Jakobskirche (Herxheim am Berg)

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St. Jacob Church

Protestant St. James Church
Basic data
Denomination Protestant
place Herxheim am Berg, Germany
Building history
start of building 1014
Building description
Architectural style Romanesque, Gothic, Baroque
Construction type Substructure of a choir tower with an arched chancel
Coordinates 49 ° 30 '34.9 "  N , 8 ° 10' 55.2"  E Coordinates: 49 ° 30 '34.9 "  N , 8 ° 10' 55.2"  E
Template: Infobox church building / maintenance / function and title missing Template: Infobox church building / maintenance / dedication or patronage missing

The founding date of today's Protestant St. Jakob Church in Herxheim am Berg is dated to 1014. It was first mentioned in a document in 1214 and is considered the town's landmark.

history

prehistory

Roman finds suggest a pagan predecessor building. In 1874 a Roman urn with broken glass was found in a niche and at that time it was brought to today's Bad Dürkheim City Museum (then: Antiquities Association). This find, together with another Roman stone find that was discovered in the church, supports the presumed existence of a pagan predecessor building. During the 1980s, an amateur archaeologist picked up Roman roof tiles in the gardens of today's church , which could be dated to the 4th century AD or earlier. This made it possible to provide archaeological evidence of a previous building ( watchtower ), which must have been located there because of the strategically very good hillside location.

founding

The church was most likely founded in the 8th century by the Weissenburg monastery in Alsace. An early Romanesque bell tower was built from stones around 1014 . This is proven by finding a year with the Roman numerals MXIV (1014) and by stonemason marks from the 11th century.

In 1241, in exchange with the Murbach monastery in Alsace, the Höningen monastery acquired the patronage rights to the Herxheim church and received tithing from then on . A papal bull from Pope Innocent IV from 1243/45 officially seals the passing of the tithe to the Höningen monastery.

There is evidence of a parish since 1379. As a result of the Reformation , the church became Lutheran in 1566. Today it belongs to the church district of Bad Dürkheim.

In May 1461 the fortified "Hangend", the place name of today's Herxheim at that time, was almost completely destroyed in a feud by the troops of Elector Friedrich I , only the church and a residential building remained. Belonging to the diocese of Worms , the village church was already referred to in the Worms Synodal in 1496 as the "Parish Church of St. Jacobus". She had an altar dedicated to St. Mary . Their mother church was in Leistadt , the parish seat was moved from there to Herxheim in 1551.

Lutheran teaching was introduced in the County of Leiningen in 1566 during the Reformation . The former mother church in Leistadt became a branch church. The two churches got Johannes Diether, the first Lutheran pastor, who was dismissed in 1571 for immorality. Around 1570 the church received a stone baptismal font and two windows were built into the chancel to provide more light in the church building.

Building

description

Church from the east, with apse
The four evangelists in the choir

Today's Protestant parish church has the substructure of a choir tower with a ridge-vaulted chancel , to which a semicircular Romanesque apse , allegedly from 1014, is attached. The church is one of the oldest sacred buildings in today's Palatinate .

In 1609 the bell tower received a single-leaf church clock .

The nave was built in 1729 and was renovated in the baroque style after the fire of 1674, so that around 225 people could be accommodated by installing a wooden gallery. Wall paintings were uncovered in the chancel showing the four evangelists both in human form with wings and with the heads of their symbols . In the vault of the apse there was a depiction of the Last Judgment , the apostle Paul could be seen on the south wall . The paintings were created in the second half of the 14th century and the apse was extensively restored in 2013/2014.

The church was renovated again in 1885 with a necessary oil painting; on this occasion the exposed wall paintings were painted over.

On the occasion of a church restoration in 1925, the painter Richard Troll from Munich uncovered the well-known Secco paintings and, after his assessment, dated them to the 12th century.

A swastika is inconspicuously carved on a corner stone of the tower. In 2018, the public prosecutor checked whether there was an offense. Since the swastika is not visible to the naked eye, but only with aids such as binoculars or a zoom lens, she did not initiate criminal proceedings.

