Ochsenturm (Oberwesel)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Ochsenturm in Oberwesel , a Rhineland-Palatinate city located on the Middle Rhine in the Rhein-Hunsrück district , is part of the remaining medieval city ​​fortifications. The round tower was next to the round tower of the city of Andernach the strongest defense tower of the city fortifications of the region and was built in the middle of the 14th century. It is one of the 16 existing, formerly 22, defensive towers in Oberwesel, which were built in several construction phases and were part of a city wall . Today this is considered to be the best preserved city wall on the Middle Rhine

Rhine front with ox tower from the northeast
View shortly before the construction of the bypass road, April 1, 1955

location

The tower at the city entrance, which is also visible to shipping from afar

The round and corner tower of the then Oberwesel suburb of Niederburg, built like the Katzenturm behind the confluence of the Niederbach, was for centuries the northern end of the city ​​fortifications on the Rhine side . This began with the ten-tower in the southern suburb of Kirchhausen, which was originally a customs tower in front of the city's first fortifications. The Ochsenturm has only been isolated since the middle of the 19th century, as the construction of a railway embankment was accompanied by the demolition of sections of the wall that had previously connected it on the south side with the adjacent Katzenturm and the Rhine wall and on the other side with the north wall. In the Middle Ages it served to protect adjacent wall sections with their gates and gates, but has lost this function in modern times, but still demonstrated the size, power and wealth of the former imperial city of Oberwesel .

designation

The tower structures of the fortifications of the Middle Ages were often given animal names. The name Ochsenturm probably refers to the strength of the ox and is not an isolated case , as the Ochsenturm in Frankfurt-Höchst , which was built in the 13th century, shows. In addition, the city Oberwesel has other towers, but whose name interpretation takes only indirect reference to a species of animal, the Kuhhirtenturm at the field-side mounting, the former donkey storm called tens tower at the south end of the Rhine-side city walls and the stone tower, which according to the counts of Katzenelnbogen was named . The tower of the counts - they were noble citizens of the city - and their Oberweseler Hofgut nearby were southern neighbors of the Ochsenturm built in front of the slope of the steeply rising Oelsberg.

history

Origin, peculiarities

Fortifications of the northern suburb, on the left the ox tower with a pointed hood

Measured against the modest demands of the city lords, which they had placed on the equipment of their first city fortifications in the middle of the 13th century, a predecessor of today's ox tower was a rather insignificant small building in the same place. In contrast, the new corner tower on Oberwesel's northeastern edge has now become an improved follow-up model of the less demanding shell towers that the initially towerless walling of the city ​​center had received. The new round tower became a mighty and striking tower on the banks of the Rhine in the city and outlasted the centuries. Due to its extraordinary dimensions - with a diameter of 11.28 m and a height of 40.15 m with a wall thickness of 2.75 m - it was and is considered to be one of the most resilient defense towers in the medieval Rhineland. The new structure was possibly built as a counterpart to the Palatinate Castle Herzogenstein , which is under construction opposite the island of Tauber Werth on the right bank of the Rhine and was built at the request of Count Palatine Ruprecht . The cylindrical exterior of the building corresponded to the architectural style of so-called butter churn towers and was a design that was introduced on the Rhine in the beginning of the 14th century by the Counts of Katzenelnbogen - possibly based on the Italian model. The time of origin, which was initially only estimated by the relevant science, was confirmed by modern dendrochronological research methods , which resulted in a date around 1356 for a ceiling beam of the original building . It is not known whether the structure was damaged during the siege of Oberwesel by the troops of Archbishop Werner of Trier - who fired at the city from the Niederburger Höhe north of the Niederbach in the "Wesel War" (1390-1391) , but its strong masonry is likely have withstood the bombardment of the then new types of artillery . Only a stump is left of a previously neighboring tower on the mountain side in the northwest, the "Böckelheimer Turm" built as a shell tower. The Katzenturm, close to its south side, has been preserved in a slightly modified form and has been privately owned and inhabited since 1862. The Ochsenturm was mentioned in documents in 1400, 1741, 1753 and 1865.

