Messinghof (Kassel)
The Messinghof is a former brass factory from the 17th century in Bettenhausen , an eastern part of the north Hessian city of Kassel .
The hammer mill with foundry was built in 1679 on behalf of Landgrave Karl southwest of the Losse . It is the oldest industrial monument in Northern Hesse. The monumental figure of the Kassel Hercules was made in the factory at the beginning of the 18th century .
geography
The existing structures and buildings of the Messinghof are in Bettenhausen around 250 meters southwest of the former course of the Losse. There is a small allotment area between the Losse oxbow lake, which is still present today, but is mostly dry and lined with trees and bushes, and the area of the Messinghof . Today the property of the Messinghof has the address Leipziger Straße 291 ; it is located about 110 meters east of the Forstfeldstraße branching off from Leipziger Straße.
history
The Messinghof, a landgrave's manufactory
Landgrave Karl had the brass yard built in 1679 east of what was then the village of Bettenhausen an der Losse. The brass works was built on the site of an older watermill called a fist mill from 1407. The copper ore extracted in the Richelsdorf Mountains and in Frankenberg (Eder) has been processed into brass here since 1560 . The former fist mill is probably identical to the Forstmühle near the Herwigsmühle , which was mentioned in documents in 1407, 1410 and 1422:
"That we have the present brass yard in front of us in the Forstmühle is all the less to be doubted since the Forstmühle was already used by the Canzler for 'Rothgießen' in the middle of the 16th century."
The complex, completed in 1680, originally had two wings. The fortepiano stood directly on a mill canal supplied by the Losse. Here were the hammers driven by an initially undershot water wheel. Later there were two overshot water wheels that drove up to four hammers. Various metal products made of copper and brass were made in the fortepiano. Here boilers were forged and wire was drawn. Coin blanks are also said to have been produced here. Opposite the no longer preserved grand piano is the foundry grand piano; Metals such as copper, brass or bronze for the production of sheet metal, wires or finished goods such as bells were extracted in his three melting furnaces (see Winkelmann).
The oldest surviving description of the brass yard dates from 1697. According to Winkelmann, that was
“… In 1680 a new brass courtyard, a spacious square surrounded by pretty buildings, inside fine logiamentr for pleasure and safekeeping of work, measured in brass wire, Galmey and other mill hammers and buildings, in the same two copper hammers with their accessories, where all kinds of brass and copper goods are manufactured, including brass crucibles, all kinds of Gröppen goods and bells "
The Augsburg goldsmith Johann Jacob Anthoni drove the copper plates for the statue of Kassel Hercules in the brass yard between 1714 and 1717. Anthoni thus created the first construction with an inner support frame made of steel, on which the copper plates of the statue were attached. This first-time construction of a statue in lightweight construction testifies to the early technical capabilities of Hesse. According to this principle, the figure of the Hermannsdenkmal was made in 1875 and the New York Statue of Liberty in 1884 . The production of the Hercules statue was the historical highlight of the brass court. Kassel is therefore in the rare position that the historical production site of an important cultural monument still exists.
Although the region was at times fiercely fought over during the Seven Years' War , the Messinghof suffered little damage. At the beginning of the 20th century, a Sauvegarde ("letter of protection") was discovered on the walls of the brass courtyard, which bore the handwritten signature of Marshal von Richelieu . This shows the great economic importance of the plants at the time.
Initially there were two copper hammers in the brass yard. After 1717, according to Marcus Fulda ( lit. ), there were up to four copper hammers, a calamine mill , scissors and other equipment required for copper processing. According to Lobe ( lit. ), four copper hammers, a rolling mill , a smelter and a boiler forge were in operation in the brass yard in 1837 (see under technology ).
Private metal industry from 1869 to 1975
In 1866 the Electorate of Hesse-Kassel became Prussian. In 1869, the Prussian state privatized the mills on the Losse, which had been state-owned until then; the company Lieberg & Co. acquired the Messinghof and copper hammer. After 1933 the Jewish Lieberg family was expropriated by the National Socialists. The Messinghof went as part of the " Aryanization " to the company Imfeld & Co. over, but was under the name Lieberg & Co. continued.
During the Second World War , among other things, Dutch forced laborers were used in the brass yard . During the war Kassel was bombed several times, the fortepiano was hit by incendiary bombs and burned out. Since no security measures were taken, the ruins of the fortepiano had to be put down in the 1960s. Only the cellars remain from him.
