Quaker house

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Quaker house in Bad Pyrmont in 2008

The Quaker House is a property in Bad Pyrmont at Bombergallee 9, which belongs to the German annual meeting of Quakers . It is the only Quaker house in the entire German-speaking area. Alongside the Quaker office in Berlin , it is now the second important center and the institution with the longest history. Most of the annual meetings of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) take place here. The history of the Quaker house goes back to 1800. From the beginning it was intended as a meeting house for the services. The current building on the property is a reconstruction from 1933.

history

Through an act of tolerance by the enlightened Prince Friedrich von Waldeck (1743-1812) in January 1791 and a donation of land and building materials, the Quaker community was able to come into being in Friedensthal . After the meeting houses in Emden and Friedrichstadt , which have not been preserved, it is the third Quaker meeting house in Germany and the only one that still exists.

In 1800 the previously existing Quaker cemetery was expanded to include a meeting house. The community at that time consisted of around 80 people. The first building was made of wood with the help of English Quakers. The building in Bad Pyrmont should lead to better perception by spa patients and thus to attract new members. In fact, around 1000 visitors came to the opening of the house and the prayers were always well attended by spa guests during the spa operation. Among the guests was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe . But the center of life of the Quaker community was Friedensthal , a remote valley near Bad Pyrmont.

Due to the decline of the Quaker community in Friedensthal from the middle of the 19th century, ownership passed to the London annual meeting. In 1893 the British annual meeting sold the house and it changed hands several times. At that time the house was used as a stable by its owners.

In 1932, the German annual meeting leased the property. In the same year the house was "moved" under the direction of the Berlin architect Franz Hoffmann . It was rebuilt with parts of the old substance and 200 attendees celebrated the topping-out ceremony in August. The reconstruction was financed with donations of 23,000 Reichsmarks (RM) from Great Britain, 1,000 RM from the USA and a number of smaller donations from Switzerland, Norway and Palestine. 2,500 RM came from Germany.

The Quaker House was inaugurated in 1933. 150 participants met for the first annual meeting, which took place in the building. From 1942 the Gestapo searched the house a total of seven times. In 1943 it was requisitioned for the Hitler Youth . A burial that had been requested in the Quaker cemetery could therefore no longer take place. After members of the Hitler Youth had vandalized the house, the organization was prohibited from further use. Shortly before the end of the war (January 1945), the house served as an emergency shelter for 90 "sick and ailing" people of the People's Welfare Service .

After the surrender , the American commander gave the house back to the Quakers, so that on April 15, 1945, after two years, the first prayer could be held there again.

In 1965 the house was rebuilt again for 160,000 DM . In the 1990s, the previously only leased property could be bought with funds from a single donor at the German Annual Meeting.

glossary

For the technical terms used in the article, see also the article " Glossary Quakerism ".

literature

  • Hans Albrecht: The Meeting House at Bad Pyrmont , in: BFHA, 25, 1936, pp. 62–73.
  • Claus Bernet : The Quaker House in Bad Pyrmont (Historical Places of Quakerism, 3), in: Quakers . Journal of German Friends, 79, 2, 2005, pp. 88–90.
  • Lutz Caspers: The newly built Quaker house turns 75 , in: Quaker . Journal of German Friends, 82, 4, 2008, pp. 159–169, ISSN  1619-0394

proof

Individual evidence

  1. Isi Fischer-Sperling (daughter of the architect): 1999 - a review ; Memories of life, in the architecture archive of the Berlin Academy of the Arts

Coordinates: 51 ° 59 '24.6 "  N , 9 ° 15' 10.1"  E