Building description and examples

The mighty tower was built over a barrel vaulted basement and had its entrance from the battlement on the city side. At that time, entering the doorless ground floor room was only possible from the upper floor, through a narrow opening created in the top of the vault, using a rope or ladder. This created two practical conditions. On the one hand, prisoners could now be safely stored on the ground floor without great expense and, on the other hand, an attacker could not penetrate directly. Via the battlements of the city wall, which ran around the tower on the city ​​side, one got through the gates there into the first of the four steeply rising upper floors of the tower, the wall thickness of which tapered from 2.75 m to 2.60 m. The outer walls remained - apart from the polygonal-shaped staircase bay window and a few nicks and light slots - unarticulated. The exterior had been plastered, although today larger areas of this plaster are only available in the protected area of ​​the arched frieze, the rest was washed away by wind and weather over time. A painting can no longer be determined today, but is said to have existed as on the Steingassentorturm (also a tower of the Rhine fortification).

  • Former battlement gate.

  • Wall gate, detail

  • Consoles of the lavatory dungeon

  • At the Ochsenturm just before the banks of the Rhine

Floors up to the defense platform

The high round tower had the shape of an octagon inside (from the basement) and was divided into the other floors by retracted beam ceilings. The three strong oak beams of a floor ceiling connected the opposing wall recesses, whereby the originally used beam material is said to have been much stronger than the current beam that was introduced after an expansion in 1981/82.

In contrast to the wooden ladders used in the shell towers, the storeys could be reached through built-in stone stairs. Apart from a single stone staircase to the second floor, the other floors received a staircase with light slots through a spiral staircase . Its bulge as an elongated bay window with slits of light on the south-west side of the tower - in the axis of the battlement gate - can be clearly seen. The purpose of structural facilities determined the choice of a particular tower side by choosing the side for the narrow light slits that made optimal use of the daylight. On this second floor there was also the guard room (which could later be heated) and the toilet bay , which is important for the occupation of the tower , was attached to the north side above the city ​​moat . Its corbels, consoles made of sand-lime brick, which once gave it support, are still there (directly above the ivy growth). The wall opening required for the bay window was later converted into a window. The third and fourth floors were repeated in the room layout, but compared to the second floor only the fourth had special features. The niche on the east side was given a narrow window and the room closed off with a “monastery vault” instead of the usual ceiling beams.

Crowning the tower
Battlements, friezes and plaster residue

The last tower floor ended on the outside with a cantilevered arched frieze and a crenellated wreath . This decorative highlight was later also given to the now-visible, also octagonal tower extension, which with its smaller diameter created an all-round protected battlement in the middle of the defense platform . Following the example of the shell towers, all battlements were provided with sloping roof-like covers made of slate slabs, which, thanks to a small protrusion, acted as drip noses and thus contributed to protection from the weather. The tower is supposed to be three-story (which, however, can hardly be seen without inspection), whereby the floor heights were lower than those of the main tower and had beamed ceilings. It was given an octagonal shape both inside and outside, but the wall was much less thick, so that only half of its width remained next to the entrance to the staircase. The windows of the tower tower, which was designed more elaborately, are rectangular and have garments made of red sandstone. The entrance to the “turret” was framed from the same material, above which a devil's face is shown, finely worked out of a red sandstone block. In the view from Martinsberg shown above, the red sandstone console can be seen (enlarged), which was designed as an apotropaion .

