Maria Regina Martyrum (Berlin)

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The facade above the celebration courtyard

Maria Regina Martyrum ( Latin for 'Maria, Queen of the Martyrs ') is a Roman Catholic church in the Berlin district of Charlottenburg-Nord at Heckerdamm 230. It was established between 1960 and 1963 as the “Memorial Church of German Catholics in honor of the martyrs for religious and religious Freedom of Conscience in the Years 1933–1945 ”and is not far from the Plötzensee Memorial and the Plötzensee Protestant Community Center , also a memorial church. The Maria Regina Martyrum memorial church with its bell tower and ceremonial courtyard is a registered monument (No. 09096195).

History of origin

The Berlin Bishop Wilhelm Weskamm gave the impetus for the construction of the church at the 75th German Catholic Day in Berlin in 1952, when he called for the construction of a memorial church for the martyrs from the time of National Socialism . At the 78th German Katholikentag in 1958, again in Berlin, they vowed to build “Maria Regina Martyrum”. After a collection in all German dioceses , Bishop Julius Cardinal Döpfner laid the foundation stone for the church on November 12, 1960 , which he - now Archbishop of Munich and Freising  - together with the then Berlin Bishop Alfred Bengsch and the French Archbishop on May 5, 1963 Louis de Bazelaire ( Archdiocese of Chambéry ) consecrated .

As patronage was Maria Regina Martyrum ( Mary , Queen of Martyrs) selected. 1954 had Pope Pius XII. the Feast of Mary Queen of Mary introduced for the Catholic Church. The Marian title Regina Martyrum is one of the invocations of the Blessed Mother in the Lauretan Litany .

Church tower with bell chamber

The church was planned as a memorial church and at the same time as a parish church for the surrounding new building area Charlottenburg-Nord with around 400 seats, community center and parish apartment. The building owner was the Episcopal Ordinariate Berlin . In 1958, four architects, Reinhard Hofbauer , Willy Kreuer , Hans skull together with Friedrich Ebert and Rudolf Schwarz , were invited to a competition, which the Würzburg cathedral builder Hans skull won. The second version of the skull was implemented. He was commissioned with the construction together with Friedrich Ebert and the episcopal building director Hermann Jünemann. They received artistic and theological advice from the Benedictine Benedictine Fr. Urban Rapp from Münsterschwarzach . The community center was built with the church immediately to the west.

The parishes in the region were reorganized by the Archdiocese of Berlin in 1981. The parish of Maria Regina Martyrum was merged with the neighboring parish of St. Joseph in Siemensstadt , the church was given the status of a locality (since 2007: Rector's Church ) and after the founding of the Carmel Regina Martyrum became its monastery church. For the construction of the monastery, the community rooms built with the church were partly demolished and partly rebuilt. The facade to the Heckerdamm with curtain-type concrete slats designed by Hans Skull was retained.

The 50th anniversary of the church consecration was celebrated with festive services and concerts on May 4th and 5th, 2013. This was preceded by a series of sermons on texts by Fr.  Alfred Delp  SJ on Lent Sundays 2013.

Church building and surroundings

Celebration courtyard and bell tower

Way of the Cross by Otto Herbert Hajek and bell tower

The area is considered an outstanding example of a successful unity of church building and building sculpture. The entire system is determined by a strict orthogonal design language. The church building is in a cobbled, sloping at low levels Feierhof that by using black and gray basalt gravel plates clad on head-high concrete walls is framed and on a parade ground recalls.

One of the two entrances is the distinctive 25 meter high bell tower made of exposed concrete slabs placed at right angles to each other, which take the entrance gate and the two-storey bell cage with five bells between them. An originally planned 48 meter high tower needle could not be built for reasons of air traffic control for Tegel Airport . On the outside of the wall there are two tablets with texts by Pope Pius XII. and Julius Cardinal Döpfner on the importance of the building.

The celebration courtyard, originally intended as a space for larger outdoor worship services with a capacity of 10,000 people, is now an empty area, separated from the city, a space of distance and silence that you have to walk through to get to the church - a " Brutalist hortus conclusus ". In front of the right wall, starting at the tower, there is a bronze Way of the Cross with 15 stations by Otto Herbert Hajek in a highly abstract, monumental representation of the Stations of the Cross. The individual stations of the cross are combined into groups, with the exception of the individual 1st station (Jesus is condemned to death) , the 12th station (Jesus dies on the cross) and the 15th station (resurrection - women at the grave) , which are in Distance to the other stations in the wide passage under the church building. There is also a free altar, which was also created by Otto Herbert Hajek and whose bronze antependium varies the motif of the crown of thorns . In the back of the courtyard there is a bronze relief Escape to Egypt by Johannes Dumanski, which was donated by displaced persons.

