Palais Waldersee

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Coordinates: 51 ° 50 ′ 7.7 ″  N , 12 ° 14 ′ 49.8 ″  E

Palais Waldersee

The Palais Waldersee is an 18th century building at Zerbster Straße 10 in the former old town of Dessau . Prince Franz (1740–1817) had the building built from 1792 to 1795 for his son Franz von Waldersee (1763–1823) based on a design by Friedrich Wilhelm von Erdmannsdorff .

building

The Palais Waldersee as a ruin

Leopold III. Friedrich Franz von Anhalt-Dessau had the property bought for 1050 Reichstaler . A dilapidated house on the property was demolished in order to have the three-storey house built in the classical style from 1792 based on the Erdmannsdorffs design. The eleven-axis plastered building with a three-axis central risalit and triangular gable was completed in 1795. In 1825 it was converted for the first time to be used as a school building.

After the air raid in World War II on March 7, 1945, in which almost 97 percent of the buildings in the old town were completely destroyed or severely damaged, the Palais Waldersee burned down to the facade and the surrounding walls.

In the post-war years, houses with apartments and shops were first built on Zerbster Strasse. The ruins of Palais Waldersee were only expanded from 1959 to 1962, with some changes to the original project.

use

In the year of completion, Prince Franz gave it to his eldest, illegitimate son, Count Johann Franz Georg von Waldersee, who had emerged from his premarital relationship with Johanne Eleonore Hoffmeier (1746–1816; von Neitschütz married from 1765).

When the count died in 1823, the property and palace fell back to the current main believer, Leopold Friedrich , who had been a duke since 1817 after the death of Leopold Friedrich Franz . In 1786 he sold the house and property to the consistory of a daughter's school founded in 1786 for 7,266 thalers . The sum corresponded exactly to the amount of the mortgage with which the house was burdened at the time.

On August 15, 1825, the daughter's school moved into the building, which had been converted in the meantime. The official apartments for the principal and teachers were in the front building . The classrooms were in the rear building.

The Anhalt State Library on the newly designed market square

As part of the reorganization of school conditions in Dessau in 1869, the “Höhere Töchterschule” moved into the front building. A seminar for the training of teachers was attached to it. A “middle school for girls” (from 1874 “citizens' school for girls”) was set up in the rear building.

The girls' school moved into a new building in Antoinettenstrasse in 1884 so that the girls' citizens' school could also use the front building. Due to the continued lack of space, however, the school moved out in 1892 after a new, large school building had been inaugurated on Flössergasse on August 20, 1892.

After the building was rebuilt in 1959, the Palais Waldersee was used by the then city library from 1962 onwards. After the reunification, this was renamed the Anhalt State Library . Their main library is still in the building today. The scientific library has been housed in the converted Palais Dietrich at Zerbster Strasse 35 since 1987 .

literature

  • Renate Kroll: Fate of German Monuments in World War II. Ed. Götz Eckardt, Henschel-Verlag Berlin, 1978. Volume 2, pp. 305–323.
  • Ute Bednarz, Folkhard Cremer, Hans-Joachim Krause and others: Saxony-Anhalt II: Dessau and Halle administrative districts. In: Dehio - Handbook of German Art Monuments. Munich 1999.

Web links