Roof architecture

The tower was once like the Gros covered the Oberweseler military and gate towers. A pointed roof shape for the Ochsenturm can be considered to be occupied by the end of the 15th century at the latest, as its pointed roof is proven on a fresco of the Liebfrauenkirche in the town. In the Oberwesel municipal museum, the old roof shapes can be seen in early depictions, for example on a colored engraving by the copperplate engraver Hogenberg , who created “Ober Wesell” city views between 1581 and 1590. 50 years later, it is Merian's works that show this type of architecture, not only in Oberwesel, but also, to cite just a few examples, in the neighboring towns of Bacharach and Sankt Goar . Another engraving with the city panorama was made by the artist Christoph Riegel in 1686. It also shows the traditional roof shapes of the city towers. It was one of the last views before the changes to the urban fabric that caused the destruction of 1688–1697. The high, tapered roof helmets can be seen again in a painting by the artist Christian Georg Schütz the Elder (1716–1791) ; Oberwesel cityscapes are no longer present in the numerous cityscapes of later times, in the works of the Rhine Romanticism .

  • Northern half of the city around 1581

  • The ox tower and the pointed roofs around 1590

  • Pointed towers in the 18th century

  • 19th century view

It was a material- and therefore cost-saving roof shape , with which a large number of the early towers in the entire region were apparently equipped.

Later on, it was not possible to decide on a reconstruction that corresponds to this early roof shape, because two towers on the Michelfeld mountain side, tower I and Kuhhirtenturm, which have been renovated recently, were given new roofs that were now designed in the shape of a pyramid. The Red Tower (first mentioned in 1386), which marks the border between Kirchhausen and the old town on the banks of the Rhine, is said to have originally been comparable to the Katzenturm. Its present roof shape is the willful conversion of from Franconia Erlangen coming painter Carl Haag owed who thoroughly renovated the tower after its acquisition in 1864/66 and the roof on the model of the keep of the castle Nuremberg did make.

materials

The local quarry stone, which is in abundance here in the Rhenish Slate Mountains, was used as building material for the masonry, for decorations and consoles probably limestone as well as beams made of oak , which probably came from the wooded mountain ranges of the nearby Hunsrück . The light-colored bricks used in the arched friezes, but also for the crenellated wreath, are clearly visible , and sandstone was used for the coverings of the crenellations, as is customary in sacred buildings.

Art on the building

Red sandstone console in the shape of a devil's face (Apotropaion)

How much this tower should represent can be seen not only from its enormous height but also from the decorative accessories . For example, the double crenellated wreaths, which are supported by delicate pointed arch friezes and set it apart from the other fortifications in the city. Only the ten tower and the tower of St. Martin's Church, which was also included in the city fortifications, were given a very labor-intensive and therefore expensive design. In addition, Sebald mentioned the Ochsenturm as a building that had received an apotropaion in the form of a devil's face from all the individual buildings of the city fortifications . These types of sculptures in the field of profane, but also in sacred architecture, were seen as decorative motifs, but depending on the region and epoch they were usually traditional pagan symbols that were supposed to ward off disaster. Apotropaia can also be found on private houses in the city as well as on components of the Church of Our Lady.

Damage from the Palatinate War of Succession

As a result of the Palatinate War of Succession , also known as the Nine Years War (1688–1697), the city suffered much more damage than the damage caused by the Wesel War. It is said to have been the greatest destruction of the early modern period . French forces ("Troops of Ludwig XIV. ") Not only set fire to countless buildings in the city in addition to the wings of the Schönburg when they withdrew in 1688/89, but also to the defensive towers of the city fortifications. Except for a few remains, wooden ceilings and roof beams went up in flames. However, the painting by Christian Georg Schütz from the 18th century shows pointed towers, although it cannot be said whether the painting is realistic.

Temporary deterioration of the fortifications

In the sources in the first third of the 18th century many building works were reported, and entire streets were rebuilt. Damage to church structures was repaired and public buildings, including the town hall, were also rebuilt. Apparently, only the city walls were repaired with regard to the damaged fortifications, but the towers were neglected, because files or invoices for a renovation were initially not listed.

