Marienquelle (Leipzig)
The Marienquelle (also Marienbrunnen) is a former spring in the southeast of Leipzig near the Monument to the Battle of the Nations , which dried up at the beginning of the 20th century. The name of the neighboring district of Marienbrunn is derived from it. The spring version has been preserved and restored.
geography
The Marienquelle is in the southern part of the Wilhelm-Külz-Park (formerly a memorial park or Amselpark) on a park path that leads through a depression. Until the park was set up at the beginning of the 20th century, the source was in the open field a little below the highest point of the site, where the Quandtsche Tabaksmühle ( Dutch windmill for the production of snuff ) stood until the Battle of the Nations, where Napoleon followed the battle and later the Napoleon Stone was erected. Administratively, the park has belonged to the Probstheida district since 1992 .
The natural drainage of the Marienquelle was the cathedral moat . This ran from the source in a westerly direction, roughly along today's Richard-Lehmann-Strasse, to flow into the Pleiße at Connewitz .
history
In 1836 a legend was published for the first time, according to which the Marienquelle is said to have got its name. According to this, on St. John's Day in 1441, a pilgrim named Maria led lepers from the St. John's Hospital in Leipzig to the place where, through her prayer, she let a spring spring up. She gave the spring water to the sick who, after drinking it, felt "how new strength was running through their veins". But Maria disappeared on a white deer.
In a certain relation to the source, a chalice in the Leipzig City History Museum could be viewed, the creation of which is dated to the year 1632 in Leipzig and which is known as the plague chalice, but which bears the inscription "MARIA", which is unusual for Protestant Leipzig.
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At the end of the 15th century, the Leipzig mint master Andreas Funke had an estate built for himself west of the spring, the (old) Funkenburg , which included the spring. In 1502, his successor sold half of the rights to use the spring to the City Council of Leipzig, who had the water carried as drinking water to the city 3.5 kilometers away in a "tube ride". In the Thirty Years War the line fell into disuse.
In 1719 the rumor arose in Leipzig that the water from the Marienquelle was medicinal. Therefore, from then on, many people from Leipzig were drawn to what is now called the “Gesundbrunnen” spring. Even in the 19th century, the spring remained a popular excursion destination for the people of Leipzig, especially since the neighboring Napoleon Stone had been another attraction since 1857.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the spring dried up due to the disruption of the hydrogeological structure of the area in the course of deep cuts in the railroad, sand pits and building foundations. Nevertheless, the garden suburb Marienbrunn, founded in 1913 on the occasion of the International Building Exhibition in the vicinity of the former source, was named . In the meantime, the entire resulting district with more than 5000 inhabitants bears this name.
In 1939 a privately sponsored bronze group by Max Alfred Brumme "Maria auf dem Reh" was set up on the meadow at the Marienquelle , which referred to the legend. But already after three years it had to be demolished because of the use of bronze in the armaments industry in the metal donation campaign of the German people .
In the second half of the 20th century, Quellenplatz fell into disrepair, both structurally and in terms of cleanliness. After 1990 the Friends of Marienbrunn eV took on the source. Test drillings in 1994 revealed a groundwater bearing layer at a depth of 60 centimeters. In 1998, the association restored the source catchment and its surroundings in cooperation with the Leipzig Green Area Office and installed a drain from the spring basin into the sewage network. Since then, the St. John's Festival has been celebrated annually on St. John's Day at the Marienquelle with the participation of the population, and the legend of Mary is read aloud.
literature
- Claus Uhlrich: The Marienborn and other stories from old Leipzig , PRO LEIPZIG 2001
- Eva-Maria Bast , Heike Thissen (ed.): Leipziger Secrets: Exciting things from the Saxony metropolis: With connoisseurs of Leipzig's city history, Überlingen 2018, pp. 81–83.
Web links
- Our Maienborn . In the brochure “Do you know Marienbrunn?” By the Friends of Marienbrunn eV association
Individual evidence
- ^ Moritz Seeburg: The Marienborn and the water pipeline of Leipzig - in additions to the history of the city of Leipzig, 1836
- ↑ Horst Riedel: Stadtlexikon Leipzig from A - Z . PRO LEIPZIG, Leipzig 2005, ISBN 3-936508-03-8 , p. 380
- ↑ Bulletin of the Friends of Marienbrunn eV Association 1994 No. 7
Coordinates: 51 ° 18 ′ 46.2 " N , 12 ° 24 ′ 18.3" E