Walterkehmen Church

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Walterkehmen Church
(Großwaltersdorf Church)
Кирха Валтеркемена
Construction year: 1717 / 1925-1926
Inauguration: 1717/1926
Client: Evangelical Parish Walterkehmen
( Church Province East Prussia , Church of the Old Prussian Union )
Location: 54 ° 30 '4.8 "  N , 22 ° 17' 45.6"  E Coordinates: 54 ° 30 '4.8 "  N , 22 ° 17' 45.6"  E
Location: Olchowatka
Kaliningrad , Russia
Purpose: Evangelical Lutheran Parish Church
Local community: Not available anymore.
The building is not owned by the Church

The church in Walterkehmen (1938–1946: Großwaltersdorf , today Olchowatka ) is a building destroyed in 1914 and rebuilt in 1925/1926, which served the population in the parish of the former East Prussian town until 1945 . The place is today in the Russian Oblast Kaliningrad .

Geographical location

Today's Olchowatka is located on the Rominte (Russian: Krasnaja), twelve kilometers southeast of the former and present district town of Gussew (Gumbinnen) . The former German Reichsstrasse 132 and today's trunk road (21A-011) Gussew– Gołdap (Goldap) runs through the village , from which a side road (27K-327) to Nowostroika or Jasnaja Poljana (Trakehnen) runs through the town. branches off. There is no longer a train connection .

Church building

A church was built in Walterkehmen in 1717, which had to be thoroughly repaired in 1753. The wooden roof turret was once crowned with an eagle . The building was a rectangular solid construction . In 1855 the interior was expanded.

The interior of the church with its surrounding galleries had a vaulted ceiling painted in the manner of a cassette in the central nave, while the ceilings above the aisles were kept flat. Altar and pulpit formed a whole. The organ was on the west gallery.

The church was destroyed during the Battle of Gumbinnen in 1914. It could only be rebuilt in 1925/1926. In the meantime, the community used an emergency church designed by Hans Scharoun .

The church roof was damaged in the battles of World War II and was only replaced by a new covering after 1945. The building is still used today as a compound feed store, after the windows were walled up for this purpose. The southern porch has been destroyed and the sacristy to the east has been removed to make way for a motor vehicle access.

Due to the external use, the building was at least preserved, but cannot be used for its original purpose in its current condition.

mausoleum

Immediately by the church are the remains of a mausoleum that dates back to before the First World War and was built as a burial place by a Walterkehmen couple. During the war years, Russian soldiers looted the coffins. Attempts have been made to restore the small building since the 1990s.

Parish

The Protestant parish was established in Walterkehmen as early as 1607, but it did not have its own church until 1717. The parish, whose office was continuously occupied from 1608 to 1945, belonged to the Gumbinnen parish in the church province of East Prussia of the Church of the Old Prussian Union until 1945 . In 1925 it counted 4600 parishioners who lived in more than 30 places, towns and places of residence in the parish . The majority of the population was of the Lutheran tradition, Reformed church members were assigned to the Neustadt Church in Gumbinnen .

Escape and expulsion of the local population and the anti-church religious policy of the Soviet Union let church life in the newly named Olchowatka collapse.

Only in the 1990s did new church life emerge in the Kaliningrad Oblast. Olchowatka is now in the catchment area of ​​the Evangelical Lutheran congregation in Dubrawa (Buylien , 1938 to 1946 Schulzenwalde) , which belongs to the Kaliningrad (Königsberg) provost of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of European Russia .

Parish places

The following places belonged to the parish of the Walterkehmen church until 1945:

Place name Change name from
1938 to 1946
Russian name Place name Change name from
1938 to 1946
Russian name
Old Maygunischken Alder Ground Axjonowo Neuhof Buylien Neuhof Schulzenwalde
Austinlauken Austfelde New Maygunischken Axjonowo
* Budszedszen
1936–38: Buschedschen
Palatinate Forest Vishnevka Pillkallen Hoheneck Tolstovo
* Buylien Schulzenwalde Dubrawa * Praßlauken Praßfeld Muravyovo
Drutischken Palatinate town * Ribs Jägershaugen
Emilienhof Rödszen
1936–38: Rödschen
Röden Gajewo
Ernstberg Sample leak Brückental (East Pr.)
* Threads Ryazankovka * Schestocks Peterstal Shipownikovo
Great Tellitzkehmen Tellrode * Smack Birkenhöhe (East Pr.)
Jock Kirpichnoye Keep quiet Schweizerau
Jodszen
1936–38: Jodschen
Schwarzenau (East Pr.) Dworiki * Tendon tendons Heinsort Sernovoye
Yogurt Juergendorf Dzerzhinskoye Surminnen
Claws Brauersdorf (East Pr.) Szurgupchen
1936–38: Schurgupchen
Sprindort Deschnjowo
Klein Tellitzkehmen Klein Tellrode Walterkehmen Großwaltersdorf Olchowatka
Marienhöhe * Warsaw laying Laurinshof
* Matzutkake Matzhausen Rechitsa * Wusterwitz

Pastor

Between 1608 and 1945, 18 Protestant clergymen officiated at the Walterkehmen church:

  • Christoph Cleber, from 1608
  • Christoph Fabricius, 1612/1638
  • Jacob Pfeiffer, from 1644
  • Melchior Schwabe, 1650–1663
  • Ernst Ditzel, 1664–1692
  • Georg Petri, 1683–1688
  • Jacob Perkuhn, 1690-1707
  • Alexander Feiff, 1707-1708
  • Philipp Ruhig, 1708–1749
  • Johann Heinrich Kämper, 1747–1779
  • Johann Gottfried Jordan, 1779–1822
  • Johann Gottfried Zippel, 1810–1811
  • Georg Gottl. Wilhelm Wegener, 1822–1863
  • Wilhelm Justus Zippel, 1856–1888
  • Hermann Adam F. Blaskowitz, 1888–1906
  • Paulus Kolbe, 1906
  • Otto Korn, 1906–1916
  • Paul Hoffmann, 1916–1945

Church records

Part of the parish registers of the Walterkehmen church (Großwaltersdorf) has been preserved and is being kept at the German Central Office for Genealogy in Leipzig :

  • Baptisms: 1834-1866
  • Weddings: 1834 to 1874
  • Burials: 1834 to 1874.

Individual evidence

  1. a b Olchowatka - Walterkehmen / Großwaltersdorf
  2. Church and inn in Walterkehmen (historical photo)
  3. Walther Hubatsch , History of the Protestant Church in East Prussia , Volume 2: Pictures of East Prussian Churches , Göttingen, 1968, p. 97, figs. 411–412
  4. ^ Remnants of the Walterkehmen church
  5. Кирха Валтеркемена - The Walterkehmen Church (with photos from 2012)
  6. The mausoleum by the church
  7. a b Walther Hubatsch, History of the Protestant Church in East Prussia , Volume 3: Documents , Göttingen, 1968, p. 480
  8. Evangelical Lutheran Provosty Kaliningrad ( Memento of the original dated August 29, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.propstei-kaliningrad.info
  9. A * indicates a school location
  10. Friedwald Moeller, Old Prussian Protestant Pastor's Book from the Reformation to the Expulsion in 1945 , Hamburg, 1968, pp. 146–146