St. Ludwig College

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Map with the location of the St. Ludwig College
Southeast view of the college around 1910
Terrain sketch by the architect
The partially destroyed south-east wing of the college in 2009
Southwest view of the college (May 2013)
As a reminder of the Franciscan monastery of St. Ludwig, only the rebuilt steeple remains (view May 2018)
Monastery cemetery (May 2013)
Rhododendron blossom in the former monastery park (May 2018)

The St. Ludwig College was a Franciscan monastery and boarding school in the Dutch province of Limburg in Vlodrop . It was in the De Meinweg National Park, right on the German border near Dalheim-Rödgen . The previously listed building complex was owned by the Maharishi European Research University (MERU) and was demolished in 2015.

A college of the same name of the same order existed in Bonn until 1984 , at the monastery on Brüdergasse since the early 1960s, and from 1969 in a new building in Bonn- Endenich . The founder was the Minorite Father Diocesan Chaplain Damian Mai, who was also the rector of the college until 1977. There have been reports of child sexual abuse at the St. Ludwig College in Bonn.

History of the college

In the years of Bismarck's Kulturkampf between 1872 and 1887, German orders emigrated to Belgium and the Netherlands , including the Franciscans of the Saxon Franciscan Province ( Saxonia ). Saxonia had to relocate its boarding school to Watersleyde in the Netherlands in 1876 and to Harreveld near Winterswijk in 1882 . Various branches at Sittard , Geleen and Liège were gradually given up again. Even after the cultural struggle laws expired in 1887, the German order province of the Franciscans wanted to hold onto a foreign settlement in Catholic Limburg out of caution and acquired the 158 hectare area near the border in Vlodrop from Julius Graf von Schaesberg Thannheim at the beginning of the 20th century . After only four years of construction, in 1909 the "Seraphische Kolleg" moved from Harreveld to the college school in Vlodrop, which had been newly built at the instigation of the Franciscan Father Wenceslaus Straussfeld . The boarding school had space for 280 students. School and boarding school remained, apart from an interruption due to the war, until 1979. The courses offered were primarily aimed at male students from Germany; In the years before and after the Second World War , the college was recognized by the German school authorities as a German School Abroad and was attended by an average of 200 students. Between 1909 and 1940 and 1951 and 1977, around 3007 students attended the school.

architecture

The friar Quintilian Borren designed the monumental neo-Gothic brick building with central projections and corner towers as an architect . The main entrance was in the middle of the south-east front and was highlighted by a polygonal tower. It also served as the portal of the monastery church on the central axis. The entire, strictly symmetrically constructed complex was divided into a monastery and college area as well as a rear, flatter economic section. The size of the original building, which was unusual for the Franciscan order, can be measured by the fact that in its heyday it had its own railway connection to the Iron Rhine via the narrow-gauge railway . For example, up to 300 tons of coke , which were necessary to heat the building, were transported annually via this connection  . The roof area of ​​the college building was 17,000 m². In Limburg, the complex was “one of the few remaining significant, monumental monuments of ecclesiastical building from the 20th century in the aftermath of the Prussian culture war” and at the same time marked a “significant turning point in German church history”.

Sale, forfeiture and demolition

Southwest view with residential containers (2008)

After the school was closed, the property and building were sold in 1979 for 19.5 million guilders to the Dutch state, which initially intended to set up a police school. In 1984 the property was sold to the Stichting Maharishi European Research University, MERU , an organization of Transcendental Meditation , for 1.9 million guilders . On the fenced-in area is the former residence of Maharishi Mahesh Yogis , the founder of the movement, who died here in February 2008, as well as villa-like buildings that serve as the residence and administrative headquarters of the organization's employees.

The MERU set up its international administration on the premises. In 1998 the demolition of the old buildings was requested. The lack of eastward orientation of the building was given as the reason for the demolition request: one of the building rules of the ancient Indian Sthapathya-Veda , to which the MERU refers.

Expert opinions had also shown that the renovation of the former Franciscan monastery would have cost between 67 and 100 million euros.

In the event of a demolition ban, the MERU Foundation had threatened to move to India, Mexico or Austria. In the second chamber of the Dutch parliament, the Christian Democratic CDA and the right-wing liberal VVD parliamentary group had spoken out in favor of the demolition. They feared financial disadvantages for the Province of Limburg.

