Emperor Bell

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Andreas Hamm in 1875, in front of the imperial bell he cast for Cologne Cathedral

The Emperor Bell ( " Gloriosa ") was until 1918 the largest bell of Cologne Cathedral and the largest free-swinging bell in the world. Its successor has been the Petersglocke since 1923 .

The bell, which was cast by Andreas Hamm ( Frankenthal ) in 1874 - after two failed castings - had the strike tone c sharp 0 . She weighed 26,250 kilograms with a diameter of 342 centimeters; the bell's knuckles were 29 centimeters thick. In June 1918 the bell in the bell tower was dismantled and its metal was handed over for war purposes.

History of origin

The Imperial Bell , loaded onto a ship, in 1875 in the Frankenthal Canal Harbor

On December 10, 1870, in the middle of the Franco-Prussian War , the Central Dombau-Verein requested cannons from the Prussian King Wilhelm I. The cathedral bell was to be supplemented by an oversized bell with the tone c 0 , the weight of which was estimated at 25 to 27 tons. This meant that 22 cannon barrels and around five tons of tin were required to cast the bell. On March 21, 1872, Wilhelm I, meanwhile German Emperor , approved the surrender of 25 tons of gun bronze from 22 captured French guns. The guns were placed in front of the cathedral on May 11, 1872. Since these cannons were a "donation" from the German emperor, the bell was given this name.

On October 30, 1872, the administrative committee of the Zentral-Dombauverein concluded a contract with the bell founder Andreas Hamm from Frankenthal for the casting of the imperial bell , which should be ready in October 1873. Part of the contract was the obligation to hit the c 0 exactly. But the first casting on August 19, 1873 failed because the amount of metal used was incorrectly calculated and therefore insufficient. A second casting took place on November 13, 1873. On February 5, 1874, a commission sent by the Zentral-Dombauverein examined the bell, which considered the second casting unsatisfactory and commissioned a third casting.

Third casting

The imperial bell with a new clapper in 1909

On October 3, 1874, Andreas Hamm cast the third and last emperor bell . On February 21, 1876, a commission of experts gave an opinion on the bell. The desired chime could still not be quite achieved and three attempts to ring the bell failed. But no further casting was decided, rather the clapper and the suspension should be changed. On November 28th, 1876, a test ringing with the new clapper was carried out in the presence of the board of directors of the cathedral building association. The cathedral builder Richard Voigtel explains in an expert report that the bell can be removed. On December 4th there was another test ring in front of three musical experts, including Ferdinand von Hiller . During the test ring it was found that the bell sounds in the tone c sharp 0 instead of a required c 0 . Nonetheless, the experts advocated removing the bell in the hope of improvement once it was hung in the tower.

On August 7, 1878, the imperial bell was pulled up into the south tower. However, the hope that the full sound would develop in its place in the belfry was not fulfilled. A good two dozen Deutz cuirassiers hung on the ropes when the imperial bell should ring. Attempts to achieve at least one technically perfect stop failed for 30 years. The emperor's bell was called the "Great Silent Woman" or simply "The Mute of Cologne".

The bell consecration of the emperor bell was made only on 30 June 1887 in the presence of the directors of the Dombauverein. The background to this was the Kulturkampf , during which the Archbishop of Cologne, Paulus Melchers , fled into exile in the Netherlands in 1875. On July 30, 1885, Philipp Krementz was appointed Archbishop of Cologne, but it was not until May 23, 1887 that Pope Leo XIII declared. the argument for ended. Until then, the consecration of bells had been refrained from, because it would also have been understood as an honor to the imperial founder and the Prussian state.

Exchange of the clapper

The new clapper of the imperial bell made in 1909

On Pentecost Saturday, June 6, 1908, the bobbin loop broke and the repeatedly repaired beater of the imperial bell fell into the bell cage . The imperial bell was no longer rung and a new casting of the bell was considered. The broken clapper is still to the left of the south portal on the outer wall of the cathedral.

In 1909 the suspension of the bell was changed, its inner edge was turned off and a new clapper was attached. The clapper was a steel ball with a diameter of 600 millimeters and a weight of almost 900 kilograms, constructed by the Bochumer Verein . It had balls of bronze attached to the attachment points of the clapper and was hung on eight ropes in the bell. This clapper is now in the bell museum under the bell chamber of the south tower.

The most important change was the installation of electric ringing machines for the imperial bell and all other bells of the cathedral bell. With the electric bell installed in 1909, the imperial bell could be struck technically flawlessly for the first time. While 28 men used to ring the imperial bell for 12 to 15 minutes until the bell rang fully, the electric chime shortened the time to 40 seconds, and all cathedral bells could be rung by just one man.

Starting in June 1918, the imperial bell in the south tower of Cologne Cathedral was dismantled and transported away in a three-month period to extract material that was important for the war effort. A plaque in memory of the imperial bell was placed under the monument to the fallen of the cathedral, created by Georg Grasegger in 1920 .

layout

The imperial bell with the imperial coat of arms and its first clapper

Crown

The six handles, which formed the crown of the imperial bell , were adorned with angel heads and ended in lion claws at the attachment points. The rich decoration of the bell came from a design by the cathedral builder Richard Voigtel , the models for the portraits and ornaments were made by Peter Fuchs .

