Liesenstrasse

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Liesenstrasse
coat of arms
Street in Berlin
Liesenstrasse
Northern end at the Liesenbrücken
Basic data
place Berlin
District Healthy well
Created 1833
Connecting roads
Scheringstrasse (northeast) ,
Chausseestrasse (southwest)
Cross streets New Hochstraße,
Gartenstraße
use
User groups Pedestrian traffic , bicycle traffic , car traffic
Technical specifications
Street length 460 meters
Location of Liesenstrasse in Berlin, 1884

The Liesenstraße lies on the border between the Berliner districts center and healthy well in the district center . The Berlin Wall ran along its southeastern side . At that time, Gesundbrunnen belonged to the West Berlin district of Wedding , which in 2001 was included in the Mitte district , which was previously only in East Berlin .

There is almost no residential development on the approximately 500-meter-long Liesenstrasse. Instead, it is shaped by the listed Liesenbrücken bridges that cross them and four of Berlin's most famous cemeteries. In addition, remnants of the border fortifications on the Berlin Wall have been preserved on the land southeast of the street .

Location and founding history

The Liesenstrasse connects the Chausseestrasse with the Gartenstrasse and continues after the intersection with this as Scheringstrasse. It leads south of Humboldthain over the former property of the Berlin innkeeper Carl Adolf Friedrich Liesen and was laid out in 1826. In 1833 it was named after the former owner. The open spaces on Liesenstrasse offered the Berlin parishes as an alternative to inner-city burial sites, which were now filled (see: Berlin funeral services ).

From 1867, Louis Schwartzkopff ran the extension of his iron foundry and machine factory to the north of Liesenstrasse . Their headquarters was in Chausseestrasse; the Berliner Maschinenbau AG emerged from it.

The four cemeteries, the increasing train traffic from the neighboring Szczecin Railway and the surrounding metalworking companies, which gave the area the name Tierra del Fuego , made the remaining land along Liesenstrasse unattractive for residential development.

The Berlin Wall on Liesenstrasse

Developments since the Wall was built

Death strip on the St. Hedwig cemetery with a watchtower at the tunnel under the S-Bahn line; the renewed border wall is still without a round closure, 1980

After the Wall was built on August 13, 1961, Liesenstrasse could only be entered from the West Berlin district of Wedding . A border strip was laid out on the three cemeteries to the south of the street and on the properties adjoining Chausseestraße and expanded over the following decades. On the former cemetery site, this border strip was around 40 meters deep when the Wall came down in 1989, and near Chausseestrasse, because of the border crossing there, it was even up to 120 meters deep. Liesenstrasse is now signposted as part of the Berlin Wall Trail , which was laid out between 2002 and 2006 under the responsibility of the Senate Administration .

Of the burial places on Liesenstrasse, only the Dorotheenstadt cemetery to the north was freely accessible from 1961. However, this was separated from its community by the wall and was administered by Kreuzberg communities. The earlier entrances to the other cemeteries were closed by the GDR border installations . The graves in the border strip were completely cleared. A convoy path was laid out on the site - partly with dismantled gravestones - which was used for border patrol vehicles. The Kolonnenweg crossed under the adjacent S-Bahn line in a specially constructed tunnel and continued on the border strip on the grounds of the north station. So that the S-Bahn crossing the sector border could be better controlled, there was a watchtower at the tunnel entrance.

Access to the cemeteries south of Liesenstrasse was only possible via a small, shared entrance in Wöhlertstrasse and only direct relatives of the people buried here were permitted under strict conditions. There were even plans to completely remove the cemeteries, but these were never implemented. Nevertheless, the burial sites were partially very badly damaged by the clearing in the border area, by destruction in border operations and not least by vandalism and souvenir hunters after the opening of the Berlin Wall.

