Heinrichslinde

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The Heinrichslinde on the cathedral square
Photo around 1875, looking towards east-northeast.
The linden tree between 1880 and 1890, looking west.

The Heinrichslinde in Braunschweig , also known as Henry the Lion's Linden , Dom- or Burglinde , is an important single tree on the Domplatz and is considered a green landmark of the city. Today Linde replaces the historical, the forecast for 1173, before the start of construction work on the Brunswick Cathedral by Henry the Lion himself planted that was until its collapse in 1894 considered the oldest tree in the city. The old tree was a summer linden ( Tilia platyphyllos ), the new one is a winter linden ( Tilia cordata ). It has a height of 19 m, a trunk circumference of 2.10 m and a crown diameter of 12 m. The linden tree stands on the western part of the Domplatz, the south side of the cathedral, and is surrounded by a roundabout with a drinking fountain on the south edge .

history

The historical Heinrichslinde was probably first mentioned in a document in 1492 in the Cronecken der Sassen , which was attributed to the Braunschweig chronicler Kort Bote . In the chronicle it was reported that the "Lynden zu brunßwick" Easter 1473 bloomed extraordinarily early. The tree was named so beyond the gates of the city. It stood on the grounds of the castle freedom , which in the Middle Ages extended around Dankwarderode Castle . Next to the linden tree was the cloister of the cathedral monastery . The original linden tree was 24 m high and 6.30 m in circumference at 50 cm. Similar linden trees were found near the Aegidien and Brothers Church .

In the church registers of the cathedral, the tree was recorded as "old, thick linden" in the 17th century. It stood in the castle cemetery , which was in use until 1757 and stretched around the south and west sides of the cathedral to Burgplatz . On the southern edge of the Domplatz there were buildings of the Blasiusstift, which was repealed in 1803 . In the course of the Brunswick Revolution of 1830 , during which the then Brunswick Duke Karl II was expelled from the population on September 7, 1830, he gave the order in the morning on his last day in the city to level the old cemetery and the unused Demolish the abbey building to provide employment for the unemployed urban population. This demolition work dragged on until the beginning of 1831. The Annenkapelle (built 1519–1522), the chapter house, the granary and the cloisters of the cathedral fell victim to this “job creation measure”. The demolition of the building resulted in a square that was officially christened “Wilhelmsplatz” in 1858 (although it was already recorded in plans in 1841) in honor of the new Brunswick Duke Wilhelm , brother of the expelled Duke.

Damage to the old linden tree and rescue attempts

Map from 1829 by Johann Karl Mare : The Brunswick Cathedral with " Burg-Kirchhof " (on which the old linden tree stood), cloister and outbuildings. A year later, in 1830, the cloister and outbuildings were demolished and the cemetery leveled.

A late consequence of the demolition work, however, was the permanent damage to the Heinrichslinde: The new space that had been created had been paved , which caused lasting damage to the tree's roots . From then on the tree was ailing, the treetop and various branches gradually withered. In 1834, cathedral cantor Christoph Friedrich Görges discovered that the linden tree was dying off at the top. For the 1000th anniversary of the city of Braunschweig in 1861, a new linden tree was planted next to the dying linden tree, but it soon perished again. In the following year, 1862, another tree was planted. This also didn't work properly. Four decades after the demolition work, the Heinrichslinde was so damaged that it was partially hollow on the inside. The press closely followed the tree's sickness. In September 1871, however, the situation seemed to improve: young saplings grew inside the trunk. In the spring of 1872, rotten areas and cracks in the trunk were covered with sheet metal. A protective grille was also erected. In his work Braunschweig und Umgebung , published in 1877 : historical-topographical manual and guide through the monuments and art treasures of the city. reported Stadtgeometer Friedrich Knoll , the tree was "dying out" and that the planting of the new Linde in 1861 on the initiative of the cathedral and the court chaplain Heinrich Thiele go back.

In the course of the new construction work on the Braunschweig regional court building in Münzstraße and south of Wilhelmsplatz, the situation improved further from 1881. Part of the paving around the tree was removed, the soil was loosened and a lawn with bosquets was created around the trunk. Since the linden tree officially belonged to the cathedral, its care was the responsibility of the ducal state ministry. At a distance of six meters from the trunk, the ducal promenade inspector Friedrich Kreiß had shafts built, which were filled with coal slag to improve the water supply to the roots. These measures meant that the linden tree's health actually appeared to be improving. In the following years it bloomed more than before and in the spring of 1883 it was reported that the crown was extraordinarily lush. The trunk of the old Heinrichslinde was last nearly 20 feet in circumference  . Their canopy was more than 70 feet tall.

The end of the old linden tree

Photo before 1895, looking west-northwest. Clearly recognizable: the no longer existing crown and the two metal hoops that were supposed to hold and connect the trunks.

However, this recovery was short-lived. At the end of March 1886, the eight-meter-long and one-meter-wide southern main branch had to be removed because it had died. In August 1890, the tree lost several strong branches in a hurricane . In November of the same year, two wide iron rings were placed around the two remaining stumps to stabilize the remains and prevent them from breaking apart. In June 1891 a 50 cm wide gap suddenly opened up, from which large amounts of rotten wood and clay emerged . A few days later this crack was boarded up. In the early summer of 1893, Kreiß discovered that the last branch on the west side had also withered.

