Lützeler Volkspark
The Lützeler Volkspark on the Petersberg in the Koblenz district of Lützel was built from 1932 on the remains of the former Bubenheimer Flesche fortress , which was deconsolidated after the First World War in the 1920s along with the other works of the Feste Franz system . The park and the cemetery below are now framed by the following streets: Am Volkspark - Bodelschwinghstraße - Am Petersberg - Andernacher Straße - Am Franzosenfriedhof.
history
According to plans by the Municipal Garden Authority, including the remains of the fortress, a public park was built on the approximately 14-hectare landscape of rubble , which according to contemporary reports was one of the most beautiful gardens in the city of Koblenz. The plans for the establishment of a park on the former fortress grounds can be proven to date back to 1921. Tough takeover negotiations with the Reich and the ongoing claims by the French occupation delayed the start of the work until 1932 and the city of Koblenz even took over the site until January 1, 1934.
Structure and design
For the execution of the work on the park, the city initially used the voluntary labor service from July 1932 . The working day of the predominantly young participants, including the support program (sports, training courses, film screenings and the like) lasted nine to ten hours a day. The labor service was initially housed in the former buildings of the nearby field artillery barracks, where the food they had brought with them was eaten together at lunchtime. Probably from October 1932 onwards, all participants received a warm meal every day in the nearby training barracks . Work was done Monday through Friday, Saturday was reserved for cleaning the equipment and paying wages. The measures were limited in terms of number of participants and duration and were extended and expanded several times.
To support the leveling work, which was mainly done by hand, the city also rented a light railroad from January 1933 to the end of October 1935 . The men removed the blasting sites and leveled the area, removed the remains of the fortress and later used the stones obtained in this way for example. B. for flower beds. The reduit of the former fortress was repaired and initially used as an office, lounge and warehouse. After the National Socialists seized power , the Lützel construction site went into the care of the Association for the Retraining of Voluntary Workers on April 24, 1933 , a forerunner of what was later to become the Reich Labor Service . From this point on, the measure was continued in the closed camp, the participants were now housed in rooms specially prepared for this purpose in the former corps clothing office. Since the underground remains of the fortress had delayed the work considerably, the blasting was resumed in 1934. It is therefore difficult to say which remains of the fortress are still underground.
It is not known when the work of the labor service at the Volkspark was finished and the municipal garden department took over. During the entire construction phase, around 1,000 unemployed people worked on the Volkspark, moving 110,000 m³ of earth and breaking 11,000 m³ of quarry stones from the old fortress substance and then rebuilding it. According to the Rhein-Zeitung, the total cost of the project was one million marks. After four years of construction, on June 13, 1936, the park was officially opened by the then mayor of Koblenz Wittgen . On November 18 of the same year, a memorial for the war dead of the Lützel gymnastics club, presumably built on the lower park area, was inaugurated. The Reduit of the former Flesche has housed a restaurant since 1937, and a wintering house for plants was built in the mortar battery in 1938 . One of the underground corridors had been converted into an air raid shelter in 1938.
World War II and post-war period
During the Second World War , an anti-aircraft gun was set up on the Reduit. Due to the proximity of the Lützel freight station, the park was badly devastated by bombs during air raids , and the reduit and the mortar battery were damaged. According to a report in the Koblenzer Rhein-Zeitung, more than 120 bombs fell on the site; in the attack on December 10, 1944 alone, there were 40 together with Mayener Strasse. After the war, the people of Lützel initially used the park to grow vegetables in 1946. After the major war damage was repaired in 1949, the park remained a wilderness for many years, the reconstruction only took place after 1957 in a simplified form. The lower part facing the railway was separated, and the Lützeler Friedhof was built here as early as 1950 . After the war damage to the Reduit had been repaired in 1948-52, the restaurant reopened its doors under the old management in 1953 and subsequently became known nationwide as a dance hall and beat club.
Demolition of the redoubt and redesign
In 1967 the landlady finally canceled the lease, so that the building was vacant for a longer period of time. In the period that followed, young rowdies demolished and ravaged the Reduit. In order to get the problem under control, the Koblenz city council decided to demolish it in May 1969, which should also be the starting shot for the redesign of the site with a café, mini golf and sports field. In October 1969, the building was finally razed to the ground and the rubble was heaped up to form a hill that was soon to be used for a summer toboggan run. The expansion of the park, however, was not carried out. Due to the unclear factual situation, it was controversial for years whether the reduit had survived at least in parts under the hill. So expressed z. B. Hans-Rudolf Neumann, Udo Liessem and others, before finally some private photos emerged at the end of the 1990s that undoubtedly prove the complete removal of the building.
outlook
As part of the preparations for the 2011 Federal Horticultural Show in Koblenz, consideration was given to upgrading the Volkspark by building a lookout tower. This tower, a maximum of 30 m high, was to be built on the spot where the Bubenheimer Flesche Reduit was forty years ago. The plan was to level the area for this and thus remove the debris from the structure. The aim of a student competition advertised for this purpose was the planning of a multifunctional building: On the one hand, it should serve as a viewing platform from which the view of the Koblenz core city and the Ehrenbreitstein festival can be enjoyed and, on the other hand, it should mark the northern entrance to the city as a symbolic building . First place went to the design Das Band by Nathalie Jenner (TU Darmstadt). In all likelihood, however, the planned redesign will not be implemented.
