Mausoleum Count Carl von Alten

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Front of the Mausoleum Count Carl von Alten

The Graf Carl von Alten mausoleum is a derelict mausoleum in the Lower Saxony town of Hemmingen . It is located between the local layers of neighborhoods Arnum , Hemmingen-Westerfeld and Wilkenburg in nature reserve Sundern . The mausoleum has been listed as an architectural monument in the Lower Saxony register of monuments since 1985 .

location

The structural remains of the mausoleum are located in a wooded area in a floodplain landscape within the Sundern nature reserve. The area is a silted up river bend in the glacial valley of the Leine . A ring moat was dug around the mausoleum when it was built so that it stands on a small island. A ditch connection to the Hemminger Maschgraben provides for the inflow of water .

Building description

Back of the mausoleum surrounded by a moat, with frozen watercourse

The mausoleum was originally a single-nave chapel . The outer walls were on three sides of the sand quarry with a veneer of brick . The wall thickness of the outer walls was 1.2 meters. The rear gable wall was built entirely from bricks. On the front gable was a sandstone coat of arms of the von Alten family . Inside the building was about 8 × 5 meters. Pointed corner towers rose at the outer corners of the chapel. Access to the chapel was through a small anteroom made of bricks with two corner turrets. The 340  kilogram entrance door of the chapel was rediscovered in 2016 in a residential building in Gehrden .

The mausoleum was originally to be reached via a natural bridge with a fish belly girder developed by Georg Ludwig Friedrich Laves , which led across the moat. Today, essentially only the foundation walls that were subsequently built up as well as a side wall and a corner tower remain of the mausoleum. A restoration with securing of the building remains against further deterioration, the cost of which amounted to more than 60,000 euros, was carried out in 2013 and 2014 by the support association Mausoleum Graf Carl von Alten . The documentary film "The rescue of the mausoleum monument in Hemmingen", which was premiered in 2015 and shot by pupils at CFGS Hemmingen , is about the work . In 2016, considerations arose to protect the building remains against the weather with a glass roof.

  • Signpost to the mausoleum

  • Corner tower with remains of the gable on the entrance side

  • Construction detail with shaped bricks below the corner tower

  • Interior, view of the earlier entrance

history

Project drawing of the mausoleum, 1840
The ruins of the mausoleum (2012) before restoration

The mausoleum was completed in 1842 as a burial place for the Hanoverian - British general and statesman Carl von Alten two years after his death. The design for this comes from the royal Hanoverian court architect Georg Ludwig Friedrich Laves. The architect Conrad Wilhelm Hase had it built . Hase saw in this the beginning of the Hanoverian brick architecture . Today the mausoleum is considered to be the first neo-Gothic brick building in northern Germany .

After the Second World War , looters forcibly entered the mausoleum and robbed the zinc coffins of Carl von Alten and two relatives. In the process, they stole the general's uniform, decorations and sword. After the front door was bricked up, there were break-ins through the roof. In 1958, thieves tore down the walled-up entrance and stole the metal from the zinc coffins. They also disturbed the peace of the dead again and distributed the bones in the forest. Then the remains of Carl Altens were Neustädter Kirche in Hannover reburied . The substance of the building remained largely intact until the 1960s. Between 1966 and 1968 the entrance portal was destroyed, and in 1973 the heavy oak entrance door was stolen. After that, the mausoleum fell into disrepair over time due to the theft of stone material and vandalism, so that in 1982 it became a ruin.

In 1987, the support association Mausoleum Graf Carl von Alten was founded to save the burial site, which was awarded the Monument Prize of the Lower Saxony Sparkasse Foundation in 2016 for its activities .

literature

  • Förderverein Mausoleum Graf Carl von Alten (ed.): The mausoleum in Sundern . 2001; New edition 2015

Web links

Commons : Mausoleum von Alten (Hemmingen)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Andreas Zimmer: mausoleum door back after decades . Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung , December 13, 2016, accessed on March 11, 2017.
  2. ^ Klaus Stüber: Description of the building of the mausoleum . Förderverein Mausoleum Graf Carl von Alten, accessed on March 11, 2017.
  3. ↑ The “winners” withdraw . Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, February 15, 2015, accessed on March 11, 2017.
  4. ↑ Andreas Zimmer: Documentary about mausoleum premieres . Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, April 20, 2015, accessed on March 11, 2017.
  5. ↑ Tobias Lehmann: A glass roof for the mausoleum? Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, February 7, 2016, accessed on March 11, 2017.
  6. ^ Günther Kokkelink : The neo-Gothic Conrad Wilhelm Hases. In: Hannoversche Geschichtsblätter, New Series, Volume 22 from 1968, page 58 ff.
  7. ↑ Helga Sturm: meaning . Förderverein Mausoleum Graf Carl von Alten, accessed on March 11, 2017.
  8. ↑ Heinz Wiegmann, Klaus Stüber: The decay of the mausoleum . Förderverein Mausoleum Graf Carl von Alten, accessed on March 11, 2017.
  9. ↑ Press article on the founding of the association in 1987 on the website of the Friends' Association Mausoleum Graf Carl von Alten, accessed on March 11, 2017 (pdf, 725 kB).
  10. ↑ Friends of the Mausoleum Graf Carl von Alten awarded . Leine Nachrichten, November 10, 2016 (pdf, 460 kB).
    Anke Lütjens: A prize for the preservation of the ruin . Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, November 9, 2016, accessed on March 11, 2017.
  11. ↑ Available from the administration of the Hanover region: Mausoleum Graf von Alten: Brochure reissued . Report on the website of the Hanover region, November 20, 2015, accessed on March 11, 2017.
    Andreas Zimmer: There is a new edition of the Mausoleum book . Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung , November 18, 2015, accessed on March 11, 2017.

Coordinates: 52 ° 18 ′ 52.3 "  N , 9 ° 44 ′ 13.5"  E