Finally the tree no longer had a crown, only a few new branches grew on the ground around the trunk. In June 1894 newspapers in the city reported that Albrecht von Prussia , regent of the Duchy of Braunschweig from 1885 to 1906 , had agreed to the removal of the remains of the Heinrichslinde by the end of the year. Even before this happened, on the afternoon of September 19, 1894, a windless late summer day, the tree collapsed almost silently. When the remains were removed, it was found that most of them crumbled into dust at the slightest pressure. The preservation of the lime tree trunk ordered by Prince Albrecht was not possible. Only a halfway intact piece was brought to the Fatherland Museum as an exhibit . From other usable parts, the ducal court turner Wolter made various presents such as models of the Braunschweig lion , paperweights, picture frames and the like, which were sold at the Braunschweig Christmas market in 1894 for the benefit of the Marienstift .

Today's linden tree

A newly planted linden tree was soon also called "Heinrichslinde". A raised roundabout was created around this . The new tree dominates the western cathedral square and various events take place around it. During the Christmas market there are numerous stalls around the tree and below it the circular open space offers standing room to linger. The Braunschweig flower market also takes place there every year. In order to secure the money necessary for maintenance work on the Heinrichslinde, auctions of herbs and beds around the tree took place in 2008.

The Heinrichslinde as a symbol of the Brunswick Welfenhaus

The historical Heinrichslinde in the magazine Die Gartenlaube , 1885, issue 15, based on a drawing by Carl Josef Alois Bourdet

The Heinrichslinde was seen by many Brunswickers, especially in their patriotic imagination of the 19th century, as a symbol for the continued existence of the Welfenhaus in the city and duchy. But as early as 1884, ten years before the end of the Heinrichslinde, Wilhelm von Braunschweig , the last Duke of the Guelphs from the older line of the House of Braunschweig-Lüneburg , died without any legitimate descendants.

In 1897 Heinrich Vierordt published his poem "Die Linde von Braunschweig", in which he took up this symbolism. One verse reads:

"As long as in the sky / You stretch your swelling green, / Shall the catfish sex / In ancient honors bloom ..."

- Heinrich Vierordt : The Braunschweig linden tree from the Vaterlandsgesänge collection .

Due to old disputes between the Guelphs and the ruling Hohenzollern , which resulted from the battle of Langensalza in 1866, the legal succession did not enter into 1884 , but Emperor Wilhelm I appointed regents who ruled the duchy until the end of 1913. It was not until the end of 1913 that there was another - the last - Welf, Ernst August , on the Brunswick ducal throne.

literature

  • Jürgen Hodemacher : Braunschweig's streets - their names and their stories. Volume 1: Inner City. Elm-Verlag, Cremlingen 1995, ISBN 3-927060-11-9 .
  • C. St .: Germany's strange trees: No. 5 - The Heinrichs-Linde in Braunschweig . In: The Gazebo . Issue 15, 1885, pp. 255 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).
  • Karl Koch : Weekly of the association for the promotion of horticulture in the Königl. Prussian states for horticulture and botany. Volume 9. Karl Wiegandt, Berlin 1866. ( online )
  • Jochen Luckhardt , Franz Niehoff (ed.): Heinrich the lion and his time. Rule and representation of the Guelphs 1125–1235. Catalog of the exhibition Braunschweig 1995. Volume 3 Nachleben . Munich 1995, ISBN 3-7774-6900-9 .
  • Norman-Mathias Pingel: The Heinrichslinde at the cathedral. In: Braunschweigischer Kalender 1995. Meyer, Braunschweig 1994, pp. 69-71, ISSN  0343-0316 .

Web links

Commons : Heinrichslinde  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d e Norman-Mathias Pingel: The Heinrichslinde at the cathedral. In: Braunschweigischer Kalender 1995. p. 69.
  2. ^ Norman-Mathias Pingel: Domplatz. In: Luitgard Camerer , Manfred Garzmann , Wolf-Dieter Schuegraf (eds.): Braunschweiger Stadtlexikon . Joh. Heinr. Meyer Verlag, Braunschweig 1992, ISBN 3-926701-14-5 , p. 60 . : The name "Domplatz" appears for the first time in the Braunschweig address book from 1957/58; until then, from 1858 onwards the square had been called “Wilhelmsplatz”.
  3. ↑ a b c d Norman-Mathias Pingel In: Jochen Luckhardt, Franz Niehoff (Ed.): Heinrich the lion and his time. Rule and representation of the Guelphs 1125–1235. Catalog of the exhibition Braunschweig 1995. Volume 3 Nachleben. P. 209.
  4. ↑ Wilhelm Görges : Patriotic stories and memorabilia of the past with many images of cities, spots, villages, castles, palaces, monasteries, churches, ancient buildings a. the country of Braunschweig and Hanover, for the most part as they appeared 200 years ago, together with portraits and other illustrations that were deemed necessary. Volume 1, Meinecke, Braunschweig 1843, p. 360.
  5. ↑ a b Friedrich Knoll : Braunschweig and surroundings: historical-topographical manual and guide through the monuments and art treasures of the city. Braunschweig 1877, p. 106 ( digitized version )
  6. ^ Heinrich Meier : The street names of the city of Braunschweig. In: Sources and research on Brunswick history. Volume 1, Zwissler, Wolfenbüttel 1904, ( digitized version ), DNB 58068654X , p. 109.
  7. ^ A b c Norman-Mathias Pingel: The Heinrichslinde at the cathedral. In: Braunschweigischer Kalender 1995. p. 70.
  8. ↑ Fragrant herbs for the care of the "Heinrichslinde" auctioned ( Memento of the original from March 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on braunschweig.de @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.braunschweig.de
  9. ↑ Beet auction for the care of the "Heinrichslinde" ( Memento of the original from March 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on braunschweig.de @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.braunschweig.de

Coordinates: 52 ° 15 ′ 50.5 "  N , 10 ° 31 ′ 25.5"  E