Sculpture Reunification by Hildegard Leest , 1962

The former border strip is now part of the three cemeteries again. Apart from the new construction of the cemetery walls on Liesenstrasse and the restoration of the main routes in the empty area, reconstruction measures have largely been dispensed with. The dimensions of the border strip and the destruction that occurred during the time of the Wall can still be recorded on site.

In the green area on the northern corner of Liesenstrasse and Chausseestrasse, a 2.40 meter high sculpture made of shell limestone commemorates the time of the division. The work of art designed by Hildegard Leest in 1962 is entitled Reunification . It shows two stylized people shaking hands over a chasm. The location was chosen so that at the time of construction in a south-westerly line of sight the handshake seemed to be taking place across the Chausseestrasse border crossing.

Preserved remains of the border fortifications

Remnants of the wall on Liesenstrasse in front of the Liesenbrücken
Remnants of the interior wall in the St. Hedwig cemetery

Remnants of the border fortifications have been preserved along the entire Liesenstrasse, especially in the cemetery of the St. Hedwigs parish. Some of them are now listed .

A 15 meter long, listed section of the "Grenzmauer 75" at original height with an upper concrete pipe is located in the northern tip of the cemetery of the St. Hedwigs parish, directly adjacent to the Liesenbrücken. It is the shortest of the three remaining sections of the actual Berlin border wall ("front barrier element"). The others can be found on Bernauer Strasse and Niederkirchnerstrasse. The section of the wall on Liesenstrasse sits a little behind the old cemetery wall. On the street side, it has been heavily worked by " wall woodpeckers ".

In the western part of the St. Hedwigs parish cemetery is a short section of the interior wall of the border strip on Liesenstrasse; this is also a listed building.

A panel wall, which is also listed, limits the cemetery of the St. Hedwigs parish in the east. It is about 200 meters long and consists of concrete slabs suspended between steel girders. It ran as "apron protection" parallel to a (not preserved) section of the hinterland wall of the border strip on the site of the north station. This double staggering of the security walls on the East Berlin side, which can also be found at some other border sections, was chosen because the route of the S-Bahn, which only stops at West Berlin stations, ran between them. On the cemetery side of the slab wall there is still graffiti scratched into the fresh concrete , including a series of dates from October to December 1974. The scratched drawing of a BT 11 (“third generation”) border watchtower can also be seen. This shows that the concrete parts were created on site.

In the south-western corner of Cathedral Cemetery I is the (not listed) remainder of a similar panel wall that was supposed to separate the cemetery from the adjacent area beyond the interior wall. Only the row of posts of this “apron protection” has been preserved along the cemetery. It corresponds to the course of an older version of the interior wall; the remains of the foundations can still be discovered in the wasteland south of the cemetery wall.

The Kolonnenweg that once ran through the border strip can no longer be seen in the cemetery area. The tunnel with which the Kolonnenweg crossed under the S-Bahn line has been bricked up. Only in the area that extends west of the cemetery grounds to Chausseestrasse and which belonged entirely to the border area is there still a section of the Kolonnenweg from the border section of Liesenstrasse. The Kolonnenweg turns here in a southerly direction, so that the approach could be behind the border crossing at Chausseestrasse.

All remnants of the border installations in the corner of the site at Liesenstrasse and Chausseestrasse were not listed, so they disappeared in the course of the structural development of the area. For the construction of a new petrol station on the site, remnants of walls from different eras that had been in a bush directly on the sidewalk on Liesenstrasse were removed in the spring of 2008. These were hollow blocks from the original border wall from 1961 (“first generation”). This was later poured with concrete and ultimately served as the foundation of the “Grenzmauer 75” (“fourth generation”), the outline of which was still recognizable at this point. In the meantime, these traces of the wall had to give way to a building project on the corner of Liesenstrasse and Chausseestrasse.

