House of the Sun (Braunschweig)

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Kohlmarkt 19: "Haus zur Sonne" in 2006
Photo from 1904: Kohlmarkt, looking north-northeast into Schuhstrasse (center). In the center of the Kohlmarkt fountain designed by Oskar Sommer in 1869 . The houses v. l. To the right: The “Haus zur Sonne” from 1792/93, (between Schuhstrasse) the “ Haus zur Rose ” from 1590 with the Café Central and the 1894 “ Haus zum Königin Stern ”.

The Haus zur Sonne , formerly also called Haus Sonne or just Sonne , is a listed residential and commercial building in Braunschweig , which was built in 1791/92 by court architect Christian Gottlob Langwagen on the north side of the Kohlmarkt .

history

The carbon market is located in the precincts of the old town . It is one of the oldest settlement areas in the city. The oldest archaeological finds are dated to the early 9th century.

On the left the “Haus zur Sonne” from 1885. The original appearance of the facade is clearly visible.

Between 1385 or 1386 and 1437 or 1439 the bakers Cord and Hans Sunne lived in a previous building on the site of today's “Haus zu Sonne”. In 1640 the building was called the “House of the Golden Sun”. Maybe Hans Sunne was the namesake. Hofbaumeister Langwagen Built in the late 18th century next to the traufständigen house no. 19 ( Insurance number 165) for merchant JH poleman also the neighboring house no. 18. Long carriage intention was to kleinteiligeren a harmonious transition to its new stone architecture and lower wooden and half-timbered architecture of the adjacent houses in Schuhstrasse . He succeeded in doing this, among other things, by reducing the height of the building and placing greater emphasis on horizontal structuring elements on the structure.

The house number 19 is a massive stone building. Originally it had a rather sparsely decorated classical facade. The building had a centrally installed entrance gate on the ground floor and a row with five windows on each of the two upper floors, with the middle row being highlighted. The gable was decorated with garlands and a naturalistic frieze .

In 1876, the shop on the ground floor was rebuilt and instead of the central entrance two entrances with two shop windows each were built. In 1885 the facade was completely redesigned by the Braunschweig architect Constantin Uhde , including setting up a new shop and converting the old dwarf house into a high gable triangle . Furthermore, neo-renaissance elements were attached to the facade , which are still there today. Originally the house only had two floors and a high, steep roof. Probably only since then has the sun symbol existed in the topmost field of the gable. Like numerous buildings in the Braunschweig city center , the “Haus zur Sonne” was also badly damaged by the bombing of the city during the Second World War . In contrast to various neighboring buildings, however, the structure could be saved and repaired. Fundamental renovation plans were drawn up between 1949 and 1953, but they were not carried out. In 1954 a fully developed third floor was added, which barely reveals the original decorative roof design. In 1969, the ground floor was finally provided with an aluminum cladding , which was removed again in the 1980s. You can still read the old company logo "PJ Blanck - Hof Lieferant" above the entrance area on the ground floor.

"PJ Blanck, purveyor to the court"

The Kohlmarkt
Old lettering of the company "PJ Blanck. Purveyor to the Court ”at the“ Haus zur Sonne ”in 2014.
The " Haus zur Rose ", diagonally across from the "Haus zur Sonne". PJ Blanck opened his shop here in 1809 and ran it for 24 years before moving to Kohlmarkt 19 in 1833.

Philipp Itzig Blanck (born April 12, 1771 in Peine ; † March 24, 1841 in Braunschweig), also Blank , ran the textile business founded there by his father in 1786 in the town of Peine, 20 km west of Braunschweig. The family had resided there since the 1760s. In 1809, after the death of his first wife the year before, he moved to Braunschweig as the youngest son and settled there as a textile trader, after opening a shop in 1807 at Kohlmarkt, Assekuranz number 166 (now Schuhstraße 21), and working as a trade fair trader had been. This happened during the so-called " Braunschweig French Age ", when the city of Braunschweig and the Duchy of Braunschweig-Lüneburg were occupied by Napoleonic troops after the 1806 lost battle of Jena and Auerstedt . At that time Braunschweig was the capital of the French department of the Oker , which in turn belonged to the Kingdom of Westphalia , which existed until the end of 1813 .

The children Philippine (born November 14, 1799; † March 10, 1887 in Braunschweig) came from their first marriage - she worked for the Braunschweig regional rabbi Levi Herzfeld and died unmarried - as well as their siblings Itzig (* April 10, 1802; † 1837 ibid), a portrait painter , Daniel (* February 2, 1803; † October 1, 1863 in Braunschweig) and Sara (* January 2, 1808).

