Lübeck railway gate
The Lübeck Railway Gate was the last newly built Lübeck city gate .
location
The railway gate was on today's Possehlstrasse , right next to today's Wieland Bridge near the northern edge of the Buniamshof .
history
During the construction of the Lübeck-Büchener Railway in 1850, the old city fortifications at the Commis Bastion were cut in order to lead the embankment (since 1920 Possehlstrasse) through the ramparts to the first Lübeck train station on the Wallpeninsula . According to the opinion of the time, it was imperative to provide this passage with a guarded gate, because in the middle of the 19th century the evening gate was still in force in the city to maintain night security; In addition, the four city gates that had existed up to that point were the only access points to the actual city area, which made it possible to collect the excise duties on imported goods without any gaps .
At the same time as the construction work on the railway line, a military post was set up at the passage to control access and to ensure that only railway staff and other authorized persons entered and left the city at this point. After completing the embankment, the actual gate was added. It consisted of a two-wing iron gate above the track, which was only opened at the signal of a station attendant in order to allow departing or arriving trains to pass. Pedestrians outside the nocturnal gate lock could also pass through the gate through two side gates. A fence reaching to the moat made it impossible to bypass the railway gate.
A brick guard house was only built in 1854 , which had an open vestibule to protect the rifles from the weather; In the gable above the Lübeck eagle was attached as a clearly visible national emblem, as it was a military building . The railway company contributed 1,100 marks of the construction costs of 5900 Courantmarks and in return acquired the right to use part of the building as a station keeper's house . The guard stationed at the railway gate was nine men strong.
In 1863, due to the double-track expansion of the previously single-track line, extensions were made at the gate; Another iron gate was built for the additional track. The gate lock was lifted on May 1, 1864, but the excise duty remained. Therefore the guard at the railway gate remained, the pedestrian gates of which were still closed at night. A little later, with reference to an accident on January 17 of the same year, in which a train had rammed the gate, which was not open sufficiently wide, the railway company asked that the city remove the gates above the tracks. The application was granted on June 4th, so that only the pedestrian gates remained; nothing changed about the closing times.
Religious curiosity
The removal of the Gleistore caused an unforeseen religious problem: On August 15, 1867, the Lübeck Rabbi Alexander Sussmann Adler wrote to the Senate and explained that the permanent gap that had arisen in the wall was causing serious difficulties for believing Jews . A completely walled city could be interpreted as a single apartment, and within this apartment numerous activities were permitted that would otherwise have been prohibited by the Sabbath rules . Due to the disappearance of the gate wings, there was no longer a complete wall, which made life on the Sabbath considerably more difficult. Adler suggested that the railway company erect symbolic wooden gate wings at the side of the embankment at the expense of the Jewish community, which could not be closed, but were sufficient to comply with religious regulations. The Senate approved this proposal and on September 7th instructed the railroad management to build the purely ritual gate immediately.
When the railway embankment was rebuilt in 1870, this dummy gate had to be removed; the Senate gave permission for this, but expressly reserved the right to arrange for it to be rebuilt in a suitable location should the need arise. But the Jewish community did not express such a wish.
End of the gate
In 1874 the excise was also lifted, so that the guarded pedestrian gates no longer served any purpose. The post was withdrawn, the bars removed; the guard remained unused and was finally rented in 1887 to the Lübeck-Büchener Eisenbahn, which could now use the entire building as a station keeper's house.
When the new central station was built in 1905, the railway line was relocated and closed in 1908; the tracks have been removed. There was therefore no longer any need for a railway keeper's house at this point. The guard building saw various uses in the following years, was in a neglected condition in 1934 and was later torn down as the last remnant of the railway gate.
swell
- J. Warncke: Das Eisenbahntor in Lübeck , in: Heimatblätter - Mitteilungen des Verein für Heimatschutz Lübeck , No. 112, May 24, 1934. Charles Coleman Publishing House, Lübeck
Coordinates: 53 ° 51 ′ 33.9 " N , 10 ° 40 ′ 47" E