Separation from the city wall

The towers separated from the city by the embankment

In 1857/59, after many years of negotiations with the royal Prussian railway commissariat, represented by Government and Baurath Fromme from Cologne, an Oberwesel civil engineering company built a five-meter-high dam that stretched from Sankt Goar to Bacharach. The construction of the embankment had its good and bad sides. The economy and individual mobility benefited, but the romanticism of the Rhine , praised by artists and writers, was severely impaired.

Uses

Weir system

Built as a fortified tower, it had recently become obsolete as such . Attacks from the northern side of the Rhine were hardly to be expected - until the first third of the 19th century there was no road suitable for military purposes between the towns of St. Goar and Oberwesel - and so the Ochsenturm, the strongest urban corner fortification, was no longer used for city defense. but took on other tasks.

jail

From the beginning it had also been used to arrest prisoners. In 1741 the tower was given a chimney leading to its top, and a note on the file reports a guardroom in the tower heated by an oven. In 1773 - as part of a fortification, probably under the Prussian military - the tower platform was to be given a vault instead of a roof replacement, which would have enabled the ceiling to withstand the weight of heavy equipment. It is not reported whether such reinforcement was installed.

Truth
Bingen water and shipping office, “Ochsenturm” station in Oberwesel

With the dawn of the industrial age and steam navigation on the Rhine, the transport of goods on the Rhine had also increased significantly. Since the Ochsenturm stands at a bend in the Rhine, from which one could observe the entire ship traffic upstream and downstream, a Wahrschauer was installed in the tower in 1850, also because of the shallows there; the shipping perceived. At the beginning the tower was a veritable show on the Middle Rhine , from which the ship traffic was regulated with flag signals. Since 1972, ship traffic has been regulated with traffic lights at signal point A Am Ochsenturm at km 550.57. Today, a system built opposite the Ochsenturn, equipped with the latest electronics, regulates the smooth shipping traffic.

City's intention to sell

In 1865 the city of Oberwesel would have been willing to leave the tower to the Munich building officer and architect Ludwig Lange (1808–1868) , who often stayed in Oberwesel, for a purchase price of 400 thalers. The business was considered safe, so that building officer Lange had already made drawings for renovation work. The tower was not sold, however, because the Prussian government did not agree, and they pretended to have their own interests in it.

  • Yellowed blueprint of the building officer Lange from 1864

  • Long construction plan, detail

  • Building survey Krause from 1908

The tower in the 20th and 21st centuries

Investigations of the old fortifications had already taken place at the end of the 19th century, which identified a considerable need for renovation on the city wall and its towers. Probably under Edmund Renard , who in the early years of the 20th century became a member of the Rhenish Commission for Monument Statistics in Düsseldorf and was later appointed director of the monument archive of the Rhine Province, the architect Franz Krause prepared several building surveys. Krause, who had acted on behalf of the provincial curator of the Rhine Province , carried out building surveys of the entire city fortifications and also prepared a cost estimate. The outbreak of the First World War put an end to the planning. In 1937, the parapet walkway was broken off except for a remainder. Oberwesel was spared major destruction during the Second World War . As a precaution, the residents of the “Bormgässer Quarter” behind the Ochsenturm had broken a ground-level door into the tower in order to seek protection in the massive tower in the event of air attacks being reported.

Private use

In 1980 the tower was leased and then in 1981/82 it was made ready for residential use.

Monument zone

The medieval city wall with its gates and towers has been a listed building since 1992 .

