Lübeck house numbers
The Lübeck house numbers have been assigned since the late 18th century . The system on which the house numbers are based has been fundamentally changed several times.
State before 1796
As in all of Europe, there was no concept of systematic recording and numbering of buildings in Lübeck for centuries. Instead, since the city was founded, the individual houses had their own names (see Lübeck house names ), but these were subject to changes and were not regulated or permanently set. Street names developed early and have been documented in writing since the 13th century , but were not identified by street signs. It was therefore difficult for outsiders to find a house without the help of someone who knew the place.
The area of today's old town , in which the city's population was concentrated from the Middle Ages until well into the modern era , was divided into quarters for tax collection , the registration of citizens obliged to serve in the civic companies and other administrative purposes, but no further quarters within them Subdivision was made.
The numbering from 1796
At the end of the 18th century, it increasingly proved to be a hindrance that the houses in the urban area were not clearly distinguished and labeled according to a uniform system. The fire insurance system that had existed since 1761, for example, required house numbering, as did the increasingly complex administration of mortgages .
A decree issued by the council on December 9, 1795 stipulated that the city's buildings should be numbered. The numbering system was based on the division of the quarters: In each of the four quarters, all main buildings were numbered consecutively, each starting with 1. The house numbers were therefore not related to the streets in which the respective house was located, but to the respective quarter. The number also did not reveal the location of the house within a street; therefore it was not easily possible for non-residents to orientate themselves by house numbers and to find a certain house. The number alone was not enough to identify a building, as it could be used up to four times; only the additional naming of the quarter created clarity. The combination of house number and street name alone could lead to misunderstandings for those with no knowledge, as some streets led through more than one quarter or the middle of the street formed the border between two quarters. In the case of Breite Straße , both cases were true, so the numbering of all four quarters was used here along the same street, depending on the section and side of the street.
The east side of Kl. Burg Str. In the [Jac.] Obi [Q.] uartier
The east side of Mühlenstraße in the [Joh.] Annis [Quart.] Ier
The west side of the Kleine Burgstrasse in the [M.] aria [Mgd.] = Magdalenen [Qu.] Artier
The numbering was carried out at the beginning of 1796. It was limited to today's old town area; the areas outside the city fortifications, which were only sparsely populated at that time, were not recorded. Church properties, including (until 1803) the properties of the cathedral chapter in the cathedral district , were excluded from the numbering. Ancillary buildings as well as houses in corridors and courtyards that belonged to main buildings were not given their own numbers.
The numbering from 1812
After Lübeck was incorporated into the French Empire on January 1, 1811, the prefect of the department of the Elbe estuary ordered on January 16, 1812 that Lübeck should receive a new system of house numbers. Orientation numbers were introduced based on the French model , in which the houses on each individual street were numbered consecutively starting with 1 and one side of the street was given the odd number, the other the corresponding even number. Outbuildings and corridors were given special numbers. This numbering was implemented in mid-1812.
The numbering from 1820
Even after the final end of French rule and the regaining of sovereignty in December 1813, the French numbering system initially remained in use. Like all remnants of the occupation, which were quickly erased, the house numbers were also the subject of rejection. On January 15, 1820, the council ordered the reintroduction of the old, neighborhood-related house number system, which was carried out in June 1820.
However, independent outbuildings as well as the corridors were now also included and the former church properties that fell to the city in 1804 were also included in the numbering. As a result, almost all of Lübeck's houses were given a different number in 1820 than they had been assigned in 1796.
The numbering from 1884
In the course of the 19th century, the district house numbers proved more and more impractical. Not only did they not offer any orientation aid to strangers, they were also systematically restricted to the narrowly limited area of the old town island. Since the middle of the century, however, the suburbs grew slowly, then faster and faster since the lifting of the gate on May 1, 1864. The city center could no longer contain the rapidly growing population in the wake of industrialization and the founding of an empire . Until then, life outside the city gates had been the absolute exception, but with the emergence of extensive residential areas, it has now become the norm. However, street names did not even exist in the suburbs, which meant that extremely vague addresses were inevitably used in the Lübeck address books for these areas, and even after street names had been assigned there was no house numbering system that could be transferred to the suburbs.
Since the situation became intolerable, the Senate issued an ordinance on May 20, 1884, with which the system of street-by-street orientation numbers, in which one side of the street has the odd counterpart and the other the even counterpart, was introduced for the whole of Lübeck, i.e. city center and suburbs . This numbering system is still valid today.
Hardly noticeable remains of the old numbering have survived. The cast iron street signs introduced in the middle of the 19th century can still be found above the doorways to many corridors and courtyards. In some cases the old numbers were recognizable and replaced by the new number painted on in 1884. Occasionally, the numbers that happened to match the new house number were not removed. Cases in which houses in the old town have both the house number introduced in 1884 and the one given in 1820 are even rarer.
In practice, the old house numbers no longer play a role; they are only important for historical and genealogical research.
Sources and literature
- Archives of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck: Sources for house research (PDF; 322 kB)
- Wilhelm Brehmer : Lübeck house names . HG Rathgens, Lübeck 1890
- Wilhelm Brehmer: The street names in the city of Lübeck and its suburbs . HG Rathgens, Lübeck 1889
- Max Hoffmann: The streets of the city of Lübeck . Association for Lübeck History and Archeology, 1909
- Willibald Leo von Lütgendorff-Leinburg : Lübeck at the time of our grandparents, part II . Publishing house Gebrüder Borchers, Lübeck, 1931
