolic, downward-widening gable window, which shows an angel of peace with ingredients and legacies of the battles around the site in the 15 compartments. Many citizens have donated furnishings. The heavy oak body was not found again until 1974 when it was about to be sold in Belgium. The body dates from the time of Napoleon .

literature

  • August Wollgarten: Hürtgenwald - Memorial Chapel in Kleinhau. In: Yearbook of the Düren District, year 1973, p. 110.

Web links

Coordinates: 50 ° 43 ′ 25.7 "  N , 6 ° 23 ′ 32.7"  E