Description of the plant
Today only photos remind of the original Volkspark from the 1930s, as the facility was completely redesigned after the war. According to an initial plan by the garden authority from 1921, it was to be a mixture of sports facilities, recreational opportunities and objects for viewing. In 1924 this plan was overturned in favor of a sports field with a cycling track. Both ambitious projects did not come to fruition due to the city's poor financial situation.
When it opened in 1936, Mayor Wittgen described the new park as follows: The entire area of the Volkspark [...] is divided into the large central area in front of the Reduit, the large rose garden behind the circular fortress and the deepened children's playground with the pergula to the north and the large staircases, the special flower garden in the old moat, the rock garden at the main entrance and the bird sanctuary in the open wooded areas on Andernacher Straße. A model school garden will be added later. And further: memorial plaques, sculptures, architectures, cleverly arranged in the surrounding flora, surprise everywhere. One of these boards with a quote from Alexander von Humboldt was donated by the labor service involved in the construction. It read: What nature created in eternally awakening beauty, man arranges in the garden according to the rules of art. The main entrance to the park was on today's Bodelschwinghstraße in the direction of the Koblenz transmitter . The paths in the upper part of the Volkspark were laid out oval, according to which the course of the street Am Volkspark was oriented. Today's circular route of the facility still reminds a little of this shape.
Nothing remains of the old glory. The redesign of the Volkspark according to plans by the horticultural inspector Mutzbauer at the end of the 1950s left behind, due to the separation and rededication of the lower part, a trunk park in a natural, relaxed style with green areas and groups of trees . Of the sculptures described, only the shell fountain, which originally stood in the extension of the Flesche's right ditch and was located in the Rhine complex of the city of Koblenz between the castle and the government building , has evidently survived . In 2009 it had to give way because of the BUGA construction work, whether the well, which is in dire need of restoration, will return to its old location (or will be set up elsewhere) is questionable. The whereabouts of the other panels, architectures, etc. is unknown. In the park itself there are no more such “embellishments” today. All that has been preserved is a memorial plaque in the former moat on today's Lützel cemetery, which presumably dates from the time of the Volkspark. It commemorates the real teacher Friedrich Halter, who died in 1912 and who founded the Koblenz Animal Welfare Association in 1903.
literature
- Matthias Kellermann: From the fortress to the park: The Bubenheimer Flesche 1920–1969. In: Feste Kaiser Franz. On the history of the fortress and the Feste Franz system in Koblenz-Lützel. Festschrift for the 10th anniversary Feste Kaiser Franz eV, ed. from Feste Kaiser Franz eV, 2nd edition. Koblenz 2009, ISBN 978-3-934795-55-6 , pp. 81-98, here pp. 86-98.
- Matthias Kellermann: The voluntary labor service on the Bubenheimer Flesche. In: Elsbeth Andre, Jost Hausmann, Ludwig Linsmayer (ed.): Yearbook for West German regional history. Koblenz 2010, pp. 343-359.
- Matthias Kellermann: 75 years Lützeler Volkspark. On the history of the park in Koblenz-Lützel. published by Feste Kaiser Franz eV Koblenz 2011, ISBN 978-3-934795-87-7 .
- Matthias Kellermann: The Koblenz Volkspark instead of the Bubenheimer Flesche. In: German Society for Fortress Research (Hrsg.): Research and valuation of fortresses today. (= Fortress research. Volume 7). Regensburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-7954-3027-6 , pp. 99-106.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: Bauko 4 CP. Lookout tower on the Bubenheimer Flesche ), accessed on February 16, 2008.
- ↑ http://www.vmtubes.com/jsp/epctrl.jsp?con=vmtubes001008&cat=vmtubes000193&mod=vmtubes000061&pri=vmtubes&lng=0 , accessed on March 29, 2009.
- ↑ National Gazette . Edition Koblenz, No. 136, June 15, 1936: A people's park where a fortress once stood , quoted from: Kellermann: From the fortress to the park. P. 90.
- ↑ Koblenzer Volkszeitung. No. 136, June 15, 1936, 1, p. 2. Sheet: Flower paradise in the old fort.
- ^ Rhein-Zeitung. Edition Koblenz, March 9, 1950: 90,000 DM for the Volkspark , quoted from: Kellermann: Vom Festungswerk zur Parkanlage. P. 93.
Coordinates: 50 ° 22 ′ 27.8 " N , 7 ° 35 ′ 20.2" E