Historical representations of the tower (selection)

The Ochsenturm, symbol of the city, with the best preserved fortifications on the Rhine
  • 1490, the earliest depiction of the tower is preserved as a detail of a wall painting in the local Liebfrauenkirche . It is a fresco by an unknown artist on a pillar of the central nave
  • 1581, city panorama by the engraver Frans Hogenberg
  • 1646, city view by Matthäus Merian in his Topographia Germaniae
  • 17th century, Petrus Schenk “Ficelia; deorsum é Palatinatu proficiscentibus / Oberwesel; to benedem trekker uit de Paltz "
  • 18th century, Christian Georg Schütz the Elder Ä. , View of the city from the north
  • 1826, Wenceslaus Hollar , city view from the north
  • 1832, illustration in William Tombleson's Views of the Rhine (Volume 1, first edition 1832)
  • 1838 (?), Johann Heinrich Schilbach , "Am Rhein bei Oberwesel" (today in the new Middle Rhine Museum in Koblenz )
  • 1841, painting by the Danish landscape painter Frederik Hansen Sødring (also Frederik Sødring) shows the Oberwesel from 1841 (today in the Middle Rhine Museum)
  • 1842, The Rhine and the Rhineland, shown in picturesque original views by Ludwig Lange . From Mainz to Cologne: accompanied by a historical-topographical text / [by H. Müller Malten]. Engraved in steel by Johann Poppel . Darmstadt: Lange, 1847 / Koblenz: State Library Center Rhineland-Palatinate , 2009
  • 1864, construction plans for the expansion of the Ochsenturm by Prof. Ludwig Lange, Munich 1864 (Museum Oberwesel). A steel engraving (after a drawing by Lange, by Johann Poppel).
  • 19th century, Ludwig Halauska , Ochsenturm Oberwesel
  • 1908, architectural drawings by Franz Krause from March 1908 (Koblenz archive)
  • before 1920, Oberwesel city view, a painting by the Russian painter Nikolai von Astudin
  • 1922, Edmund Renard (Ed.): "The Rhineland in Color Photography". Publishing house for color photography Carl Weller, Berlin and Cologne 1922
  • Various postcards from the early 20th century

literature

  • Eduard Sebald and co-authors: The art monuments of Rhineland-Palatinate, volume 9. The art monuments of the Rhein-Hunsrück district, part 2. Former district of St. Goar, here the city of Oberwesel in volumes I and II, State Office for Monument Preservation Rhineland-Palatinate ( Ed.) Deutscher Kunstverlag 1977 ISBN 3-422-00576-5
  • Anton Ph. Schwarz and Winfried Monschauer: Citizens under the protection of their walls. 800 years of Oberwesel city fortifications. Edited by Bauverein Historische Stadt Oberwesel, 2012.
  • Ferdinand Pauly : Germania Sacra, The Dioceses of the Church Province Trier. The Archdiocese of Trier 2. The monasteries St. Severus in Boppard, St. Goar in St. Goar, Liebfrauen in Oberwesel, St. Martin in Oberwesel . Walter De Gruyter - Berlin - New York 1980
  • Karl Ernst Demandt , Regesta of the Counts of Katzenelbbogen 1060–1486 . Historical Commission publications for Nassau XI. Wiesbaden 1953–1957

Remarks

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Eduard Sebald and co-authors: Die Kunstdenkmäler von Rheinland-Pfalz . Ed .: State Office for Monument Preservation Rhineland-Palatinate. tape 9 . The art monuments of the Rhein-Hunsrück district, part 2. Former district of St. Goar, here the town of Oberwesel. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1977, ISBN 3-422-00576-5 , p. 794 to 895 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g Anton Ph. Schwarz and Winfried Monschauer: Citizens in the protection of their walls. 800 years of Oberwesel city fortifications . P. 73
  3. ^ Ferdinand Pauly: Germania Sacra, St. Martin Abbey in Oberwesel , p. 416
  4. ^ Anton Ph. Schwarz and Winfried Monschauer: Citizens in the protection of their walls. 800 years of Oberwesel city fortifications , p. 123
  5. ↑ District administration Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis: Statutory ordinances on the protection of monument zones in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis (PDF; 49 kB); Retrieved October 26, 2013
  6. ↑ State Office for Monument Preservation Mainz (LAfD), graph. Coll., Inventory no. 9114

Web links

Commons : Ochsenturm  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 50 ° 6 ′ 44.4 "  N , 7 ° 43 ′ 17.7"  E