Upper Church (Bad Frankenhausen)
The Upper Church (also Church of Our Lady on the Mountain or Mountain Church ) is a Protestant church in Bad Frankenhausen in the Thuringian Kyffhäuserkreis . Its leaning tower has the largest overhang of all German towers at 4.6 m.
history
Construction and Catholic time
The church was completed on April 25, 1382 as a basilica in the Gothic style. The brotherhood Corporis Christi (Body of Christ) had it built on the foundations of a ruined Romanesque complex. For a long time, the Upper Church determined the image of Frankenhausen more than the other churches in the city. The oldest part of the nave was designed as a vaulted structure and multi-aisle nave . Gothic windows and doors with pointed arches adorned the building. The tower originally had a pointed roof with four small side towers. In its heyday, the upper church had many altars and a high income.
In the course of the German Peasants' War , the battle of which raged near Frankenhausen on May 15, 1525 above the city, the upper church was damaged and looted. The Schwarzburg counts were basically in favor of Martin Luther's work, but tried to prevent the Reformation from being implemented in their countries. That is why their subjects in this region did not gain religious freedom until 1539 . In the same year the last Catholic service took place in the upper church . Then the first Protestant clergyman was called to the church.
From the Thirty Years War to the end of the 19th century
During the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), the upper church was looted again from October 21 to 24, 1632. Dilapidation was documented as early as 1692. A lack of funds was the cause of the very slow renovation. The view from the south side in particular still bears witness to the irregular changes that were made. In 1724 the first funeral sermon could be given in the renovated church, which was consecrated again on September 14, 1727.
During the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), troops passing through looted the church one more time. On May 27, 1759, the top of the upper church tower fell victim to one of the many city fires. A spread to the entire church building was prevented, but overzealous people caused great damage when they tore out the pipes of the organ to save them from the flames. Construction of the upper part of the tower began on July 13, 1760, and was completed as a baroque building on August 22, 1761 . The skewing of the tower, which already existed at that time, was counteracted structurally. The bells destroyed in the fire were replaced in 1765.
During the French campaign of conquest in 1806, the church suffered new damage when 2,678 Prussians were brought to Frankenhausen under the guard of 300 French people and the city's upper and lower churches were used as prison camps. The interior of the church was then in need of renovation and the organ was unusable. A new organ and the necessary renovation were financed by donations and the new organ was inaugurated on May 1, 1867.
tower
Due to gypsum and salt leaching in the deeper soil, the top of the 56 m high church tower with a baroque dome with two lanterns is inclined 4.60 m (= 4.93 °) from the vertical (as of 2013). The tower is one of the most crooked towers in Germany . Measured on the overhang (deviation of the spire from the perpendicular), it has the highest value of all German towers. It is more inclined than the Leaning Tower of Pisa , which was inclined by 3.97 ° in 2011.
Rescue and remedial measures
A geological disturbance already existed during the construction of the church, which manifested itself in the course of the Schwedengasse on the eastern edge of the building site by a channel-shaped depression in the slope area and was last leveled in the 19th century by filling in rubble. In 1908, 500 m away from the church, there was an eruption due to the leaching of gypsum horizons close to the surface with the formation of a sinkhole . With this event, the church began to tilt rapidly, caused by severe subsidence of the earth and the disturbance of the water drainage in the immediate vicinity of the site. Another indication of the instability of the building site is the existence of the Elisabethquelle, a spring of healing water that has been known since the Middle Ages and emerges from the ground in the immediate vicinity of the church . The church was closed in 1908 out of concern for the safety of church visitors.
The first construction measures to stop the inclination of the upper church tower were carried out in 1911. Two 11 m high buttresses made of sandstone blocks with concrete and stone filling were erected in front of the northeast corner, which should support the tower and counteract any further inclination. This turned out to be counterproductive, as these pillars now also pressed against the ground and even lowered faster than the tower, as could be seen from the gaping gap between the pillars and the tower. Nevertheless, the church was consecrated again on October 8, 1911. The big bell had to be delivered together with the middle bell for war production in the First World War in 1917 .
In the spring of 1920, boreholes to examine the subsurface conditions were carried out for the first time. An inclination of the tower from the vertical of 5 cm at a height of 1 m was determined. Five years later, the building was closed by the building authorities due to the danger of collapse and demolition was considered. A cost estimate from this time showed that the costs for demolition or renovation would be about the same.
Georg Rüth from the TU Dresden initiated successful maintenance measures on the upper church between September 1935 and March 1936: ring anchors made of flat iron were placed around the tower and from now on connected it to the nave . The east gable of the church was then torn down as it had become severely cracked by the crevice that led through it. It was replaced by a lightweight gable made of pumice concrete hollow blocks with a reinforced concrete skeleton . On June 27, 1937, the dedication service took place in the restored upper church.