Inscriptions

Around the shoulder - below the crown - ran a three-line inscription in Gothic letters:

"Guilelmus, AUGUSTISSIMUS IMPERATOR Germanorum, REX Borussorum PIE MEMOR coelestis auxilii accepti IN GERENDO FELICISSIME CONFICIENDOQUE NUPERRIMO, BELLO GALLICO, INSTAURATO IMPERIO GERMANICO, bellica TORMENTA CAPTIVA AERIS QUINQUAGINTA MILLIA Pondo IUSSIT CONFLIARI IN CAMPANAM SUSPENDENDAM IN HAC ADMIR Andae Structurae AEDE EXAEDIFICATIONI TANDEM PROXIMA.
CUI VICTORIOSISSIMI PRINCIPIS PIETISSIMAE VOLUNTATI OBSECUTA SOCIETAS PERFICIENDO HUIC TEMPLO METROPOLITANO CONSTITUTA FG PIO P. IX. V. PONTIFICI ROMANO PAULO MELCHERS ARCHIEP. COLONIES. AD MDCCCLXXIV. "

" Wilhelm , the most illustrious German Emperor and King of Prussia, in pious memory of the heavenly help which he received in the successful leadership and termination of the recent French war, after the reestablishment of the German Empire from captured guns weighing 50,000 Pound ordered a bell to be poured, which was to be hung on this splendid church, which was finally close to being expanded.
In accordance with such pious will of the victorious prince, the association founded for the completion of this cathedral had it built under the Roman Pope Pius IX. and the Archbishop of Cologne Paul Melchers , in the year of the Lord 1874. "

On the front flank was a relief of St. Peter , including the following inscription:

“VOCE MEA COELI POPULO DUM NUNTIO SORTES
SURSU CORDA VOLANT AEMULA VOE SUA.
PATRONUS QUI VOCE MEA TEMPLI ATRIA PANDIS
JANITOR ET COELI LIMINA PANDE SIMUL. ”

“I announce the heavenly message to the people with my voice,
the souls swing, join in full of enthusiasm.
You who open the halls of the temple with my voice, open
heaven's door, heavenly porter, at the same time. "

Opposite this was an image of the German Reich coat of arms, under which the following inscription was written:

"I am called the imperial bell, I
praise the emperor's honor, I stand in a holy vantage point , I implore the German Reich,
That peace and defense may be granted to him!"

Name relatives

Germany

Austria

  • Imperial bell from 1845 (215 cm, 6,374 kg, g sharp 0 ) in the Church of Our Lady in Kitzbühel. It is considered to be the most beautiful bell in Tyrol . It was originally created by Josef Georg Miller for the Innsbruck Cathedral (then still the parish church) as a casting around the cracked large bell. However , it was not accepted because of a blemish - a dent in the hood caused by a falling brick - and also because the strike tone was about a semitone too high . Miller had to pay the price for the metal made available and also to hand over the models specially made for the bell decorations. He then tried to sell the bell elsewhere, contenting himself with the pure material value as the price. In 1847 the bell was finally acquired for Kitzbühel. It was only given its name Imperial Bell during the First World War , as a special decree of the Emperor spared it from being handed over for war purposes. Incidentally , it is confusingly similar to the Innsbruck cathedral bell, which was ultimately cast by Johann Grassmayr . Both have the same bells and almost the same inscriptions, because Grassmayr used the same models as Miller. Weight and size are also almost the same.

Italy

See also

literature

  • Construction company for electr. Enclosures Ernst & F. Wiebel (ed.): The bells and the chimes of the cathedral in Cologne. Ernst & F. Wiebel, Mönchengladbach 1909.
  • Wilhelm Kaltenbach: The former imperial bell of Cologne Cathedral . In: Willy Weyres & Herbert Rode (eds.): Kölner Domblatt - Yearbook of the Central Cathedral Building Association 38/39. Episode . Bachem, Cologne 1974, pp. 121-146.
  • Martin Seidler: The Cologne cathedral bells . 2nd Edition. Cologne Cathedral, Cologne 2000.
  • Arnold Wolff : Timeline of the history of the Zentral-Dombauverein and the cathedral construction since 1794. In: Kölner Domblatt 1965/1966, 25th episode, pp. 13–70.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Arnold Wolff : Timeline of the history of the Central Cathedral Building Association and the building of the Cathedral since 1794, p. 44.
  2. ↑ Imperial Bell; Cologne Cathedral , accessed on November 10, 2017.
  3. ^ A b Arnold Wolff : Timeline of the history of the Central Cathedral Building Association and the building of the Cathedral since 1794, p. 45.
  4. ↑ Arnold Wolff: Timeline for the history of the Central Cathedral Building Association and the building of the Cathedral since 1794, pp. 45–46.
  5. ↑ a b c Arnold Wolff : Timeline of the history of the Central Cathedral Building Association and the building of the Cathedral since 1794, p. 46.
  6. ^ Arnold Wolff : Timeline of the history of the Central Cathedral Building Association and the building of the Cathedral since 1794, p. 52.
  7. ^ A b c Arnold Wolff : Timeline for the history of the Central Cathedral Building Association and the building of the Cathedral since 1794, p. 55.
  8. ↑ Construction company for electr. Attachments Ernst & F. Wiebel (eds.): The bells and the chimes of the cathedral in Cologne, pp. 19-20.
  9. ↑ a b Construction company for electr. Attachments Ernst & F. Wiebel (eds.): The bells and the chimes of the cathedral in Cologne, p. 23.
  10. ^ Arnold Wolff : Timeline of the history of the Central Cathedral Building Association and the building of the Cathedral since 1794, p. 56.
  11. ↑ Construction company for electr. Enclosures Ernst & F. Wiebel (ed.): The bells and the chimes of the cathedral in Cologne, p. 21.
  12. ↑ a b Construction company for electr. Attachments Ernst & F. Wiebel (eds.): The bells and the chimes of the cathedral in Cologne, p. 22.
  13. ^ Jörg Wernisch: Bell customer of Austria . Journal-Verlag, Lienz 2006.