Huguenot Tower (Bad Karlshafen)
The Huguenot Tower near Bad Karlshafen in the north Hessian district of Kassel is a lookout tower inaugurated in 1913 on a rock spur of the Hessian cliffs .
Geographical location
The Huguenot Tower stands to the west above the core town of Bad Karlshafen, between Solling in the north and Reinhardswald in the south-southeast, and the confluence ( 95.6 m above sea level ) of the Diemel in the Weser . It is located at a height of around 165 to 170 m between the Hessian cliffs, a group of rocky cliffs that line up on the steep and wooded northeast slope of the Kaiserstein elevation ( 205 m ).
history
The Huguenot Tower, inaugurated on May 26, 1913, was built on the then barely forested slope of the Kaiserstein above the Huguenot town of Bad Karlshafen, founded in 1699 , and was therefore visible from afar. It corresponds to the zeitgeist of the Wilhelmine era. Its founder, the Bremen businessman and entrepreneur Johann Josef Davin (1855–1920), commissioned the Bremen architect Eduard Thürmer to plan the building in the style of the ruined architecture common in the 19th century . The construction work was entrusted to the Karlshafen master builder August Wilhelm Beckendorf, who a year later fell victim to the First World War .
Tower description
The Huguenot tower made of Weser sandstone , which was closed for many years, has been renovated and has been able to be climbed again since 2011 via an open spiral staircase with around 100 steps inside the tower. A platform next to the tower enables small gatherings or events. In the last few years the tower has lost its dominant position due to tall trees. From its viewing platform, there is a view of Bad Karlshafen and the wooded mountain slopes of Solling and Reinhardswald.
Huguenot family Davin
The founder of the Huguenot Tower, Johann Josef Davin, came from like his wife Charlotte Davin, b. Rüdiger, a Huguenot family who originally lived in Villaret in Piedmont , a district of Saint-Martin-Bellevue . The oldest known member of the family was the tanner Guillaume Davin. His grandson, the merchant and tanner Guillaume Davin, was born in Villaret around 1674. Together with family members and other religious refugees , he came to Hofgeismar via intermediate stops in Switzerland and Frankfurt am Main with the Valcluson refugee brigade in the spring of 1686 . Landgrave Karl von Hessen-Kassel had invited the refugees. Guillaume Davin married the Huguenot Jeanne Roux in 1701, who also came from Villaret. With her he moved on to Helmarshausen an der Diemel , where he died in 1748. Davin's descendants, who worked as tanners or shoemakers , initially lived in Karlshafen. Later generations left the city.
Johann Josef Davin was born in Königswinter in 1855 and lived in the Rhineland until 1877 when he married his second cousin, Charlotte Rüdiger, to Bremen. There he achieved prosperity and recognition. He died in Bremen on June 12, 1920. Davin had a house in Karlshafen, was proud of his origins and his ancestors and donated the Huguenot Tower in Karlshafen in their honor, which he took care of in a ceremony at the inauguration on May 26, 1913 handed over to the city.
Anniversary celebration 2013
The Heimatverein Bad Karlshafen gave the 100th anniversary of the building of the Huguenot Tower a special accent. The association commissioned the Trendelburg sculptor Rolf Steiner with the production of a Huguenot cross made of tubular steel with a gold-plated dove attached. The cross was attached to the outside of the tower.
In the spring of 2013, the city administration in Bad Karlshafen had a solar system installed on the tower , which enables environmentally friendly lighting of the tower in the dark.
In May 2013, the German Huguenot Museum in Bad Karlshafen organized a special exhibition to mark the 100th anniversary of the tower. Descendants of the founder Davin were also present at the opening and enriched the exhibition with loans from the family.
Access
Access to the Huguenot Tower over bumpy paths has become difficult: The footpath leads out of the Bad Karlshafen city center over a Diemel bridge, up a staircase opposite, and then uphill to the right in the forest (see also the section on traffic and hiking in the article Hessian cliffs ).
Coordinates: 51 ° 38 ′ 30.6 " N , 9 ° 26 ′ 47.4" E
Individual evidence
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↑ a b Hiking and Leisure in the Solling-Vogler Nature Park , Topographical Map (1: 50,000; 1975),
Ed .: Lower Saxony State Administration Office - State Surveying - ^ German basic map (DGK 5) in Topographical Information Management, Cologne District Government, Department GEObasis NRW ( information )
- ↑ Information board at the Huguenot tower (see above photo of the board)
literature
- Jochen Desel (ed.): 100 Years Huguenot Tower in Bad Karlshafen. The founder Johann Josef Davin and his work. (Contributions to the history of the city of Karlshafen and the Weser-Diemel area, vol. 18.) Bad Karlshafen, 2013, ISBN 978-3-934800-17-5 .