Church building

Entrance portal

The elongated structure of the upper church rests without a base at a height of four meters only on three transverse concrete walls, two of which form the outer walls of the lower church, the third is the reinforced surrounding wall of the celebration courtyard. With its bright white façade clad with marble pebbles, it seems like a “floating body” (according to architect Hans Skull) in stark contrast to the gloomy courtyard; other interpretations see it as a “shrine” between heaven and earth or as the heavenly Jerusalem , which comes down to earth ( Rev 21  EU ). The three-part sculpture Apokalyptische Frau by Fritz Koenig hangs above the entrance in front of the otherwise undivided rectangular facade . The five-meter-high sculpture made of gilded bronze consists of three motifs corresponding to the biblical vision (“a sign in heaven”) in the Revelation of John ( Rev 12 : 1-6  EU ): in the lower zone the seven-headed dragon, above the woman who is about to give birth, standing on the crescent moon , and the sun's rays as a crown over it. The Christian tradition recognizes the Mother of God to whom the memorial church is consecrated in the figure .

Upper Church

Inside with altar painting
The Gothic Madonna stele
The church on a Berlin postage stamp from 1965

The interior of the church can be reached from the glazed entrance hall via a wide staircase between the two retaining walls. In 1994 an elevator was added to the rear.

The rectangular church interior is easted and thus oriented towards the Plötzensee execution site. The windowless exposed concrete walls still bear the traces of the cladding as rectangular, rhythmic patterns. The lowered ceiling made of glazed wooden boards rests on beams that are left visible and allows indirect light to enter the church through invisible ribbon windows along the side walls; two additional vertical light strips are located on the right and left behind the altarpiece. The floor is made of light granite .

The church has no apse , the sanctuary is only raised from the church interior by a step. The altar and ambo are strictly cubic made of light Treuchtlinger marble , also a stele bearing an early Gothic seated Madonna and Child , was made in southern France around 1320.

The monumental altar painting The Heavenly Jerusalem by Georg Meistermann , which depicts a vision from the Revelation of John and takes up almost the entire front wall, is decisive for the room . Almost in the center, the Lamb of God is depicted on a light background , a symbol for the crucified and risen Jesus Christ , to whom, according to the statement of the Apocalypse of John ( Rev. 5,6-7  EU ), the rulership in the coming kingdom of God is conferred. Further representational elements that appear small and filigree compared to the overall proportions of the work are an eye of God to the left above the lamb, towards which it is directed - Jesus Christ fulfills God's will with his death on the cross - and in the right half of the picture a sickle as Last Judgment icon . The main design element of the picture are light and dark colored surfaces that are laid out in a spiral around the figure of the lamb without perspective. The center with the lamb is defined by bright yellow, gray and white areas. On the outside, there are increasingly dark green, brown and black, block-like surfaces that delimit the picture at the bottom and top from the floor and ceiling. Seven yellow and red flames strive from the center to the lower right into the dark area and point to the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit . The guiding idea of ​​the artist was: “What happens to me if you tell me: Tomorrow morning at five you will be hanged! The world is falling apart, tearing apart like falling blocks, shredded into ragged rags. And through this decay, through this tearing, the abiding promise appears in symbols like the lamb, the eye, seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. So the horror stands against brightness. "

The church interior is visually closed at the rear - above the entrance stairs - by the organ and singing gallery standing on thin stilts with the clearly structured organ prospect. A small confessional chapel with a sculpture of the Man of Sorrows (southern Germany, second half of the 15th century) is arranged under the gallery ; Since January 2013, the flat golden tabernacle , which had previously stood on the altar of the church, has also been placed on the altar of the chapel , so that a "sheltering space" has been created for personal prayer in front of the Holy of Holies . On November 5, 2018, the bones of the canonized Provost of St. Hedwig , Bernhard Lichtenberg , were buried in a wooden shrine under the altar of what is now the sacrament chapel and sealed with a stone slab. This is to keep his relics accessible for the duration of the closure of St. Hedwig's Cathedral and then to be returned to the cathedral. On the side of the same level is a baptistery with a cylindrical baptismal font made of light shell limestone and an Easter candlestick by Fritz Koenig.

Lower church

Since January 2013, handwritten quotes from Nazi martyrs can be read in the glass walls of the entrance area. Behind the staircase to the upper church, two steps lead down to the crypt of the lower church. The side walls are clad with black basalt pebbles. A free-standing concrete wall divides the room into two segments with different functions.

