Marienkapelle (Aachen)
The Marienkapelle on the southwest slope of the Schneeberg , therefore generally known as the Schneeberg Chapel , is a votive church consecrated to the Mother of God in 1963 above the Senserbach north of Vaals in the Laurensberg district of Aachen . It was built as a private chapel at the instigation of the farmer Wilhelm Maahsen (1900–1977) and is now a listed building .
history
The local farmer Maahsen had vowed that if he and his family as well as the towns of Vaals and Vaalserquartier survived the Second World War , he would have a chapel built on this site. After the Schneeberg had been taken from the east by Allied troops in October 1944 and Vaals and Aachen were liberated and the farmer Maahsen and his family had survived the fighting unscathed, a few months later he began planning and building the chapel. On his own he procured rubble from the area around the Aachen Cathedral , with which he began to erect the foundation and parts of the shell. At that time, however, Maahsen did not yet have a building permit and had to stop work temporarily. After an architecture student had worked out the necessary plans for him and he had fulfilled the other official requirements, he continued the building project with the help of his neighbors.
After many interruptions in construction, the pastor of St. Konrad from Vaalserquartier inaugurated the Marienkapelle on September 8, 1963 in the presence of more than a thousand pilgrims. Annual pilgrimage processions to the chapel followed. In order to secure the Marienkapelle in the long term and not to be responsible for it as an inheritance to the relatives, the farmer Maahsen intended to transfer the chapel to the parish of St. Konrad as a donation, but on his related requirements such as regular Eucharistic celebrations or a consecration of the altar could not enter the parish. The chapel remained in private ownership to this day and the actual access path with the staircase from the farmer's farm on Senserbachweg is also private property. The Götzen family's grave complex on the chapel grounds is also private. Public access to the chapel is only possible from the north, via a paved farm path below the Schneeberg, the Schneebergweg.
Building description
The chapel is based on the octagon of Aachen Cathedral and has an octagonal floor plan. On the roof, Maahsen had a wreath of stars cast in concrete, on which a blue stone cross was attached. A bell from the dissolved Redemptorist monastery in Vaals, which Maahsen had bought for 75 DM and which is now permanently installed, was built into this wreath, which with its ten points represents a “soldier's” or “finger rosary” . During Maahsen's lifetime, this bell was rung regularly by him or his wife in the morning, at noon and in the evening.
Aachen artist Peter Hodiamont designed the window wreath below the dome and the entrance door . The enameled plates attached there depict motifs from the Lauretanian litany and describe the arduous journey during the construction of the chapel from the vows in 1944 to the consecration in 1963.
The inside of the band is determined by a 16 cwt heavy boulder on which the altar plate rests, as well as by a cement-gray Madonna Brugge the Belgian sculptor Louis Dupont (1886-1967), in lieu of a desired Maahsen colored Madonna from the pilgrimage Banneux placed has been.
literature
- Andreas Krützen: 50 years of the Schneeberg Chapel in Aachen-Vaalserquartier , article on the website of KG Vaalserquartier from March 2013
- Pastor Hans Thoma: Chronicle of the parish of St. Konrad , 1945–1963
- Church newspaper for the Diocese of Aachen, Volume 64, No. 19, from May 10, 2009
Web links
Coordinates: 50 ° 46 ′ 48.9 ″ N , 6 ° 0 ′ 58.6 ″ E