Hussar barracks Krefeld
The hussar barracks on Westparkstraße at the corner of Girmesgath in Krefeld was the seat of the 2nd Westphalian Hussar Regiment No. 11 from 1906 . The listed building complex was most recently known for its use as a district military replacement office , road traffic office and vocational school .
History up to the First World War
Reason for establishment
During a visit to the silk city of Krefeld in 1902, His Majesty Kaiser Wilhelm II made a premature promise to send the young ladies of the finer Krefeld society "lieutenants" who would be suitable dancers for them. These statements caused an outraged rustling in the forest of the prudish press at the turn of the century , but Wilhelm II immediately moved the 2nd Westphalian Hussar Regiment No. 11 - the "Tanzhusaren" - from Düsseldorf to Krefeld.
Construction and planning
After the regiment was relocated to Krefeld on June 21, 1902, the Krefeld administration impressed with enormous speed in creating the further conditions for the permanent accommodation of a garrison in the city. Only one week later, on June 27, 1902, the city council decided to make the area available for the construction of barracks.
On November 11th, an agreement was reached on the acquisition of the old Kempener Feld , at that time still a long way west of the gates of today's inner city. In the autumn of 1904, construction work began to build the barracks . The buildings and places were planned in the Prussian War Ministry , which sent two government master builders from Halle an der Saale to the Lower Rhine to oversee the construction work .
Design of the facility
The center of the facility was a generous, rectangular parade ground . The individual barracks buildings enclosed this with a three- to four-story height. In the north of the facility there was a riding arena with stables. The provisions office and storage magazines were in the western part of the complex. In the east of the complex were the officer's dining establishment and staff quarters that are still preserved today. In between in the south on Bissingstrasse (today: Westparkstrasse) is one of the central buildings with the so-called Doppel-Eskadron-Kaserne . A large parade ground, the Bissingplatz (today: Konrad-Adenauer-Platz ), was built in front of the second double-squadron barracks on Girmesgath, which was planned in the same way as the building on Bissingstrasse .
Military backgrounds
In April 1906 Krefeld finally became a garrison town after a long time . This was not just because they wanted to do the Krefelders a favor with the dance hussars , but was much more related to new military considerations in the Berlin War Ministry. With the so-called Schlieffen Plan, the strategists there had developed a new operational tactic that provided for invading France via the then neutral areas of the Benelux countries in the event of an armed conflict in the west of the German Empire . The aim was to surprise France “through the back door” with a sweeping arc with a large number of troops.
The city of Krefeld was happy to support this plan, as it was associated with economic benefits and prestige to be a base and storage place for the Prussian military . The construction costs of 2.4 million gold marks (around 70 million euros today ) were taken over for this. At that time Krefeld had the second highest per capita income in the German Reich and could afford such “luxury”.
The First World War and its consequences
Due to the demilitarization agreed as a result of the First World War , the soldiers no longer returned to the hussar barracks in the west of Krefeld. 319 of them lost their lives in the armed conflicts, mainly in Russia and on the Western Front . In their honor, a memorial was erected on County Square. In the meantime, the barracks served as a prisoner-of-war camp. Polish prisoners of war were housed there.
The barracks as a prisoner of war camp
History at the time of National Socialism
After Hitler came to power in 1933, the building was annexed by the SA (Sturmabteilung) .
“The SA auxiliary police in particular can be assumed to have used their position of power, which they had gained in 1933, for sadistic tortures. However, the only place where such attacks could take place in police custody is the police prison in the old barracks on Girmesgath. Neither in the Hansahaus nor on Goethestrasse or on Uerdinger Strasse there was a ' torture cellar ' ”, said Ingrid Schupetta from the NS Documentation Center Villa Merländer in her contribution to the yearbook“ Die Heimat ”, 2005 edition.
At least one execution in the basement of the barracks is documented ( Aurel Billstein : In search of the forgotten, p. 144. 1977): The Polish forced laborer Edward Nizio (28) is said to have tried to come into contact with German girls in Kempen . Nizio was hanged by the Gestapo in the basement of the barracks. In November 1983 the eyewitness Alfred John was quoted in the Westdeutsche Zeitung : “In this cellar we were tied up with iron chains. When the SS came back from the fair , we were beaten until no one moved. "
It is not known whether the western parts of the complex were destroyed in the Second World War or whether the population served as a source for the reconstruction of the heavily destroyed city of Krefeld. From 1937 onwards, the Krefeld customs school used part of the building and stayed there until around 1944 (see customs school ).
History since 1950
After the Second World War
On the former Bissingplatz, opposite the second double-squadron barracks on Girmesgath, the administration building of VerSeidAG was built in the 1950s . The current town house was at the time of Professor Egon Eiermann planned. To a large extent, the Konrad-Adenauer-Platz, which is now tree-lined, has been preserved in the shape of the time around 1900.
The barracks on Westparkstrasse eventually became the district military replacement office of the city of Krefeld and was used as this until the 1990s. Then the building fell into disrepair. The former officers' canteen on Westparkstrasse at the corner of Girmesgath became the road traffic office and the second double squadron barracks was continuously expanded since 1960 with functional extensions for use as a vocational college.
Todays use
With the development of the KönigPALAST multifunctional hall , the former riding arena in the west of the entire barracks was given a new use after the fallow land had been used as a parking lot for years. Since 2005, the rest of the facility has been awakened from its “deep sleep”. The road traffic office moved out of the corner building and the laborious restoration of the barracks building and the former staff quarters on Westparkstraße and Girmesgath began.
The listed building was restored taking into account the original preservation of many small details from the Wilhelminian era , such as the original floor tiles, precious sandstone sections , fine inlay work and, in some cases, blacksmiths that are more than a hundred years old. The approximately 8,000 m² area over four floors now houses a health and rehabilitation center . The corner building became the representative seat of the Sports and Baths Office and the City Sports Association of Krefeld. The Vera Beckers vocational college is still located in the second barracks building, which was not dismantled.
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Coordinates: 51 ° 20 ′ 23 " N , 6 ° 32 ′ 32.7" E