Inner Holsten Gate
The inner Holsten Gate was the oldest gate in the Holsten Gate system in Lübeck .
Location
The inner Holsten Gate was on the city side of the Trave at the end of Holstenstrasse . It secured as part of the Lübeck city wall access to the city from the west, which here about the latest 1216 built Holstenbrücke and courteous probably a natural ford took place. The name of the gate was derived from the fact that the roads into Holstein began there.
history
Since the Holsten Bridge already existed in 1216, it is very likely that a gate was already in existence at that time. However, there is no evidence of this in the received or handed-down documents.
In 1376 the Holsten Gate is mentioned for the first time in a document: In the same year the Holsten Gate was rebuilt. The fact that the gate is expressly being rebuilt shows that there was a previous building that has now been replaced, but absolutely nothing is known about it.
In the following period the sources are largely silent again, which also reflects the loss of importance of the building after the completion of the imposing central Holsten Gate in 1478 and the later further expansion of the gate system with additional gates and ramparts.
On September 11, 1773, the Lübeck building yard determined in an expert report that the vault of the gate passage was dilapidated and crumbled, which is why it had to be removed and completely rebuilt.
In 1794 the gate, for which there was no longer any use, was torn down and replaced by a lattice gate, which in turn was removed in 1828 without replacement.
Appearance
There is no description or pictorial document whatsoever that provides information about what the inner Holsten Gate looked like before the middle of the 16th century. Only the city view by Elias Diebel from 1552 shows - thanks to the unusual use of perspective - the gate at the lower end of Holstenstrasse. At that time it was a gate tower with windows above the arch in the middle floor, a protruding wooden open gallery and round corner turrets on the upper floor as well as a hipped roof . It is no longer possible to determine when the structure was given this shape.
At a point in time that can no longer be determined, probably in the 17th century, the inner Holsten Gate changed its appearance: the cityscapes of the 18th century show a much simpler, lower structure with a single storey low directly above the gateway and a simple hipped roof. A building survey made in 1794 before the demolition confirms these representations: There was a simple half-timbered floor above the archway . Presumably the gate tower had been removed down to the stump with the passage and then the half-timbered storey had been added. The building survey from 1794 also shows that the customs office was built on the south side of the gate, including the old city wall; the medieval city wall was also attached to the north side. The floor above the gate passage belonged to the official residence of the customs officer.
When the inner Holsten Gate was torn down, the customs office was initially retained. It was only demolished in 1828 together with the lattice gate, and the remaining part of the city wall was also removed.
literature
- Hanseatic City of Lübeck (ed.): The architectural and art monuments of the Hanseatic city of Lübeck. Volume I, Part 1: City plans and views, city fortifications, water arts and mills . Bernhard Nöhring publishing house, Lübeck 1939
- Rainer Andresen: Lübeck - The old cityscape. Volume I: History - Churches - Fortifications . Verlag Neue Rundschau, Lübeck 1988
- Wilhelm Brehmer : Contributions to a building history of Lübeck - 5. The fortifications of Lübeck , in: Journal of the Association for Lübeck History and Antiquity Volume 7, Issue 3, p. 241 ff. Edmund Schmersahl successor publisher, Lübeck 1898