Petersberg (Erfurt)
| Petersberg (Erfurt) | ||
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 Petersberg Citadel (aerial photo 2006) |
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| height | 231 m above sea level NHN | |
| location | Thuringia , Germany | |
| Coordinates | 50 ° 58 '43 " N , 11 ° 1' 6" E | |
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The Petersberg is an elevation about 231 meters high, which is located in the center of the Thuringian capital Erfurt . The Petersberg Citadel extends over the site . Inside is the Peterskirche , once the largest Romanesque monastery church in Thuringia.
The mountain was probably settled by Stone Age people as early as millennia before Christ . A few centuries before Christ, the Celts and Teutons followed , who probably used the Petersberg as a rampart , refuge and place of worship . In the middle of the first millennium, after their victory over the Old Thuringians, the Franks invaded Thuringia and probably had a royal palace built on the Petersberg with a first spiritual settlement, later a collegiate monastery . Under Charlemagne , a seat for a royal messenger was built on the hill , who primarily had to protect the Königsstrasse ( via regia ) running through Erfurt . In 755 the missionary Bonifatius united the diocese of Erfurt, which he had founded shortly before, with the diocese of Mainz . Its archbishop converted the collegiate monastery on the Petersberg into a monastery for Benedictines in 1060 , the monastery of St. Peter and Paul (Peterskloster) was created. After a city fire destroyed the complex, the monastery was rebuilt at the beginning of the 12th century together with a new monastery church, the Peterskirche. In the decades that followed, the monastery served as accommodation for German emperors and kings on various occasions due to its close relationship with the neighboring royal palace on the Petersberg. During the Thirty Years War , the Petersberg was occupied for a few years by the Swedes , who immediately recognized its strategic location. Under the Elector of Mainz and Archbishop Johann Philipp von Schönborn , the Petersberg area was expanded into a city fortress, the Petersberg Citadel, in the middle of the 17th century. Then it was one of the central military locations in the region until the 1960s, with minor interruptions. From 1802 to 1806 the Petersberg was used as a citadel by Prussian troops and from 1806 to 1814 by French troops. With the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the Petersberg and Erfurt finally became part of the Kingdom of Prussia. The Peterskloster was largely destroyed during the siege of 1813, only the Peterskirche has survived to this day, albeit in a reduced form.
The state of Thuringia and the city of Erfurt have been carrying out renovations on a larger scale since 1990. Today the buildings on the Petersberg house state offices, apartments as well as tourist and cultural facilities.
history
The first settlements (around 5000 BC to 936 AD)
The area on the Petersberg was already settled by Stone Age people. The fertile lowlands of the Gera and the dominant position of the hill offered good conditions for this. A few centuries before Christ emigrated west the Celts in the area and erected probably on the mountain first Wallburg . Then they were ousted by the Germanic tribes , who also founded the kingdom of the Thuringians . It is assumed that they used the fortification “ob dem Erph” as a refuge and as a place of worship for the Germanic weather god Donar . In 531 the Franks smashed the Thuringian empire and probably built the Petersberg with a Franconian royal palace , an administrative seat. The aim was to control the trade routes that crossed in Erfurt and prevent the Slavs from advancing from the east. Around the same time, a collegiate foundation could have been founded in addition to the royal palace . It was his duty to take in and accommodate the king and his entourage free of charge. In 742 the Benedictine missionary Bonifatius founded the Diocese of Erfurt and united it with the Diocese of Mainz around 755 . Under Charlemagne , Erfurt was one of the eastern border towns of his empire, in which trade with the neighboring Slavs was permitted. In addition, the Königsstrasse ( via regia ) ran through the city . It ran between the Domberg and the Petersberg and led along the fish market over the Krämerbrücke . As a result, the city gained in importance and it was then occupied by a royal messenger , whose seat was the Petersberg. Its existence and that of the royal palace on the Petersberg were first documented in 802. In 919 Henry I was elected King of the Holy Roman Empire. In 936, during a diet on the Petersberg, he appointed his son Otto I as his successor.
