Hunter gate
The Jägertor from 1733 is the oldest still preserved Potsdam city gate . It stands in the axis of Lindenstrasse and forms one of the city exits to the north. It got its name after the electoral Jägerhof in front of the city. The gate was originally part of Potsdam's city wall, the excise wall, which was not used for fortification, but was intended to prevent the desertion of soldiers and the smuggling of goods. Since Lindenstrasse cut diagonally through the former wall, the Jägertor was also built diagonally to the course of the wall.
Freestanding after the city wall was torn down in 1869, the Jägertor presents itself today as a pillar architecture of Tuscan order with straight beams and a crowning group of sculptures. It depicts a stag set by hunting dogs flanked by flaming grenades. This clarifies the relation to the Jägerhof as well as the military purpose of the gate. The architrave and crown are made of sandstone , while the rusticated pillars are made of plastered brickwork .
The toll collector's house and a guard building used to be on the small square south of the Jäger Gate. Dismar Degen , court painter to Friedrich Wilhelm I , recorded the structural situation at the time the Jägertor was built in an oil painting that is now in the possession of the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg . Degen deliberately exaggerated the dimensions of the gate in his painting, so that the gate appears much larger and more imposing in his depiction than it is in reality.
Today the gate is part of the promenade that traces the course of the former city wall. In the city plan, the difference between the compact structure of the second Baroque city expansion south and the loose villa development north of the Jägertores is clearly visible. Its function as an attractive focal point of Lindenstrasse is still given.
literature
- Paul Sigel, Silke Dähmlow, Frank Seehausen and Lucas Elmenhorst: Architectural Guide Potsdam. Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-496-01325-7 .
Web links
Coordinates: 52 ° 24 '9.2 " N , 13 ° 3' 9.5" E