  • Panel wall in the St. Hedwig cemetery

  • Watchtower graffiti carved into the fresh concrete

  • Preserved column path on fallow land , looking south

  • Remnants of the "first generation" wall on the sidewalk Liesenstrasse (removed in 2008)

Cemeteries on Liesenstrasse

View over the former wall strip, destruction can be seen in all three cemeteries

The cemeteries on Liesenstrasse were built in the 1830s and 1840s, at a time when the site was on the northern outskirts of Berlin. The Evangelical Cathedral Cemetery I of the Oberpfarr- und Domkirche was used as the oldest cemetery from 1830 . In 1834 the old Catholic cathedral cemetery of the St. Hedwigs Congregation followed and a year later the cemetery of the French Reformed Congregation was inaugurated. These three cemeteries are located next to each other on the south side of Liesenstrasse in the Mitte district. In 1842 the Dorotheenstädtischer Friedhof was built on the north side of the street.

Cathedral cemetery I

View over the cemetery
The old dome cross in the cathedral parish cemetery

The cathedral cemetery I was laid out in 1830 on an area of ​​10,000 m² on Liesenstrasse. It was intended to replace the burial site in Elisabethstrasse near Alexanderplatz , which no longer exists today , where the former cathedral hospital also stood. It is a little under one hectare in size, making it the smallest of the cemeteries on Liesenstrasse. Due to the limited space, the community laid out Domfriedhof II on Müllerstrasse in 1870 .

There are historical wall graves on the walls that delimit the cemetery on three sides. The cemetery chapel made of dark red brick in neo-Gothic style was renovated in the mid-1990s and is now available again for funeral services.

The deep sleep that the cemetery led through the course of the wall for decades did not detract from the atmosphere of the cemetery with its park-like layout. He breathes peace, quiet and security.

In the entrance area, a 15 meter high, gleaming golden cross greets the visitor. It is the old dome cross that had to be removed from the dome of the Berlin Cathedral in December 2006 due to rust damage .

The most famous people buried here include the councilor mason Johann Christoph Bendler (1789–1873) and the founder of a shorthand system Wilhelm Stolze (1798–1867). Even Max Bäckler (1856-1924) was one of the sponsors of shorthand . The stable master of Kaiser Wilhelm I , Rudolf Rieck (1831-1892), is buried together with his wife Valeska (1840-1892) north of the chapel. The grave of the court and cathedral organist Bernhard Heinrich Irrgang (1869–1916) is marked by a - currently still relocated - stele with a portrait relief (deposited). The grave of the upper court and cathedral preacher Wilhelm Hoffmann is marked by a high marble cross. The writer Gunther Tietz was buried in the cathedral cemetery in 1993.

The tombs of the following people are among the tombs of architectural and historical importance that can no longer be found today:

  • Gravestones of the Hett family

  • Damaged tombs

  • Collective grave

  • Family grave of the Vahl family

Cemetery II of the French Reformed Congregation

Cemetery II of the French Reformed Congregation

Cemetery II of the French Reformed Community, just over one hectare in size, had been in use since 1835, replacing the community's old cemetery on Chausseestrasse. There is no longer a chapel on the site; the last one that was left was demolished, as was the cemetery keeper's house, in 1961 when the Berlin border fortifications were built. The cemetery has a central avenue in the center of which a memorial commemorates the fallen members of the community in the wars of 1864, 1866 and 1870/1871, and a plaque commemorates the dead from the First World War .

This cemetery is the final resting place of the Brandenburg writer Theodor Fontane (1819–1898) and his wife Emilie (1824–1902). This grave was destroyed in the Second World War and later rebuilt, with a black granite tombstone being erected instead of the simple footstones that were previously available. After 1990, the tomb was redesigned twice, most recently in 2012, based on historical photographs, again with two small round-arched granite steles and an iron post-chain border. Like all other graves in the cemeteries, Fontane's grave could only be visited with a permit until 1989.