Arson

During the Kerwe , the village school teacher set fire to the church on the night of August 4th to 5th, 1934 because of a relationship drama, and it burned down to the outer walls. The carved stalls, organ and gallery were destroyed. The wall paintings in the choir uncovered in 1925, as well as the pulpit, baptismal font, altar with the ornate altar ceiling and open Bible, as well as the knee bench for the confirmands and the memorial plaques for the fallen from 1870/71 and 1914/18 were spared the flames.

This arson destroyed the church, the tower and all the bells on Kerwes Saturday 1934. Three new bells came back into the tower on December 18, 1934. One of them, the so-called “police bell”, belongs to the community and not the church.

The extensive renovation work required by the arson was completed in 1935, so that the re-inauguration could take place on October 27, 1935 with a ceremony. Richard Troll, who appeared 10 years earlier, restored the damaged Secco paintings again. An access north of the bell tower was created (concrete stairs), supporting pillars hold the bell tower in the south and north. A new church clock with four dials was purchased, and as a result of a restoration error, Gothic windows were installed in the bell tower instead of the originally existing Romanesque windows.

Monument and nature protection

The church, as well as the surrounding former cemetery with the war memorials for those who died in the Franco-Prussian War 1870/71 and the First World War and two historical gravestones, is a listed building.

On the former cemetery and the neighboring cemetery, the so-called castle garden, (location) 35 old trees are protected as a natural monument.

  • War memorial 1870/71

  • Former cemetery

  • Enclosure of the cemetery

Bells

Peal

The bell of the Jakobskirche consists of three bells, two of which belong to the Protestant parish and one to the political community. The Läuterecht is, except for the so-called police peal at the parish.

Surname owner Casting year Caster Weight (kg) Nominal inscription
Bell 1 prot. Parish 1951 FW Schilling , Heidelberg 767 f 1 −4 Watch / because you do not know / when your Lord is coming
Bell 2 prot. Parish 1951 FW Schilling, Heidelberg 442 as 1 ± 0 But rejoice that your names are written in heaven.
Police bell Ortsgemeinde Herxheim am Berg 1934 Schilling , Apolda 250 c 2 +4 EVERYTHING FOR ADOLF HITLER'S FATHERLAND
.

Bell history until 1942

In 10./11. In the 19th century, a bell tower was built for the bell, which had been hanging freely until then. A beam with the incised Roman numerals MXIV (for 1014) was used for the roof. Other stonemason marks on the bell tower also point to the 11th century and document the Romanesque construction phase.

In the impoverished parish, the pastor had to ring the bells himself in 1597.

The villagers buried their two bells in 1794 for fear of theft by the French. After the French occupiers left (1816), the bells were not found again.

During the First World War, two bells had to be delivered for armament purposes in 1917.

As a result of the arson in August 1934, all bells were lost. Three new bells came back into the tower on December 18, 1934. Two bells are owned by the church community and one is owned by the political community, the so-called "police bell", which is dedicated to Adolf Hitler . The police bell known as "Bell 3" was cast by Schilling in Apolda , weighs 250 kg and has a diameter of 720 mm. Their strike note is (c2 + 4).

In 1942 two bells had to be delivered again. This affected the two church bells, the smallest bell, the police bell of the political community, was allowed to remain in the tower as the only bell.

Bell from the time of National Socialism

There have been three bells in the Jakobskirche since 1951. The oldest of these dates from the time of National Socialism and is labeled “ALLES FUER'S VATERLAND - ADOLF HITLER” and has a swastika . It is owned by the local community of Herxheim am Berg and was installed in the church tower in 1934 as a police bell, which should be rung as a warning signal in the event of an aircraft or fire alarm . It remained in the church when the other two bells were removed and melted down in 1942. The bell continued to be used even after the bells had been restored in 1951. It is a listed building.