Rubble from the St. Ludwig College

On September 22, 1998, the Roerdalen magistrate approved the demolition of the monastery. Various public and private institutions and associations appealed against this decision. The administrative court of Roermond dismissed the lawsuit on September 4, 2014, while the citizens' initiative raised another objection. On December 19, 2014, the objection was dismissed by the State Council , one of the highest courts in the Netherlands. The last possible instance - the European Court of Justice - no longer wanted to appeal to the citizens' initiative.

The demolition work was completed on April 16, 2015. Only the remaining spire reminds of the building.

Others

On the cemetery of the monastery are deceased teachers, students, one in World War II downed Norwegian fighter pilot and the founder of the monastery, Wenceslaus Straussfeld buried. In the vicinity of the border crossing there is an information board about the history of the college. The romantic park of the former monastery with ponds, pavilions and rhododendron bushes - like the cemetery outside of the fenced area of ​​the MERU - is a wonderful place of silence and relaxation.

literature

  • Gisela Fleckenstein: The Franciscans in the Rhineland 1875-1918 . Werl 1992 (on the foundation of the college)
  • Rita Müllejans-Dickmann : A “cross-border” architectural monument . On the building history of the former St. Ludwig Franciscan College in Vlodrop (NL). In: Arbeitsgemeinschaft Grenzland Kreis Heinsberg-Limburg: Neighborhood in the border area. No. 3 (1997). Pp. 1-5.
  • Ulrich Willmes: The buildings by Br. Quintilian Borren with special consideration of the St. Ludwig College in Vlodrop. In: Begging Order and City. Mendicant orders and urban life in the Middle Ages and in modern times. Werl 1992. ISBN 3-87163-188-4 .
  • Kolleg St. Ludwig: old and new music for wind instruments and percussion, folk songs, lyrics on and on. 1977 (long-playing record with text supplement)
  • Josef Dahmen: St. Ludwig's monastery and college near Dalheim In: Local calendar of the Erkelenzer Lande for the year 1962. Erkelenz 1962. pp. 163–165.

Web links

Commons : Kolleg St. Ludwig  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Meditating out of ruins ( Memento from May 22, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Newspaper for Aachen, May 29, 2007
  2. ^ - Assaults also on St. Ludwig in Endenich . In: General-Anzeiger Bonn . March 18, 2010 ( general-anzeiger-bonn.de [accessed November 20, 2018]).
  3. ↑ - Traces of a "soul spoiler" . In: General-Anzeiger Bonn . March 23, 2010 ( general-anzeiger-bonn.de [accessed November 20, 2018]).
  4. ^ Frankfurter Rundschau: Franciscan Order: Father kissed pupils . In: Frankfurter Rundschau . ( fr.de [accessed on November 20, 2018]).
  5. ↑ Resigning from the church after abuse cases - How about the investigation? In: General-Anzeiger Bonn . February 2, 2015 ( general-anzeiger-bonn.de [accessed November 20, 2018]).
  6. ↑ Rita Müllejans-Dickmann: A “cross-border” architectural monument . On the building history of the former St. Ludwig Franciscan College in Vlodrop (NL). In: Arbeitsgemeinschaft Grenzland Kreis Heinsberg-Limburg: Neighborhood in the border area. No. 3 (1997). P. 5.
  7. ^ Aachener Nachrichten online, April 24, 2008
  8. ↑ a b c St. Ludwig monastery before the demolition - citizens' initiative is online on Rheinische Post, December 24, 2014.
  9. ↑ Is the Meru Foundation moving out?  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Rheinische Post online, August 12, 2008@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.rp-online.de  
  10. ↑ Will St. Ludwig be torn down because there is not enough money? Aachener Zeitung online, August 13, 2008.
  11. ^ Controversy over St. Ludwig Abbey before the Rheinische Post court online, March 22, 2013.
  12. ↑ Right gaat accord met sloopvergunning St. Ludwig Dagblad De Limburger / Limburgs Dagblad, 4th September 2014.
  13. ↑ The end of the old St. Ludwig Monastery RPonline, April 17, 2015.

Coordinates: 51 ° 9 '  N , 6 ° 9'  E