Erich Klausener , 1933

The front part in front of the partition wall, which is kept in light gold tone on this side, is dedicated to the memorial of the martyrs of freedom of belief and conscience in the years 1933 to 1945 in a grave-like design. In front of the partition there is a bronze sculpture by Fritz Koenig depicting the Pietà : Mary holding her dead son Jesus in her arms. There are three sarcophagi under a floor slab. The right one contains the urn of Erich Klausener, who was shot in 1934 on the orders of the head of the Secret State Police Office, Reinhard Heydrich . The urn was buried here on May 4, 1963, the eve of the church consecration; previously she rested on the St. Matthias cemetery in Tempelhof. Another, so far empty sarcophagus was supposed to contain the remains of the Berlin cathedral provost, Prelate Bernhard Lichtenberg , who died in 1943 while being transported to the Dachau concentration camp in Hof and who was buried on November 16, 1943 in the old cathedral cemetery of the St. Hedwigs community in Liesenstrasse were. However, the GDR authorities refused to transfer them to what was then West Berlin . The bones were then Lichtenberg's in the crypt in 1965 East Berlin nearby St. Hedwig's Cathedral buried. On November 5, 2018, the 75th anniversary of Bernhard Lichtenberg's death, the remains were transferred to the memorial church and buried in the upper church for the duration of the closure of the cathedral.

The middle sarcophagus contains a document that commemorates all victims of National Socialism for reasons of faith and conscience, whose grave is unknown, who were refused a grave and whose ashes were scattered. The dedication of the memorial is expressed on the middle floor plate in front of the sculpture: "All martyrs who were denied the grave - all martyrs whose graves are unknown". Engraved on the left plate are the names and life dates of Provost Bernhard Lichtenberg and - on behalf of all Nazi victims executed in Plötzensee - those of the Protestant Helmuth James Graf von Moltke and his Catholic friend, P.  Alfred Delp SJ, on the right those of the Erich Klausener buried here.

Passing the partition wall you come to the chapel for the Liturgy of the Hours and the Holy Mass of the Carmelites, who built a monastery at the memorial in 1984. The lower church was extended to the north for this.

Organ in the upper church

Klais organ

The organ was built between 1961 and 1963 by the Bonn organ builder Johannes Klais as Opus 1258 and completed on May 5, 1963. It has 25  registers on three manuals and a pedal .

Disposition
I main work C – a 3
Principal 08th'
Gemshorn 08th'
octave 04 ′
Reed flute 04 ′
Swiss pipe 02 ′
Mixture IV-VI 01 1 ⁄ 3  ′
Trumpet 08th'
II Rückpositiv C – a 3
Tube bare 08th'
Principal 04 ′
Forest flute 02 ′
Sesquialtera II 02 2 ⁄ 3  ′
Scharff IV 01'
Dulcian 16 ′
Tremulant
III Breastwork (swellable) C – a 3
Wooden dacked 08th'
Salicional 08th'
Quintadena 04 ′
Principal 02 ′
Third cymbal III 0 1 ⁄ 2 ′
Vox humana 08th'
Tremulant
Pedal C – g 1
Sub bass 16 ′
Principal bass 08th'
Pommer 08th'
Pipe whistle 04 ′
trombone 16 ′
Clarine 04 ′

Peal

The five bronze bells were cast in 1961 by Friedrich Wilhelm Schilling and consecrated on December 16, 1962 by Ordinariatsrat Msgr. Grewe.

Surname inscription Diameter (
mm) 		Height
(mm) 		Mass
(kg) 		Chime
Christ JESUS ​​CHRIST, YESTERDAY AND TODAY, IS THE SAME TOO IN ETERNITY. 1400 1150 1900 it'
Maria DO WHAT HE SAYS TO DO. 1260 1060 1350 f '
archangel Michael WHO IS LIKE GOD? 1180 0990 1100 ges'
Peter YES, LORD, YOU KNOW I LOVE YOU. 1040 0890 0750 as
Ambrose BUT I MUST ACT AND PREFER GOD TO EMPEROR. 0760 0640 0310 it"
Chime motif

The bells I – IV make a Doric tetrachord , the motif corresponds to the Gregorian Tui sunt caeli (“Your are the heavens”, offertory of the Missa in the Christmas, f es-f-es f f-ges-as-ges-f -ges-f-es ges-es-f-ges-f)