Tomb for Theodor Fontane

In addition, the inventor of a shorthand system Leopold Alexander Friedrich Arends (1817–1882) lies here , on whose grave there is a high granite stele with a portrait of Alexander Calandrelli . The bust was stolen after the fall of the Berlin Wall, but a short time later it was found at a flea market and, after it was returned to the French community, was exhibited for some time in the Berlin Huguenot Museum. The sculptor Martin Schauß (1867–1927), who was best known for portrait busts, is buried in a hereditary funeral. The fur merchant, local politician and honorary citizen of Berlin Paul Michelet (1835–1926) is also located on the back wall in the tomb of the Michelet family . Whether the philosophy professor Charles Louis Michelet (1801-1893) was also buried in this tomb can not be traced back today. Also the graves of the journalist John Peet (1915–1988), the photographer Will McBride (1931–2015), the graphic artist and poster artist Herrmann Abeking (1882–1939), the author Heinz Bergschicker (1930–1989) and the playwright and writer Peter Hacks (1928–2003) are in this cemetery. The steel tomb with a blue top, shown below as “Modern Grave”, was erected for the Berlin sculptor Manfred Hodapp (1951–1999), a member of the “Die Glyptiker” group of sculptors. There is also the grave of the American photographer and artist Will McBride (1931–2015).

As with the other cemeteries on Liesenstrasse, a number of architecturally and historically significant tombs were lost as a result of the construction of the border installations and in some cases already before. Underneath were the graves of

  • cenotaph

  • Family grave of the Guiard family

  • Damaged tombs

  • Modern grave

Old cathedral cemetery of the St. Hedwigs parish

Plaque at the entrance to the cemetery
Marble angel by Josef Limburg
View over the cemetery
Grave of Peter von Cornelius
Franz Skarbina : All Souls Day (Hedwigskirchhof), 1896

The old cathedral cemetery of the St. Hedwigs parish was consecrated in 1834 and replaced the first Catholic cemetery at the Oranienburger Tor, which no longer exists today and is built over with tenement houses. This makes this cemetery the oldest still existing Catholic cemetery in Berlin. It's a little over two hectares. In 1833 the entire area was fenced in and a grave digger's house and a shed were built. In 1849 429 victims of the cholera epidemic were buried here, in 1866 another 1111 victims of the same disease.

The chapel of the cemetery was built in 1866/1867 on the model of Italian Renaissance buildings with terracotta shaped stones and a copper roof. This chapel was rebuilt true to the original in 1987 after having been in disrepair for several decades. On the east side of the chapel is the tomb of the Sisters of Mercy of St. Charles Borromeo, on the west that of the sisters of St. Hedwig's Hospital, both of which are covered with simple marble panels. Without a name, there is also the burial place of the sisters of St. Elisabeth.

At the entrance to the cemetery from Liesenstrasse there are two kneeling angels made of marble, which were created by Josef Limburg (1874–1955) and, together with the cemetery border, were about 40 meters away from Liesenstrasse. As a result of the leveling of the wall strip in 1961 and the construction of the second wall in 1967, a number of architecturally and historically significant tombs were lost, which today are reminiscent of a memorial stone on the open lawn and a remnant of the wall in front of the cemetery.

A number of important Berliners were buried in the cemetery, whose tombs no longer exist today. The following tombs have been partially lost or changed:

In addition to these losses, there are a number of other graves of historically more or less significant people on the site, which is only around 1.4 hectares today, including:

Tomb for Carl Sonnenschein, Christ by Hans Perathoner , 1935

Dorotheenstädtischer Friedhof II

View over the cemetery

Dorotheenstädtische Friedhof II was consecrated in 1842 and was supposed to replace the cemetery of the Dorotheenstädtische and Friedrichswerder parishes on Chausseestrasse. Unlike this one, however, only members of the Dorotheenstädtische congregation were to be buried here. The construction of the wall separated the cemetery from the community in the Mitte district, and several parishes in Kreuzberg took over the maintenance and continuation .