Following the advice of an organist , the further use of the bell in 2017 throughout Germany and beyond and its whereabouts and further use was publicly discussed. Pastor Helmut Meinhardt and Mayor Ronald Becker ( FWG ) refused to remove the bell. Becker also said that one was “proud to have a bell with this inscription”. Furthermore, in his opinion, “not everything that Adolf Hitler did is bad”. Hitler is not only responsible for atrocities, but there are also "things that he initiated and that we still use today." Many residents also agreed with this view, according to a report by kontraste . The state board of the Free Voters of Rhineland-Palatinate was appalled by Becker's statements. Exclusion from the party is being examined. According to these statements, the local council of Herxheim am Berg demanded the resignation of Ronald Becker as local mayor on September 4, 2017. The mayor complied with this resignation two days later. Shortly afterwards, the parish council and the parish presbytery decided not to ring the bell in the future. After a demonstration by the NPD on September 9, 2017 in Herxheim, the Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate, Malu Dreyer , demanded that the bell be hung to prevent the place from becoming a meeting place for right-wing extremist groups.

The newly elected mayor Georg Welker, who was elected on December 17, 2017 and a retired evangelical pastor, does not want to just hang the bell in the church tower. You should ring again. He justified his intention by saying that when the bell rang he heard "the victims, they were also German citizens, not just the Jewish ones". The President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster , was appalled: A bell with this inscription could not commemorate the victims, and the differentiation between Germans and Jews exactly corresponded to Nazi ideology.

The municipal council decided on February 26, 2018 to leave the Hitler bell in place and continue to use it. The Protestant church had previously unsuccessfully offered to cover the cost of a new bell up to 150,000 euros. This was preceded by the council resolution, which was passed with ten votes against three, an opinion by the bell experts of the Evangelical Church, which was drawn up in cooperation with the State Office for Monument Preservation. This report comes to the conclusion that the bell should be classified as a monument and either belong in a museum or should remain in the church tower. Disposing of the bell is an escape from an appropriate and enlightened culture of remembrance. Due to a formal error, the voting result has no legal force, the voting should be repeated. As the owner of the bell, the local council decided on March 12th, 2018 that the bell should remain in the church tower as a “memorial against violence and injustice” and should be rung again. The presbytery of the parish decided on June 7, 2018 to accept the decision of the parish council and to leave the bell in the tower. It should no longer be rung.

The action brought by a German Jewish faith against the decision of the municipal council was dismissed on October 22, 2018 by the Neustadt an der Weinstrasse administrative court and on January 25, 2019 by the Rhineland-Palatinate Higher Administrative Court. The judgments said, among other things, that the decision of the municipal council was "politically controversial", but "legally not objectionable". Evidently, the decision recognizes the Nazi injustice and distances itself from it, which is why the persecution of Jews is not being played down or approved . A simultaneous injunction against the mayor was also dismissed. So the statement - the ringing of the bell is a "reconciliation with the victims of the Nazi era" - should be accepted as a permissible expression of opinion .

