Carmelite Church (Koblenz)
The Karmeliterkirche was a Catholic church in the old town of Koblenz and at the same time the only baroque church in the city. It was in the 17th century as a church of the connected convent of Carmelite built. After the monastery was dissolved, the church was converted into a garrison church and the monastery buildings became a prison . The entire building complex was destroyed in late 1944 and removed in 1954.
history
Carmelite monastery
After the Thirty Years' War , Elector Karl Kaspar von der Leyen from Trier called the Carmelites to Koblenz. In 1654, the monastery Neuburg an der Donau sent brothers from the order of the Discalced Carmelites to the city. They built a monastery on the banks of the Rhine; the foundation stone was laid on October 31, 1658. The monastery was completed in 1673, the church belonging to it in 1687. The church tower could not even be completed until 1698.
With the secularization in French times, the Carmelites had to leave the monastery on August 27, 1802. The last prior of the Carmelites was Johann Hubertus Kewerig (Keverich, 1734–1807), an uncle of the composer Ludwig van Beethoven .
Carmelite Prison
Even after the Carmelite monastery was dissolved, the buildings were used as a prison. With the end of French rule in 1814, the administration passed into Prussian hands, who continued to operate the site as a royal prison . In the course of the National Socialist seizure of power in 1933, the prison u. a. Collection point for those from Koblenz who were arrested or arrested by the Secret State Police and who were taken into protective custody here.
From the monastery to the garrison church
After secularization, the monastery church was initially used as a food store, then as a shot foundry. The furnishings of the church (altars and pulpit) were given to other churches. At the end of August 1849 a fire destroyed the roof structure of the church and other parts of the interior. In this situation, Friedrich Wilhelm IV intervened and in 1852 initially determined that the former church should be set up as a simultaneous garrison church . On December 22, 1853, he finally handed the church over to the Catholic military community. The church was restored and new equipment was purchased. After the withdrawal of the German troops at the end of 1918, the Allies took over the church as a Catholic garrison church, which was later followed by the Wehrmacht in May 1937 .
Destruction in World War II
The Carmelite prison was destroyed together with the church in the air raids on Koblenz in autumn 1944 . However, the vaults and outer walls of the church were still preserved, so that it could have been rebuilt without major difficulties. However, since no security measures were taken, the ruins fell into disrepair. Despite resistance from the population and the preservation of monuments, it was eliminated in 1954. In place of the prison and church, buildings were then erected for today's Federal Office for Equipment, Information Technology and Use by the Federal Armed Forces and the Koblenz State Main Archive .
Memorial plaques
At the corner of Karmeliterstraße and Rheinstraße, a slate relief is a reminder of the Koblenz Carmelite monastery. The memorial with the text The Carmelite Monastery stood here from 1687 to 1944 and is the work of the Darmstadt artist Hermann Tomada . Right next to it there has been a memorial plaque from the Schoenstatt workshops since 1985 , which commemorates the internment of Father Josef Kentenich in the Carmelite prison.
Construction and equipment
The floor plan of the church corresponded to the then customary architectural style of the barefoot Carmelites. B. also at the Würzburg Carmelite Church , presumably a work of the master builder Antonio Petrini , or the Regensburg Carmelite Church can be found. The exterior of the Koblenz Carmelite Church was shaped like a basilica . It was a single-nave vaulted building with side chapels, a transept, a square choir with adjoining rooms and an attached transverse structure. The wooden galleries in the side aisles were probably built in during use as a garrison church. The tower attached to the south had a curved dome with a lantern. In contrast to the unadorned north facade (today Rheinstrasse) richly decorated west facade (today Karmeliterstrasse) was u. a. the main entrance and three figures of St. Joseph and the founder of the order, Saints Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross . An eight-part dome with eight arched windows with rich baroque framing , which was integrated into the roof structure and therefore not visible from the outside , rose above the crossing . Photos of the destroyed church reveal a staircase in front of the high altar, which presumably led to a crypt . The friars entered the monastery through two vaulted passages on the south-eastern side of the church.
With the secularization of the church, most of the furnishings were given away or put up for public auction. The marble main altar (with a more recent painting) is now in the parish church of Horchheim , and the pulpit came to Kesselheim . The renovation of the church after 1852, during which the tower was also restored according to the old model, was probably carried out by Ferdinand Nebel . The pieces of equipment that were newly acquired at the time were almost all destroyed in the war (or in the period afterwards). A baptismal font made of marble, perhaps designed by the important architect Johann Claudius von Lassaulx , came to the parish of St. Beatus on the Koblenz Karthaus, which was newly founded after the war . It was used as a flower pot for a long time, but was restored at the beginning of 2015 and placed in the parish church.
See also
literature
- Energieversorgung Mittelrhein GmbH (ed.): History of the city of Koblenz . Overall editing: Ingrid Bátori in conjunction with Dieter Kerber and Hans Josef Schmidt
- Vol. 1: From the beginning to the end of the electoral era . Theiss, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-8062-0876-X .
- Vol. 2: From the French city to the present . Theiss, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-8062-1036-5 .
- Helmut Kampmann: When stones speak. Memorial plaques and memorial plaques in Koblenz. Fuck-Verlag, Koblenz 1992, pp. 204-207. ISBN 3-9803142-0-0
- Fritz Michel: The art monuments of the Rhine province. The church monuments of the city of Koblenz , ed. by Paul Clemen, Düsseldorf 1937, pp. 283–288 (Die Kunstdenkmäler der Rheinprovinz. Twentieth volume. 1st section).
- Beate Dorfey, Petra Weiß: City Guide Koblenz. On the trail of National Socialism . ed. from the Koblenz City Archive and the Koblenz State Main Archive, Koblenz 2012, p. 45ff.
- Wolfgang Schütz: Koblenz heads. People from the city's history - namesake for streets and squares. Verlag für Werbung Blätter GmbH, Ed .: Bernd Weber, Mülheim-Kärlich 2005 (2nd revised and expanded edition), p. 276f.
Web links
- Carmelite monastery in: regionalgeschichte.net
Individual evidence
- ↑ The town of Ehrenbreitstein with its baroque Holy Cross Church was not incorporated into Koblenz until 1937. Occasionally one can read in the literature that it was the only Renaissance church in the city of Koblenz.
- ↑ Kampmann, p. 205.
- ↑ Kampmann, p. 207.
- ↑ Michel, p. 285.
- ↑ Michel, p. 285.
- ↑ After more than 60 years: a baptismal font set up in the parish church of St. Beatus ( memento from February 11, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) in: Pfarreigemeinschaft Koblenz-Moselweiß, January 27, 2015
Coordinates: 50 ° 21 ′ 35.2 ″ N , 7 ° 36 ′ 10.5 ″ E