Development into a spiritual stronghold (975–1665)
Main article: St. Peter's Church
Around 975 Erfurt became an integral part of the Mainz diocese. Its archbishop, Siegfried I , had the existing collegiate monastery dissolved in 1060 and founded the Benedictine monastery of St. Peter and Paul (Peterskloster) in its place . In 1080 King Henry IV undertook campaigns against the church princes who were on the side of the Pope. Erfurt was also taken and burned down. The Peterskloster fell victim to the fire. Between 1103 and 1147 the monastery complex was built with grants from Mainz together with a new monastery church, the Peterskirche. In the following years, the importance of St. Peter's Monastery increased through certain privileges and numerous foundations. In addition, due to its close relationships with the neighboring Palatinate on the Petersberg, the monastery had the honor and duty of accepting German emperors and kings. For example, Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa stayed in the monastery during his diet in Erfurt. This led to one of the most important events in the history of St. Peter's Monastery: Henry the Lion submitted to Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa in 1181 in St. Peter's Church. In the middle of the first half of the 12th century, the Leonhard Chapel was built in the southeast of the mountain. It was a parish church for the residents living on the hillside. Between 1289/90, King Rudolf I stayed in St. Peter's Monastery to hold an almost one-year diet there. During this time he fought robber barons and looters, who at that time caused fear and horror among the citizens and merchants in the region around Erfurt. Furthermore, a state peace court was set up on the orders of the king in Erfurt. After Jan Hus was burned in 1415, strong tensions developed between Bohemia and the Catholic Church, which ultimately ended in war. It was therefore decided between 1427 and 1437 to expand the Petersberg fortifications against possible attacks by the Hussites . In 1450 Johannes Gutenberg invented the first letterpress printing machine , which was probably one of the first to be used in the Peterskloster in Thuringia. In 1517, Martin Luther initiated the Reformation , which resulted in the Peasants' War in 1525. Insurgent citizens and farmers from the Erfurt region then occupied, among other things, the Peterskloster, which functioned as the center of the Counter Reformation . During the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), Erfurt and the Petersberg were occupied by Union troops from Gustav II Adolf of Sweden in 1631 , after the city had previously been able to avert several attempts at siege with monetary payments. The Swedes immediately recognized the strategic location of the Petersberg and made the decision to equip it with a fort and its own fortress garrison. However, these plans never came to fruition; instead, a hornwork designed by the builder Otto von Guericke was laid out in the south-west of the mountain. In addition, the new owners dissolved the Peterskloster in the meantime and converted it into a Protestant monastery for the time of the occupation. The Thirty Years' War ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 and Erfurt should have been reintegrated into the Electorate of Mainz due to old legal claims . But that would have meant the loss of communal independence. Erfurt refused and was finally forced to give way in 1664 by Electoral Mainz and French troops. In order to prevent further uprisings, the elector and archbishop of Mainz, Johann Philipp von Schönborn , decided to build a fortress on the territory of the medieval Petersberg.
Use as a military location (1665-1945)
Main article: Petersberg Citadel
On June 1, 1665, the foundation stone of the Petersberg Citadel was laid and the first of three construction phases (1665–1702) began. Among other things, the eight bastion walls in the New Italian style and the commandant's house with the baroque main gate Peterstor were built. In addition, the three barracks buildings (lower, upper and artillery barracks) and two ravelins were built during this period . During the second construction phase (1707–1737), structures such as lunettes, ravelins and a horn work were added. In 1802 Prussian troops occupied the Petersberg and in the same year dissolved the Peterskloster in order to have more space for the much stronger garrison. On October 18, 1806 - after the lost battle near Jena and Auerstedt - the Prussians capitulated and handed over the Petersberg citadel to the Napoleonic troops. On June 23, 1807, Napoléon Bonaparte arrived in Erfurt to have both the city and the citadel directly sheltered. A year later, the Erfurt Prince Congress met on the Petersberg, among other places, in which the Russian Tsar Alexander I also took part. After the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig , the Prussians opened fire on November 6, 1813, on the French-occupied citadel in the Erfurt fortress. The monastery building, the old main guard, parts of St. Peter's Church and numerous houses below the mountain fell victim to the fire. Shortly afterwards there was an armistice and the agreement to hand over the city of Erfurt to the Prussians at the beginning of January 1814. Despite the severe destruction, the French did not capitulate on the citadel until May 5, 1814.
In the third and final construction phase (1815–1831), additional buildings were built according to the New Prussian system ( gun capons , powder magazines, peace powder magazines, defense barracks ). From 1860 the newly founded 3rd Thuringia was on the site. Inf.-Reg. No. 71 stationed. After the founding of the empire, numerous fortresses in Germany lost their importance. Thereupon Kaiser Wilhelm I gave the order for the Petersberg Citadel to be de-fortified (June 20, 1873). Due to a lack of money, only two ravelins, parts of the Gabriel Bastion and the hornworks were removed and various moats filled. During the Nazi era , the area was used again for military purposes. After the beginning of the war, the court-martial 409th ID was located in the commandant's house and a remand prison for political prisoners in the police prison. The defense barracks was used as a position for anti-aircraft guns. On April 12, 1945, the Petersberg was taken by the American troops. On July 2, 1945, the city of Erfurt and the state of Thuringia belonged to the Soviet occupation zone (SBZ).
