Lee Barracks
 Lee Barracks
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| country | Germany | ||
| today |
Housing Mainz Federal Network Agency |
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| local community | Mainz | ||
| Coordinates : | 50 ° 0 ' N , 8 ° 13' E | ||
| Opened | 1937/38 | ||
| Old barracks names | |||
| 1938-1945 1945-1949 |
Kathen barracks Caserne Mangin |
 
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| Formerly stationed units | |||
| Field Artillery Regiment 72, 8th US Infantry Division |
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Location of the Lee Barracks in Rhineland-Palatinate |
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The Lee Barracks were barracks in Mainz . It was named after Captain Robert E. Lee, who had made a particularly brave mission as 1st Lieutenant on November 17, 1944 (General Order October 11, 1956), even if it was often assumed that she was named after the most successful general in the Confederate Army Robert Edward Lee (which would have been politically incorrect, by the way). Today, large parts of the Mainz-Gonsenheim district are located on the property .
history
Construction of barracks after the occupation of the Rhineland (1936) 1937-38 as part of the upgrade of the armed forces in the basis of the Treaty of Versailles established the safety of France demilitarized zone started and after Hugo von Kathen , the last military governor of the fortress of Mainz , named . Responsible was the military district administration XII in Wiesbaden, which ran the process together with Robert Barth, the National Socialist Lord Mayor of Mainz.
The 29 hectare area belonged partly to the Mombach district, but also partly to the Gonsenheim district. Mombach had already been incorporated into the municipality in 1907, and in 1937 the then independent municipality of Gonsenheim was given the choice of either raising the costs of developing the new barracks of the garrison or being incorporated. "New buildings in Gonsenheim, close to the city limits and thus far from the town center, would have to be supplied with electricity, gas and water from Mainz." On April 1, 1938, the area was forcibly incorporated by the city of Mainz.
The completed barracks were occupied by the 72 field artillery regiment. A commemorative plaque on the officers' building commemorates the foot artillery regiment “General-Feldzeugmeister” (Brandenburgisches) No. 3 . In the course of the air raids on Mainz , the area was bombed several times during the war that soon followed.
On March 22, 1945, the war for Mainz was over and American troops had the city under control. With the city commander Louis Théodore Kleinmann , the French occupying power took over the city on July 9th. In the same month the Reichsbauamt Mainz was commissioned by the French administration to repair the Kathen barracks. After the repair work, the French military authorities took over the barracks and named it after General Charles Mangin , who was in command of the French occupying army on the Rhine after the First World War, based in Mainz. The lettering "Caserne Mangin" on the main gate still reminds of the name given. Construction director Gottfried Lenzen, head of the Mainz military building authority, was entrusted with carrying out the construction work for the occupation troops.
In 1949, US armed forces took over the Kathen barracks, which was then given the name "Lee Barracks". American soldiers, their families and their housing estates, NCO Club, ballpark , bowling alley and the tank factory on the border with Mombach shaped the Gonsenheim townscape for the next few decades. The Great Sand was again used for military exercises. With the change in the GDR in 1989, the need for large units of mechanized forces in Germany no longer existed. The 8th US Infantry Division was needed during Operation Desert Shield / Desert Storm and large parts, including the Ready First Combat Team , were deployed in the Middle East.
The 8th US Infantry Division was inactivated on January 17, 1992 at a solemn ceremony in Bad Kreuznach , the American contingent withdrew from Mainz. The site became a conversion area .
present
A district of Gonsenheim was created on the site, with some buildings of the barracks being renovated and rebuilt. From 1993, the former officers' building at Gonsenheimer Canisiusstrasse 27–31 was converted into a student dormitory of the Mainz student union with around 220 rooms. After the dormitory area and buildings were sold to a housing association, the student dormitory was closed and cleared in mid-2011.
During the first construction phase, a project community with several developers - including Wohnbau Mainz - built around 800 residential units in which almost 2,000 people live. Mostly multi-family and terraced houses were built. A district park of around 2.3 hectares on Willy-Brandt-Platz, the former parade ground, was created as the green center of the residential area. In the preserved buildings of the former Kathen barracks, more than 200 apartments with a total living space of over 16,300 m² were built. The Federal Network Agency has settled in the southern section of the conversion areas. The first UMTS license auction took place there in 2000, with proceeds of 50 billion euros.
The garrison buildings north of Canisiusstraße shape the urban character of this area due to their external shape and were placed under protection in 1998 as "shaping the cityscape". The axially symmetrical ensemble with uniform building heights and the same roof inclinations in a curved arrangement along the street forms an urban unit worth preserving.
Today's namesake of the streets in the former barracks with their relationship to National Socialism form a strong contrast to their former naming after Kathen: Maria Sibylla Merian , Sophie Grosch (1874–1962), Hans Brantzen (1912–1979), Agnes Karll , Willy Brandt , Michael Forestier (1880–1951) or the mayor Franz Ludwig Alexander, negotiator with Karl Külb on a “peaceful” incorporation of Gonsenheim in 1928 and the last mayor of the independent community of Gonsenheim.
Web links
- Site plan Lee Barracks, Mainz, late 1970s (US Military Installation Atlas, 37th Trans Gp, 1980) Lee Barracks and Sandflora Family Housing Area
- Pictures ( memento from January 28, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) on military.com
Individual evidence
- ↑ Our Mainz - urban development from 1990 to today ( Memento from August 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 2.9 MB), publisher + editing: Stadt Mainz, gzm- Grafisches Zentrum Bödige and Partner, 2003, p. 11.
- ↑ Summary History of the 8th Infantry Division ( Memento from December 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Occupancy of the Lee Barracks within the 8th US Infantry Division
- ↑ Helma Rausch: Conversion of the Kathen barracks Lee Barracks: 4 urban development framework plans Mainz city planning office, 1995.
- ↑ Mainzer Rhein-Zeitung: ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: Studentenburg before the conversion: All out and lights out. )
- ↑ Conservation S Mainz-Gonsenheim (PDF; 16 kB) statutes "G 33 S" of the city of Mainz according to § 172 Abs. 1 Nr. 1 BauGB on the maintenance of structures and the characteristics of areas in the area of the garrison buildings on Canisiusstraße / Kathen- Barracks in Mainz-Gonsenheim; drawn: Jens Beutel , Mainz, December 22, 1998.
- ↑ 70 years of incorporation - 70 years of Mainz-Gonsenheim
- ↑ ( page no longer available , search in web archives: Gonsenheimer Jahrbücher ): Gonsenheimer personalities.