In the years 1912/1913 the three-part gate was built according to a design by Friedrich and Wilhelm Hennings . The chapel was built in 1950/1951 according to plans by Otto Bartning to replace the church.

The listed mausoleum for the circus director Paul Busch (1850–1927) and his wife Barbara Sidonie Busch (1849–1898), which was built in 1898 by Herrmann Paulick and Felix Voss , is one of the most important graves in the cemetery . The tomb of the company's founder Rudolph Hertzog (1815–1894) is also a listed building. In addition, the graves of honor for the physicist August Kundt (1839–1894), Otto Nicolai (1810–1849), Julius Carl Raschdorff (1823–1914), Ernst Jacob Renz , Albert Schumann (1858–1939) and Eduard Fürstenberg can be found on the site (1827-1885).

Liesenbrücken

View of the bridge for the Szczecin Railway over Liesenstrasse, 1897
The Liesenbrücken seen from Gartenstraße
The disused eastern bridge

The railway bridges known today as Liesenbrücken cross Liesenstrasse at the intersection with Gartenstrasse. The entire complex is a listed building .

The bridges were built in 1890–1896 by the engineers B. Hildebrandt and K. Bathmann in order to raise the route of the Stettiner Bahn , which had existed since 1843 and which crossed the street at the same level on a level crossing, and thus a trouble-free crossing of the railway - and to enable road traffic.

For the construction of the bridges, the tracks were laid on embankments. The actual bridges are iron truss constructions with semi- parabolic upper chords. The end pieces form portals. The tracks on the bridges were laid in light gravel, and the track bed was covered with slabs that are no longer there.

The western bridge was renewed in 1956/1957. The abutments were completely removed and rebuilt for this purpose.

Today only the renovated western bridges are in operation. The initiative "Grünzüge für Berlin" is committed to creating a green connection between the park at the Nordbahnhof and the Volkspark Humboldthain via the Liesenbrücken bridges that are no longer in use.

Bridge coordinates: 52 ° 32 ′ 25.2 ″  N , 13 ° 22 ′ 47 ″  E

See also

literature

  • Kathrin Chod, Herbert Schwenk, Hainer Weisspflug, Hans J. Mende: Berliner Bezirkslexikon Mitte . 2 volumes. Vol. 1: A to N. Vol. 2: N to Z. Edition Luisenstadt, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89542-111-1 .
  • Alfred Etzold, Wolfgang Türk: The Dorotheenstädtische Friedhof. The burial places on Berlin's Chausseestrasse . Updated new edition. Links, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-86153-261-1 .
  • Klaus Hammer: Historic cemeteries & tombs in Berlin . Stattbuch Verlag, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-922778-32-1 .
  • Garden monuments in Berlin: Friedhöfe , ed. by Jörg Haspel and Klaus-Henning von Krosigk, edited by Katrin Lesser, Jörg Kuhn, Detlev Pietzsch u. a., Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2008.

Web links

Commons : Domfriedhof I  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files
Commons : Cemetery II of the French Reformed Congregation  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files
Commons : Old Cathedral Cemetery of the St. Hedwigsgemeinde  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Commons : Dorotheenstädtischer Friedhof II  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Polly Feversham and Leo Schmidt : The Berlin Wall Today. Monument value and handling . Verlag Bauwesen, 2001, ISBN 3-345-00733-9 , p. 85 (English, German).
  2. ↑ Old cathedral cemetery of the St. Hedwigs parish. In: Foundation for historical churchyards and cemeteries. Retrieved July 16, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Liesenbrücken monument complex
  4. ^ Bathmann: The development of the railway systems in the north of Berlin since 1890 . In: Zeitschrift für Bauwesen , 1903, pp. 283–290, 479–496, plates 33–40.
  5. ↑ "Green Corridors for Berlin - The Liesenbrücken"

Coordinates: 52 ° 32 ′ 20 ″  N , 13 ° 22 ′ 37 ″  E

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on January 7, 2006 .