Holy Spirit Church (Potsdam)

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View of the Heilig-Geist-Kirche from the Havel , before 1945

The Heilig-Geist-Kirche (also Heiliggeistkirche or Heiligengeistkirche ) was a monument in the Burgstrasse in Potsdam . Erected in the years 1726–1728 by Pierre de Gayette and Johann Friedrich Grael in the Baroque style , the 86-meter-high structure, together with the Nikolaikirche and the Garrison Church, formed the famous Potsdam "Dreikirchenblick". In World War II burned out, with the resolution of the SED -Führung 1961 demolished the nave and blown up in 1974 the church tower. In its place has been the Residenz Heilig Geist Park retirement home since 1997 , the residential tower of which is intended to be reminiscent of the former church tower.

construction

View from the Heilig-Geist-Kirche to the Nikolaikirche , before 1945

The nave of the Heilig-Geist-Kirche was built in 1726 according to plans by Pierre de Gayette on the former site of the Slavic castle Poztupimi , from which the Burgstrasse owes its name. For this, the still existing moat had to be filled in. The location of the church is on the wish of the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm I go back. The rectangular transverse hall building was simply plastered and structured exclusively by pilaster strips . On the sides facing the Havel there were retaining rings for mooring ships. The interior had two circumferential galleries and was kept relatively simple. At the east end of the nave was the pulpit altar , at the west end the organ loft with the organ built by Joachim Wagner in 1730 . The church was completed in 1726-1728 by an 86 meter high, square tower . It was created according to plans by Johann Friedrich Grael . The lower half of the tower was bricked, the upper part was a wooden structure covered with copper. In the tower there were two bells for the tower clock from the beginning , one of which was cast in 1541 and the other was in the shape of a bowl. In 1729 three additional chimes were hung in the tower, and in 1737 a fourth was added. The tower developed into one of the dominants in the Potsdam cityscape and, together with the towers of the Nikolaikirche and the Garrison Church, formed the "Potsdam three-church view". All three churches were on one axis.

history

View of the Heilig-Geist-Kirche from Burgstrasse, before 1945
View of the tower ruins (top right), 1964
Residential tower of the Residenz Heilig Geist Park instead of the church tower

The Heilig-Geist-Kirche was created as a simultaneous church by order of King Friedrich Wilhelm I , with a Reformed and a Lutheran preacher who held services at different times. The church was consecrated in the morning on November 10, 1726 by the Reformed court preacher Christian Ludwig Lipten , and in the afternoon a Lutheran inauguration service was held by preacher Heinrich Schubert .

The attic of the church was subsequently used as a clothing store (mounting room ) for the regiment of the Gardes du Corps , which often caused unrest in the church. The church roof, which was initially covered with copper and lead, also had to be replaced with galvanized sheet iron, as parts of the roof were stolen by soldiers.

In May 1747 Johann Sebastian Bach stayed in Potsdam and gave, among other things, a well-attended organ concert in the Heilig-Geist-Kirche on May 8th. During the occupation under Napoleon I had Potsdam supply a part of the French cavalry, while the Holy Spirit Church was like most other churches - only exception was the Garrison Church, the final resting place by Frederick William and Frederick II. - as Horse magazine used. In 1911 the remains of the castle were rediscovered in the vicinity of the church.

During the First World War in 1917 the organ's prospect pipes and three of the chime bells were confiscated for war purposes, and it was not until April 25, 1926 that the church received three new bronze bells. The next day there was a fire on the tower, which the fire brigade was able to extinguish in good time. In the summer of 1926, a comprehensive renovation of the Holy Spirit Church finally began, which lasted until 1930. During the renovation in 1927, the remaining bell from the time the church was built was removed from the tower and hung in a bell chair on the Brauhausberg . In 1942, in the middle of World War II, this bell and the chime from 1926 were requisitioned for war purposes, leaving only the bells of the tower clock in the church.

Until the last days of the Second World War, Potsdam was spared direct bombing attacks. During the only air raid on Potsdam on April 14, 1945, bombs by the Royal Air Force destroyed large parts of the city center, with the nave of the Heilig-Geist-Kirche burned out. On 26 April, the continued Red Army the tower by artillery fire on fire and the wooden spire crashed.

Initially, the parish church council planned the establishment of a chapel in the tower based on the model of the garrison church, then the reconstruction of the church was planned in 1955. A reconstruction plan for the district published in the magazine Deutsche Architektur and a competition for the city were based on its restoration in 1957. This did not happen, the nave was demolished in 1960, but the urban development plan drawn up after the garrison church was blown up in 1969 provided for the tower to be preserved.

After the 8th party congress of the SED , the party's district and city management, without involving the media, carried out their “ housing construction program ” by demolishing the tower in favor of building a block of flats. On April 20, 1974, the same company that had blown up the garrison church in 1968 blew up the tower stump. Only the dedication plaque attached by the founder Friedrich Wilhelm I above the entrance, which was saved by employees of the Potsdam Museum . The congregation was incorporated into the Nikolaikirche in 1981.

Since 1997, the old people's home Residenz Heilig Geist Park with two residential buildings has been located in the place of the former Heilig-Geist-Kirche . After an architectural competition, the winning design by the Italian architect Augusto Romano Burelli (Venice) was implemented. The five-story main building is roughly the same height as the demolished nave, while the steel construction on the adjoining residential tower is intended to be reminiscent of the blown church tower.

literature

  • Andreas Kitschke: The churches of the Potsdam cultural landscape . Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2017. ISBN 978-3-86732-248-5 . Pp. 66-73. Digitized
  • Friedrich Mielke : Potsdam architecture - the classic Potsdam. Propylaen-Verlag, Berlin 1981, ISBN 978-3-549-06648-5 , p. 363.
  • Uwe Schieferdecker : Memories of Potsdam as it used to be . Wartberg Verlag, 1st edition 2001.
  • Richard Schneider: Potsdam photographed around 1900 . Nicolai, Berlin, 2nd improved edition 2005.
  • Hans Berg: The lost center of Potsdam . Self-published, Berlin 1999, pp. 19-21 (with illustration of the dedication plaque to Friedrich Wilhelm I.)

Web links

Commons : Holy Spirit Church  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Commons : Residenz Heilig-Geist-Park  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Friedrich Mielke : Potsdamer Baukunst . Frankfurt a. M./Berlin/Wien 1981, p. 363, cf. Armin Hanson: Preservation of monuments and cityscape in Potsdam 1918–1945 . Berlin 2011, p. 265.
  2. ^ Andreas Kitschke: The churches of the Potsdam cultural landscape . Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2017. ISBN 978-3-86732-248-5 . P. 54f. , 66 , cf. Ernst Wentzelmann: jubilation memory . Potsdam 1782. pp. 61f. with the first preachers of the Church
  3. ↑ See a British aerial photo from April 16, 1945. In addition Hans Berg: Die verlorene Potsdamer Mitte . Eigenverlag, Berlin 1999, p. 19 with note 87 (p. 61); there also to the following.
  4. ↑ https://www.welt.de/print-wt/article665222/Vom-Heiligen-Geist-verlassen.html
  5. ↑ https://www.heilig-geist-park.de/sites/residenz-heilig-geist-park-potsdam-geschichte.htm

Coordinates: 52 ° 23 ′ 49 ″  N , 13 ° 4 ′ 13 ″  E