Philipp Itzig Blanck married the widowed Jette Harwitz , born in 1809, as a second marriage . Frank (born March 19, 1784 in Braunschweig; † October 25, 1821 there). Her father was Bernhard Fran (c) k († November 13, 1806), a respected used clothes dealer. Blanck thus married into one of Braunschweig's oldest protective Jewish families . Thanks to a dowry of 2000 thalers, the company was able to move to the " Haus zur Rose ", only a few meters away and also located on Kohlmarkt. In 1833 he acquired citizenship and was a representative of the Jewish community in Braunschweig from 1826 to 1845 , that is, he was the elector for the board. In 1833 he moved his business to the house on Kohlmarkt No. 19, which later became "Haus zur Sonne".

The children of the second marriage were Bernhard (* December 31, 1810; † November 27, 1865), Hannchen (* July 12, 1812), Hermann (* October 12, 1813; † November 9, 1881) and Isaac (1819– 1821). Hannchen married the art dealer Seligmann Seelig in Hanover in 1839 , with whom she had their son Alfred (born April 14, 1842 in Hanover; † 1905 in Berlin ), who continued the textile business at Kohlmarkt 19 after the death of his uncle Bernhard in 1865.

Jette Blanck's children from her first marriage to the merchant Salomon Levin (from 1807 Levy Horwitz), Abraham Salomon Horwitz (* 1803 in Calvörde ; † 1816 in Braunschweig) and his sister Therese (* June 8, 1805 in Calvörde) grew up in her house second husband.

Philipp Itzig Blanck ran a flourishing business throughout his life. He was a fifth class tax citizen and was one of the wealthy (Jewish) merchants of the city. In his will, he left considerable sums of money to his children and grandchildren.

After the death of the company founder Philipp Itzig Blanck on March 24, 1841, his son Daniel took over the business, as his father had ordered in his will. In the same year he received civil rights. Daniel Blanck married Rosalie, born in November 1845. Gumpel (Gabriel) (born June 3, 1823 in Elbing ; † August 6, 1866). The marriage remained childless. After her husband's death in 1863, she married his half-brother and particular man Hermann the following year . In 1846 Daniel's half-brother Bernhard, who had also been an independent cloth merchant up until then, with a shop at 9 Hutfiltern Street , joined the company and continued to run it in 1863 after his brother's death. The company's offer has been continuously expanded under the leadership of the two brothers. In the following year Bernhard bought the house at Kohlmarkt 19 for 20,500 Reichstaler from the wife of the organist August Müller. After Bernhard's death in 1865, like his brother Daniel, he too had remained childless, his nephew Alfred Seelig took over the business. Already in the following year he changed the range and from then on limited himself, in contrast to his predecessors, who mainly offered fabrics for women and men’s clothing, to the sale of decoration and interior furnishing fabrics.

Between 1884 and 1886 he commissioned the Braunschweig architect Constantin Uhde to redesign the building in the style of the German Renaissance . In 1912, the upper floor was converted and the company owner's private living quarters previously located there were converted into additional business premises. In 1914 the company “PJ Blanck” was named “Braunschweigischer Hofvendor ”. In 1925 the shop window systems were expanded.

In his first marriage, Alfred Seelig was married to Hedwig Seelig. The marriage ended in divorce. From 1867 he was in his second marriage with Anna Johanna Seelig, geb. Fehr (1844–1915) married. From this marriage came the children Siegmund (born April 1, 1868; † June 4, 1943 in Westerbork concentration camp in the Netherlands ), Bernhard (born May 17, 1869), a banker by profession, Arthur (* 1871) and Margarethe , m. Friedländer (born February 17 or November 1876, † September 26, 1942 in Theresienstadt concentration camp ).

In 1903 Alfred Seelig handed over the “PJ Blanck” business to his eldest son Siegmund and moved with his wife to Berlin. Siegmund Seelig had been with Adelheid, geb. Salfeld (born January 30, 1878 in Braunschweig, † October 12, 1941 in Amsterdam ) married. They had the daughters Irmgard (1901–1992) and Elisabeth-Lotte (1902–1962).

"Aryanization" in 1935?

Sun symbol on the "house to the sun"

Soon after the seizure of power by the Nazis on 30 January 1933, there was the German Empire to organized attacks on the Jewish population, including in Braunschweig in numerous cities. On March 11, 1933, the so-called department store storm occurred , in which Jewish shops, especially in the area around the Kohlmarkt, were stormed, looted and damaged. Owners, employees and, in some cases, customers were bullied, mistreated and temporarily detained, for example in the Adolf Frank department store or in the clothing stores Hamburger & Littauer and Emmy Vossen . These two shops were located directly on the Kohlmarkt in the immediate vicinity of PJ Blanck's shop. On April 1, 1933, the so-called Jewish boycott took place , which lasted for several days and aimed at boycotting Jewish companies of all kinds. From this point on, the reprisals against Jewish business owners in the German Reich intensified dramatically.