{\ key bes \ minor \ clef "petrucci-g" \ override Staff.TimeSignature # 'stencil = ## f \ set Score.timing = ## f \ override Voice.NoteHead #' style = # 'harmonic-black f' 1 es'1 (f'1 es'1) f'1 f'1 (ges'1 as'1 ges'1 f'1 ges'1 f'1 es'1) ges'1 (es'1 f ' 1 ges'1 f'1)} \ addlyrics {Tu- i sunt caeli}

Carmel Regina Martyrum

In 1982, a monastery of the Discalced Carmelite Sisters (OCD), the Carmel Regina Martyrum , was built directly adjacent to the church premises and moved into in 1984. The memorial church is also the monastery church of the Carmelites. When they settled in Berlin, the sisters deliberately sought this closeness in order to keep the memory of the disastrous events alive and to perform a “service of intercession ”. They came from the Karmel Heilig Blut in Dachau, which was founded in 1964 in the vicinity of the former Dachau concentration camp .

literature

  • Memorial Church of the German Catholics Maria Regina Martyrum in honor of the martyrs for freedom of belief and conscience in the years 1933–1945. More Verlag, Berlin 1963.
  • Catholic Memorial Church Maria Regina Martyrum Berlin . 2nd edition Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 1995. Schnell, Art Guide No. 1703, text: Sr. Maria-Theresia Smith.
  • The language of the stones. In: Jesuits. Information from the German Province of the Jesuits , Edition 2013/1, pp. 1–21; ISSN  1613-3889 .
  • Franz Pfeifer (Ed.): Memorial Church Maria Regina Martyrum Berlin. Kunstverlag Josef Fink, Lindenberg i. Allgäu 2013, ISBN 978-3-89870-801-2 (on the 50th anniversary of the consecration of the Maria Regina Martyrum memorial church, edited by Franz Pfeifer on behalf of the Archdiocese of Berlin).