Since 1949, the brass yard was officially owned by the company Hessische Metallfabrik Imfeld & Co. In 1975 the company filed for bankruptcy and the property was vacant. This ended the almost three hundred year history of metal processing in the Messinghof.
After the end of industrial use
Between 1979 and 1996 numerous artists settled in the Messinghof; the punk record label Iron Curtain Records , founded by GHK students , had its headquarters there between 1979 and 1984. The last eight residents who kept the Messinghof were in December 1996 by a Police operation cleared.
The copper hammer of the Messinghof, which was temporarily in the LWL open-air museum in Hagen , returned to the Messinghof in 1996 and can now be viewed in the Astronomical-Physical Cabinet in the Kassel Orangery .
The brass farm since 1996
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After the clearance in 1996, the still-preserved foundry wing with the partially preserved three melting furnaces and the forge stood empty and slowly fell into disrepair. However, traces in the buildings and around them indicated occasional use by the homeless as well as for parties.
The property is located in a commercial and industrial area. A use in this context as a commercial building would prove to be difficult, since on the one hand the buildings are under monument protection and on the other hand there is a not inconsiderable load on the soil due to centuries of metal processing.
In 1992 the Messinghof was sold to a Bavarian real estate company that went bankrupt in 1995. Until mid-2006 the property was owned by a real estate agent from Hanover. In 2010, the brass yard was bought by a regional automobile dealer and has been renovated and restored since then. The gatehouse, the coach house and the courtyard area have already been completed. The work on the foundry wing should be completed by June 2017 and then cost a total of around five million euros. After completion, the site and the buildings will serve as a presentation area for classic cars as well as for events and training courses. There should also be a restaurant.
Economical meaning
The loss mills
The water power of the fast flowing Losse was already used in the Middle Ages to drive numerous mills . Over the years, 34 mills have settled on the 28.9 kilometer long river, 12 of them in Bettenhausen alone on the Losse mill canal. The mills were only partially grinding mills, a great many of them were also or exclusively “industrial mills”. Many street names in the Kassel districts of Bettenhausen and Forstfeld still recall these mills. The following are mentioned:
- the Agathof , first mentioned in 1377 under the name Lachenmühle , with changing functions as a grinding mill, gemstone cutting - the name Agathof is derived from the agate processed there - and later a chemical factory;
- the iron hammer , partly built in 1685, first a paper mill, then a sawmill and later the Rocholl stick factory ;
- the Herwigsmühle ( wire mill , Unterer Messinghof ), mentioned for the first time in 1410, which served mainly as a grinding mill and in which the brass yard's wire drawing shop was temporarily housed;
- the copper hammer ( supreme wire mill ), founded in 1680 and located above the brass yard , where part of the copper processing of the brass yard took place;
- the forest mill , first mentioned in 1407 , the later brass yard and brass works since the middle of the 16th century.
Brass yard and copper monopoly
Hessen-Kassel was economically underdeveloped in the middle of the 17th century and suffered from the aftermath of the Thirty Years' War . Landgrave Karl's economic policy was aimed at overcoming the consequences of the war as quickly as possible. The metal extracted from the copper ore of the mines in the Richelsdorf Mountains and the Frankenberg region was to be processed into brass and bronze profitably in their own country .
Under the sign of mercantilism , Karl quickly granted the Messinghof, founded in 1679, a monopoly on copper processing. He issued an edict on May 10, 1681 , in which he stipulated that no more copper ore could be exported and no foreign goods made of copper or brass could be imported. The only exceptions were products that could not be manufactured in the brass yard. The zinc ore required for the production of the brass was mainly obtained from a galme pit in Brilon . The monopoly of Messinghofs was founded in 1741 by Charles successor Frederick I continued.
The establishment of the brass yard at the gates of Kassel meant an improvement in trade and commerce for Hessen-Kassel and its population. The otherwise expensive products from abroad could thus be produced more cheaply in their own country, and the number of jobs for the North Hessian population grew. With the establishment of the brass yard, the industrialization of Hessen-Kassel was initiated. The brass yard is thus the origin of the Kassel metal industry .
technology
Since the copper yield from the North Hessian mines was plentiful, two copper hammers could be operated in the brass yard from the start. The water required to operate the hammer mill was taken from the lot and the work was driven by a water wheel three meters in diameter and one meter wide.