literature

Web links

Commons : Protestant Church (Herxheim am Berg)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f The Herxheimer St. Jakobskirche in the flow of time ...! In: herxheimamberg.de, accessed on March 3, 2018.
  2. ↑ Information. In: regionalgeschichte.net, accessed on February 27, 2018.
  3. ^ Digital scan of the entry in the Worms Synodale
  4. ↑ a b Dehio manual. 1972, p. 301.
  5. ^ Stephan Alfter: Herxheim am Berg: Wedding under the Hitler bell. In: rheinpfalz.de. May 12, 2017. Retrieved September 5, 2017 .
  6. ↑ dpa / lrs: swastika discovered on the steeple of the "Hitler bell". (No longer available online.) In: Mannheimer Morgen . March 28, 2018, archived from the original on March 28, 2018 ; accessed on February 1, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Bernhard Zinke (BJZ): swastikas on the church tower. Herxheim - Public Prosecutor's Office does not initiate criminal proceedings. In: Mannheimer Morgen. April 10, 2018, accessed February 1, 2019.
  8. ↑ Tower and ship. In: evkirche-herxheim-am-berg.de, accessed on February 28, 2018.
  9. ^ General Directorate for Cultural Heritage Rhineland-Palatinate (ed.): Informational directory of cultural monuments - Bad Dürkheim district. Mainz 2020, p. 62 (PDF; 5.1 MB).
  10. ↑ Ordinance to secure a natural monument in the Bad Dürkheim district. (PDF; 346 kB) September 26, 1974, accessed on March 13, 2018 .
  11. ↑ Birgit Müller: Expert opinion "Police bell" Herxheim am Berg. (PDF; 1.7 MB) January 8, 2018, accessed March 13, 2018 .
  12. ↑ See Mark 13:35  LUT .
  13. ↑ See Luke 10.20  LUT .
  14. ↑ Birgit Müller: Expert opinion. Police bell - Herxheim am Berg. In: evkirche-herxheim-am-berg.de, January 8, 2018, changed on March 2, 2018, accessed on March 3, 2018 ( PDF; 1.8 MB ).
  15. ↑ Landesschau Rhineland-Palatinate: And it is still ringing: The Nazi bell from the Palatinate. (No longer available online.) In: swr.de. May 19, 2017, archived from the original on January 12, 2018 ; accessed on June 7, 2017 . Anke Petermann : Shame or memorial. What happens to the Nazi bell? In: deutschlandfunk.de. Deutschlandfunk , August 28, 2017, accessed on September 1, 2017 ( mp3; 4.5 MB ( memento from December 16, 2017 in the Internet Archive )).
  16. ↑ a b swastika and Hitler slogan: "Hitler bell" causes trouble. In: The West. Funke Medien NRW , June 8, 2017, accessed on October 3, 2017.
  17. ↑ Amy B Wang: German village votes to keep bell inscribed with 'Everything for the Fatherland, Adolf Hitler'. In: The Washington Post Online. The Washington Post , February 27, 2018, accessed on February 28, 2018 : “Almost immediately, the village of Herxheim […] was thrust into the global spotlight, as a debate emerged over what to do with the 'Hitler glocke' or ' Hitler bells. "
  18. ↑ Lisa Wandt: The "Hitler" bell in Herxheim should stay. (No longer available online.) In: rbb-online.de. August 30, 2017, archived from the original on August 23, 2018 ; accessed on September 3, 2017 .
  19. ↑ mxw / dpa: Nazi debate in the Palatinate: Statements about Hitler - Mayor threatens to be excluded from the party. In: Spiegel Online . September 3, 2017. Retrieved September 3, 2017 .
  20. ↑ ala / dpa: Adoration of Hitler in Herxheim: City council demands resignation of the mayor. In: Spiegel Online. September 4, 2017. Retrieved September 5, 2017 .
  21. ↑ SZ.de/dpa/lalse/ghe: After a dispute over the "Nazi bell": Mayor resigns. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . September 6, 2017. Retrieved September 6, 2017.
  22. ↑ as: Herxheim am Berg: "Hitler bell" is no longer ringing. September 8, 2017, accessed January 18, 2018 .
  23. ^ Controversial bell in Herxheim am Berg. Dreyer for hanging the "Hitler bell". (No longer available online.) In: swr.de. Südwestrundfunk , September 11, 2017, archived from the original on September 12, 2017 ; accessed on January 18, 2017 .
  24. ↑ "Hitler Bell" in Herxheim am Berg. Central Council of Jews outraged by mayor. (No longer available online.) In: swr.de. January 18, 2018, archived from the original on October 8, 2018 ; accessed on January 18, 2018 .
  25. ↑ dpa : Hitler bell remains in Herxheim - the municipal council has also spoken out in favor of staying in the second attempt. In Allgemeine Zeitung . March 13, 2018, p. 5.
  26. ^ Wal / dpa: Rhineland-Palatinate: "Hitler bell" stuck. In: Spiegel Online . February 26, 2018, accessed February 28, 2018.
  27. ^ Bernhard Zinke: New vote on March 12th. In: Mannheimer Morgen . March 1, 2018, accessed March 1, 2018 .
  28. ↑ bbr / dpa: Herxheim: "Hitler bell" can get stuck . In: Spiegel Online . October 22, 2018, accessed February 1, 2019 .
  29. ↑ bbr / dpa / AFP: Higher Administrative Court confirms judgment: "Hitler bell" may remain hanging. In: Spiegel Online. January 30, 2019, accessed February 1, 2019 .