Use after the Second World War
When the GDR was founded on October 7, 1949, the military returned to the site. Some of the buildings housed the State Security , the Barracked People's Police and then the National People's Army (NVA). From 1963, the Petersberg came back into the municipal possession, making the site partially accessible to the public. At the end of the 1960s, as part of the planned establishment of “ Socialist Dominants ” in all major cities in the GDR, under the direction of Hermann Henselmann, there was a plan to occupy the mountain with a town hall, a “Science Tower” and a huge staircase down to Domplatz. At the same time the character of the baroque fortress was to be broken and a conscious competition to the historical dominant cathedral and Severikirche arose. The planning failed because of the costs and a change in building policy in the GDR.
At the turn of 1989/90, the Petersberg Citadel was perceived as one of the most important monuments in Thuringia more than ever before. Since then, ABM has been responsible for the renovation and reconstruction of a wide variety of systems and buildings under the direction of the municipal building department . In 1995 the memorial for the unknown armed forces deserter and for the victims of Nazi military justice was erected in front of the Philipp bastion. Since 1999 the Federal Labor Court , which has moved from Kassel, has been located on the former Hornwerk.
In connection with the renovation work, a usage concept was developed that provides for a mixed use of administrative buildings, apartments and tourist and cultural facilities. For example, in the artillery barracks / barracks B and in the Neue Hauptwache there is the official seat of the Thuringian State Office for Monument Preservation and Archeology (TLDA), in the lower barracks the Jahn authority (Erfurt branch of the Federal Commissioner for the records of the State Security Service of the former GDR) , in the upper barracks apartments and in the Peterskirche an artists' museum for concrete art.
Thanks to the great commitment of the many helpers and investors, the Petersberg has become an important historical place and attraction in the city next to the Krämerbrücke and the Erfurt Cathedral .
On September 24, 2009, the Board of Trustees of the Friends of the Collegiate Foundation of St. Peter and Paul was constituted in Erfurt . The purpose of the association is to “promote a comprehensive and sustainable spiritual, cultural and urban revitalization of the Peterskirche and the defensions barracks in connection with the development of an overall concept for the Petersberg in Erfurt”.
See also
literature
- Rolf Berger: The Peterskirche on the Petersberg in Erfurt: a study of Hirsau architecture . 1st edition, Wehle, Witterschlick / Bonn 1994, ISBN 3-925267-86-7
- Georg Dehio (Hrsg.): Handbook of the German art monuments Thuringia . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-422-03095-6
- Steffen Raßloff : History of the city of Erfurt . Sutton Verlag Erfurt 2012, ISBN 978-3-95400-044-9
- Willibald Gutsche (ed.): History of the city of Erfurt . Hermann Böhlaus successor Weimar 1986, ISBN 3-7400-0095-3
- Mathias Haenchen: The developmental position of the monastery church on the Petersberg near Erfurt in the architecture of the European High Middle Ages . Habilitation thesis, Dresden 2003
- O. Kürsten: The Petersberg: the Acropolis of Erfurt . Volume 27, Engelhard-Reyher-Verlag, Gotha 1943
- Placidus Muth: About the influence of the royal Benedictine monastery on the Petersberg in Erfurt, on the first reclamation of the local area… . Beyer & Maring, Erfurt 1798
- Thuringian Palaces and Gardens Foundation: 700 years of the Peterskloster in Erfurt: History and art on the Petersberg in Erfurt 1103–1803. Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2004, ISBN 3-7954-1675-2
Individual evidence
- ↑ Buresch, Anja: Battle for Erfurt. The American occupation of the city in April 1945. Erfurt 2016. ISBN 3954007185 .
- ↑ Mark Escherich and Ulrich Wieler: “Planning and building in Thuringia 1945–1990. Architecture in the Soviet Zone and the GDR ”. Ed. State Center for Political Education Thuringia, 2002. ISBN 3-931426-60-2 . Pp. 84-86
- ↑ "Collegiate Foundation has board of trustees". Thuringian newspaper, September 25, 2009
Web links
- Petersberg on erfurt-web
- Friends of the Citadelle Petersberg zu Erfurt e. V.
- Tourist information Erfurt
- Glassworks bar, café, restaurant, pub on the Petersberg in Erfurt
- Fortress bakery of the Petersberg Citadel
- Forum Konkrete Kunst Erfurt on the Petersberg Citadel
- Thuringian State Office for Monument Preservation and Archeology on the Petersberg Citadel
- Erfurt branch of the Birthler authority on the Petersberg Citadel
- Monument to the unknown armed forces deserter