Little by little, “Jewish” businesses were “ Aryanized ”, that is to say “taken over” by Germans, who usually took over not only the respective company, but also the property belonging to it at prices well below market value . In the vast majority of cases, this was the result of massive intimidation through physical and psychological measures against the Jewish owners. The new owners were often former competitors who were often NSDAP members as well.

Siegmund Seelig sold the business and house in October 1935 for 85,000 Reichsmarks to Gustav Fischer, who continued to run the traditional company "PJ Blanck". The company had existed for over 125 years at the time of sale. The Seelig couple then emigrated to the Netherlands together with their youngest daughter. After the Netherlands was occupied by German troops in 1940, the father and daughter (the mother had died in 1941) were deported to the Westerbork concentration camp , where Siegmund Seelig perished in 1943.

After the end of the Second World War, the two surviving daughters sued for restitution of the Kohlmarkt 19 property in 1948. Gustav Fischer then stated that there had been talks about a sale since 1931 and that the purchase price was appropriate to the condition of the building at the time of acquisition, which was again confirmed by the seller's auditor after the end of the war. Fischer also had to repair the building after severe bomb damage and at great personal expense. However, since the files could not be used to determine whether the entire purchase price had actually been paid, and it could not be clarified whether the transfer of ownership was a forced "Aryanization" in the National Socialist sense. In April 1951 the Braunschweig Regional Court sentenced the two sisters to pay 60,000 DM in order to keep the house.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Heinrich Meier : Proper names of the Brunswick town houses. In: Paul Zimmermann (Ed.): Braunschweigisches Magazin. Nro. 3, January 29, 1899, p. 20.
  2. ↑ a b c d City of Braunschweig, Bauverwaltung (ed.): Urban design in Braunschweig. Investigation into the building history of the Kohlmarkt. P. 45.
  3. ↑ Wolfgang Kimpflinger: monuments in Lower Saxony. Volume 1.1 .: City of Braunschweig. Part 1., p. 94.
  4. ^ A b c Norman-Mathias Pingel: House to the sun. In: Luitgard Camerer , Manfred Garzmann , Wolf-Dieter Schuegraf (eds.): Braunschweiger Stadtlexikon . Joh. Heinr. Meyer Verlag, Braunschweig 1992, ISBN 3-926701-14-5 , p. 101 .
  5. ↑ Wolfgang Kimpflinger: monuments in Lower Saxony. Volume 1.1 .: City of Braunschweig. Part 1., p. 95.
  6. ↑ Wolfgang Kimpflinger: monuments in Lower Saxony. Volume 1.1 .: City of Braunschweig. Part 1., p. 96.
  7. ↑ a b Reinhard Bein: Eternal House. Jewish cemeteries in the city and country of Braunschweig. P. 159.
  8. ^ Hans Heinrich Ebeling: The Jews in Braunschweig: Legal, Social and Economic History from the Beginnings of the Jewish Community to Emancipation (1282-1848). P. 329.
  9. ^ A b Reinhard Bein: You lived in Braunschweig. Biographical notes on the Jews buried in Braunschweig (1797 to 1983). P. 127.
  10. ↑ Reinhard Bein: You lived in Braunschweig. Biographical notes on the Jews buried in Braunschweig (1797 to 1983). P. 279f.
  11. ↑ Reinhard Bein: You lived in Braunschweig. Biographical notes on the Jews buried in Braunschweig (1797 to 1983). P. 62f.
  12. ^ Hans Heinrich Ebeling: The Jews in Braunschweig: Legal, Social and Economic History from the Beginnings of the Jewish Community to Emancipation (1282-1848). P. 330.
  13. ^ Hans Heinrich Ebeling: The Jews in Braunschweig: Legal, Social and Economic History from the Beginnings of the Jewish Community to Emancipation (1282-1848). P. 360.
  14. ↑ a b Reinhard Bein: Eternal House. Jewish cemeteries in the city and country of Braunschweig. P. 160.
  15. ↑ Reinhard Bein: You lived in Braunschweig. Biographical notes on the Jews buried in Braunschweig (1797 to 1983). P. 87.
  16. ^ Hans Heinrich Ebeling: The Jews in Braunschweig: Legal, Social and Economic History from the Beginnings of the Jewish Community to Emancipation (1282-1848). P. 259.
  17. ^ A b Reinhard Bein: You lived in Braunschweig. Biographical notes on the Jews buried in Braunschweig (1797 to 1983). P. 370.
  18. ↑ a b Reinhard Bein: Eternal House. Jewish cemeteries in the city and country of Braunschweig. P. 158.
  19. ↑ Reinhard Bein: Contemporary witnesses made of stone. Volume 2. Braunschweig and its Jews. P. 25.
  20. ^ A b Reinhard Bein: You lived in Braunschweig. Biographical notes on the Jews buried in Braunschweig (1797 to 1983). P. 371.

Web links

Commons : Haus zum Sonne  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 52 ° 15 ′ 45.9 ″  N , 10 ° 31 ′ 11.9 ″  E