Towards the end of the Second World War , the upper church was used as the SS arsenal . After the Allied troops released the goods hoarded there for distribution in the spring of 1945, the church was again plundered by the population. The organ, windows and interior of the church were largely destroyed. In 1952 the tower and the south side of the nave were given a new slate roof. Due to heavy sponge infestation, however, the church roof had to be removed again in 1962. The structure was completely gutted to remove the sponge damage, the nave was not rebuilt, so that the building is only preserved as a ruin today.
In 1984 the entire church was closed by the state building supervision of the Artern district ( Halle district ). Demolition of the baroque tower dome was requested for safety reasons. However, a lack of capacity prevented this. After renewed security measures on the tower, the full closure was converted into a partial closure on September 9, 1993, and the first service was held in the ruins of the upper church on September 12, 1993.
According to measurements by the Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences , the tower of the upper church reached a total inclination of more than 4.76 ° in 2011. The top of the 56 m high tower was 4.45 m in the northeast out of the perpendicular . The tower shaft even had an inclination of 5.42 °, as the tower hood was deliberately placed in the opposite direction in 1761. A tilt of the tower was first mentioned in 1640. According to the latest geological studies, the cause of the inclination is subsidence east of the tower. However, the assumption that, due to different soil conditions, solid rock separates from loose gravel from which the gypsum was washed out over time, about diagonally under the tower , has not been confirmed.
During the renovation measures carried out at the beginning of the 21st century, the supporting pillars from 1911 were removed and cracks in the masonry were sealed. In June 2007, a specialist civil engineering company received the order to renovate the subsoil under the church tower, compacting it by injecting liquid concrete. At least it was possible to reduce the previous rate of subsidence of 6 cm / year. After completion of the work, values of 2 mm / year were still measured.
Demolition plans and one last chance to save
Experts have calculated that if the tower continued to incline continuously, it would collapse completely by 2092 at the latest. Because the building is locked and another rescue attempt would cost at least 800,000 euros, negotiations between the Evangelical Church in Central Germany and the Lower Monument Protection Authority of the district about a demolition permit took place in January 2011 . At first no agreement was reached. The Evangelical Regional Church then offered to give the ruins to the city of Bad Frankenhausen as a gift.
In the meantime, the state of Thuringia has made the sum available for another rescue attempt, which is to be increased to 1.4 million euros through funds from the city's budget and private donations. A corset and two supporting pillars are used to stop sideways movement and thus prevent it from tearing off. At the beginning of December 2011, the city council decided to purchase the church and the associated land for the symbolic price of one euro.
A support corset was built from April 2015 to the end of the year. The renovation of the masonry then began and was completed in July 2016. The tower button was renewed in 2018 .
See also
Web links
- Friends of the Oberkirche Bad Frankenhausen
- "The Leaning Tower" (website of the municipal administration)
- Oberkirche Bad Frankenhausen at kyffnet.de
literature
- Church "Our Lady in the Mountains" also Ober- or Bergkirche Bad Frankenhausen / Kyffhäuser . Ed. Förderverein Oberkirche Bad Frankenhausen e. V. 2nd edition 2001
Individual evidence
- ↑ Inclination of the church tower at oberkirchturm.de , accessed on July 5, 2016
- ↑ Renovation of the outer wall of the leaning tower before the conclusion of the Thuringian State Newspaper of June 17, 2016, accessed on July 1, 2016
- ↑ Portrait at projekt-baudenkmal.de , accessed on July 5, 2016
- ↑ a b c Bernhard Honnigfort: Really weird. The tallest leaning church tower in the world is in Thuringia. Now he is threatened with demolition. Article in the Berliner Zeitung of September 13, 2011, p. 28.
- ↑ Trabert & Partner engineering office (ed.): The Leaning Tower of Bad Frankenhausen . Conference report on the specialist seminar for structural engineers, architects and master craftsmen at the Probstei Johannesberg (2011). Geisa 2011, p. 27 .
- ↑ Leaning Tower of Frankenhausen - built on salt . In: Spiegel Online , April 27, 2010
- ↑ Church wants to give away the leaning tower . EKM , March 29, 2011
- ^ Bad Frankenhausen buys the leaning tower , Thüringer Allgemeine , December 7, 2011
- ↑ a b Friends of the Oberkirche Bad Frankenhausen , accessed on June 30, 2016
- ↑ Rico Groom: Bad Frankenhausen's Leaning Tower has its crown back. tag24.de from November 22, 2018, accessed on November 23, 2018
Coordinates: 51 ° 21 ′ 34 ″ N , 11 ° 6 ′ 20 ″ E