In a description from 1837, the technical equipment of the brass yard is shown as follows:
"... in a smelting and boiler works with four hammers for the manufacture of the brass boiler, a black and a bare wire , a rolling mill , which was built in 1830, and three copper hammers, one of which in the brass yard, the other two 1 / 4 hours of which are above the fish house. Each of them has a wide and a deep hammer for making the thrown work; Sheets are manufactured in the rolling mill. The latter is interesting because of the way the rollers are set, which differs from that of other machines of this type. "
After Werner von Siemens invented the generator in 1866 , some of the Lossemühlen were converted to electricity. A turbine with about 60 HP (approx. 44 kW) net power was installed in the brass yard . The waterwheel operated the two hammers and, via the turbine, a generator and a machine for metal processing . The brass yard's hydropower plant has not been used since 1940. In 1963, the water law finally expired , as the Möller bread factory located in Herwigsmühle , among others, no longer used the law.
Building description
The original facilities of the brass courtyard consisted of two elongated two-story buildings since 1679/80, which ran parallel to the then country road. The rectangular buildings enclosed an inner courtyard together with two walls with high round arched gates. The southwest wing, called fortepiano, stood directly on a side arm (mill channel) of the Losse and housed the hammers driven by water power. The fortepiano burned down in World War II and had to be demolished in the 1960s because maintenance work was not carried out. A portal was rebuilt in the LWL open-air museum in Hagen.
The northeast wing, the foundry wing, which still exists today, comprised living rooms and business rooms as well as the smelting furnaces for extracting the metals. Even today there is a polygonal domed vault in the foundry wing that covered the furnaces. This forge takes up the entire 14 meter height of the building up to the roof structure. The three melting furnaces are also largely preserved. A pavilion-like wing of the building, the so-called “gatehouse”, which probably dates from the 18th century, adjoins the western courtyard wall. It was given a half-timbered upper floor in the 19th century. Behind the foundry wing is the so-called “Kutscherhaus”, a building from the Wilhelminian era made of brick.
The two main buildings were made of quarry stone and were originally plastered. The architectural forms are still in the tradition of the Renaissance. Noteworthy are the curved, volute-crowned gables on the narrow sides, which are more suited to a stately building than to an industrial plant.
Typical baroque gable on the foundry wing (north end)
Portal of the broken fortepiano in Hagen
Eat in the foundry wing
literature
- Marcus Fulda: complete treatise of brass factories. o. O. 1717 (manuscript, University Library Kassel ).
- Karl Hachenberg and Helmut Ullwer: Marcus Fulda (1689–1734). Hessian hut and hammer inspector and imperial mining captain. In: Journal of the Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies (ZHG), Volume 110 (2005), pp. 159–191, ISSN 0342-3107 .
- Georg A. Lobe: Walks through Cassel and the surrounding area. A sketch for locals and foreigners alike . Verlag Krieger, Kassel 1837.
- Dorothea Heppe: Brasshof industrial monument (monument book of the city of Kassel). Magistrate of the City of Kassel / Monument Protection Authority, Kassel 1996.
- Friedrich Nebelthau : Memories of the city of Kassel. 1st section. In: ZHG , Volume 12 (1869), pp. 241-310, ISSN 0342-3107 .
- Friedrich Nebelthau: Memories of the city of Kassel. 2. The high treason trial of the Kassel citizens of 1391. 3. Medieval heyday of the city. In: ZHG , Volume 13 (1871), pp. 1-113, ISSN 0342-3107 .
- Theodor Hans-Dieter Scholz: water and windmills in the city of Kassel. Regional Council Kassel, Kassel 1997.
- Johann Just Winkelmann: Thorough and true description of the principalities of Hesse and Hersfeld. Börner PR, Meiningen 1995 (reprint of the Bremen edition 1697).
- Part 1-5 . 1995, ISBN 3-930675-03-X .
- Part 6. In addition to a complete register . 1995, ISBN 3-930675-10-2 .
Web links
- Memories on the net: The Messinghof - the cradle of Hercules
- Peter Liebetrau: Mills in Kassel-Bettenhausen ( Memento from October 9, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- District center Agathof: The mills in Bettenhausen
- Autohaus Glinicke: Classic automobiles behind historic walls
Individual evidence
- ↑ Messinghof shines at documenta: Laser planned for Hercules . In: Hessische / Niedersächsische Allgemeine . October 31, 2016 ( hna.de [accessed March 12, 2017]).
- ^ Glinicke service GmbH: Messinghof - Glinicke service GmbH. Retrieved March 12, 2017 .
Coordinates: 51 ° 17 ′ 51 ″ N , 9 ° 32 ′ 28 ″ E