Web links

Commons : Maria Regina Martyrum  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Monument database. Senate Department for Urban Development and the Environment Berlin
  2. ↑ a b c Catholic Memorial Church Maria Regina Martyrum Berlin . 2nd edition Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 1995, p. 2 (Schnell, art guide No. 1703, text: Sr. Maria-Theresia Smith OCD).
  3. ^ Homepage Karmel Regina Martyrum, history. ; berlin.de, Sights ( Memento of the original from October 8, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.berlin.de
  4. ↑ a b c Kerstin Englert: Churches after 1945. In: Architects and Engineers Association of Berlin (ed.): Berlin and its buildings. Part VI: Sacred buildings. Berlin 1997, pp. 207–272, here p. 239. Franz Pfeifer (Ed.): Memorial Church Maria Regina Martyrum Berlin. Lindenberg i. Allgäu 2013, ISBN 978-3-89870-801-2 , p. 168 (here: Reinhold instead of Reinhard Hofbauer).
  5. ↑ Certificate Rector's Church ( Memento of the original from March 8, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.maria-regina-martyrum.de
  6. ^ Homepage Karmel Regina Martyrum, history.
  7. ↑ Catholic Sunday newspaper Archdiocese of Berlin. 9/10 February 2013, p. VIII.
  8. ↑ Sights. ( Memento of the original from October 8, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. berlin.de @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.berlin.de
  9. ^ Sibylle Schulz, Maria Lütjohann: leaflet. ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Ed. from the Archbishop's Ordinariate Berlin (leaflet series: Recognizing and Receiving in Berlin. 2008, No. 19). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de
  10. ^ Memorial Church of the German Catholics Maria Regina Martyrum in honor of the martyrs for freedom of belief and conscience in the years 1933–1945. More Verlag, Berlin 1963, pp. 45, 67.
  11. ↑ Josef Paul Kleihues , Jan Gerd Becker-Schwering, Paul Kahlfeldt (ed.): Building in Berlin 1900-2000. Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-87584-013-5 , p. 371.
  12. ↑ Catholic Memorial Church Maria Regina Martyrum Berlin . 2nd Edition. Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 1995 (Schnell, art guide No. 1703, text: Sr. Maria-Theresia Smith OCD), p. 8 f. (Feierhof, Kreuzweg, “Flight to Egypt”), p. 14 (Freialtar).
  13. ↑ Catholic Memorial Church Maria Regina Martyrum Berlin . 2nd Edition. Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 1995, p. 8 (Schnell, art guide No. 1703, text: Sr. Maria-Theresia Smith OCD).
  14. ↑ Catholic Memorial Church Maria Regina Martyrum Berlin . 2nd edition Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 1995 (Schnell, Kunstführer No. 1703, text: Sr. Maria-Theresia Smith OCD), p. 8, 14.
  15. ↑ Catholic Memorial Church Maria Regina Martyrum Berlin . 2nd edition Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 1995 (Schnell, art guide No. 1703, text: Sr. Maria-Theresia Smith OCD), p. 8 (elevator).
  16. ↑ Catholic Memorial Church Maria Regina Martyrum Berlin . 2nd edition Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 1995 (Schnell, Kunstführer No. 103, text: Sr. Maria-Theresia Smith OCD), p. 15 (lighting), p. 28 (orientation).
  17. ↑ Catholic Memorial Church Maria Regina Martyrum Berlin . 2nd edition Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 1995 (Schnell, Kunstführer No. 1703, text: Sr. Maria-Theresia Smith OCD), p. 15 (room), p. 18 (chancel), p. 23 (Madonna).
  18. ↑ Quoted in: Kath. Memorial Church Maria Regina Martyrum Berlin . 2nd edition Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 1995, p. 18 (Schnell, Kunstführer No. 1703).
  19. ^ A b c Sr. Mirjam Fuchs OCD, Franz Pfeifer: New designs in Maria Regina Martyrum. In: Franz Pfeifer (Ed.): Memorial Church Maria Regina Martyrum Berlin. Kunstverlag Josef Fink, Lindenberg i. Allgäu 2013, ISBN 978-3-89870-801-2 , p. 232 ff.
  20. ↑ Walter Plümpe: Reburial of the bones of the blessed Bernhard Lichtenberg. Figure of biblical greatness. Lord's Day , October 25, 2018, accessed November 6, 2018 .
  21. ↑ a b Bernhard Lichtenberg. In: Memorial page of the Archdiocese of Berlin. Archdiocese of Berlin , accessed on November 6, 2018 .
  22. ↑ Catholic Memorial Church Maria Regina Martyrum Berlin . 2nd edition Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 1995 (Schnell, art guide No. 1703, text: Sr. Maria-Theresia Smith OCD), p. 15 (organ loft, baptistery), p. 23 (pain man).
  23. ↑ Catholic Memorial Church Maria Regina Martyrum Berlin . 2nd edition Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 1995, p. 24 (Schnell, Kunstführer No. 1703, text: Sr. Maria-Theresia Smith OCD).
  24. ↑ Catholic Memorial Church Maria Regina Martyrum Berlin . 2nd Edition. Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 1995 (Schnell, Kunstführer No. 1703, text: Sr. Maria-Theresia Smith OCD), p. 26.
  25. ^ Memorial Church of the German Catholics Maria Regina Martyrum in honor of the martyrs for freedom of belief and conscience in the years 1933–1945. More Verlag, Berlin 1963, p. 74.
  26. ↑ erzbistumberlin.de: Press release Sankt Hedwig Mitte moves to St. Joseph , July 4th 2018
  27. ^ Memorial Church of the German Catholics Maria Regina Martyrum in honor of the martyrs for freedom of belief and conscience in the years 1933–1945. Morus Verlag, Berlin 1963, pp. 72-76. Reiner Elwers: Berlin's unknown cultural monuments. L&H Verlag, Marburg 1998, ISBN 3-928119-47-8 , p. 77.
  28. ↑ Opus list (PDF; 335 kB) Organ building Klais
  29. ↑ Catholic Memorial Church Maria Regina Martyrum Berlin. 2nd edition Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 1995, p. 22 f. (Schnell, Art Guide No. 1703, text: Sr. Maria-Theresia Smith OCD).
  30. ^ Klaus-Dieter Wille: The bells of Berlin (West). History and inventory. Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-7861-1443-9 , p. 127 f, there also the inscriptions.
  31. ^ Memorial Church of the German Catholics Maria Regina Martyrum in honor of the martyrs for freedom of belief and conscience in the years 1933–1945. More Verlag, Berlin 1963, pp. 45, 67. The bell on youtube
  32. ↑ Hoffs: List of chimes. ( Memento of the original from October 6, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF) glockenbuecherebk.de, p. 49 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.glockenbuecherebk.de
  33. ↑ Carmel Regina Martyrum
  34. ↑ Catholic Memorial Church Maria Regina Martyrum Berlin . 2nd edition Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 1995, pp. 28, 31 (Schnell, Kunstführer No. 1703, text: Sr. Maria-Theresia Smith OCD).
This article was added to the list of articles worth reading on March 7, 2013 in this version .

Coordinates: 52 ° 32 '23.9 "  N , 13 ° 17' 54.1"  E