Osnabrück City Hall
The historical town hall of Osnabrück was built between 1487 and 1512 in the late Gothic style . It is one of the main landmarks and formative buildings of the city of Osnabrück and is still used today as the town hall building. In 1648 the parties to the Thirty Years' War negotiated and signed the Peace of Westphalia in the town hall of Osnabrück and in the town hall of Münster .
On April 15, 2015, the historic town hall was awarded the European Heritage Seal by the European Commission as one of the sites of the Peace of Westphalia .
history
The old town hall on the market in Osnabrück was used until the 16th century . As early as the 15th century, the council gave the Hanseatic City of Osnabrück the order to build a new town hall. Construction began in 1487 and the topping-out ceremony was celebrated in 1505 . The new Osnabrück town hall was completed in 1512. However, the interior is said to have not been completed until 1575.
The Osnabrück town hall had its most historic moments in the last years of the Thirty Years' War . Between 1643 and 1648 a part of the delegations of the warring parties met here to negotiate a peace treaty, which was finally reached in 1648 with the " Westphalian Peace of Osnabrück and Münster ". The ambassadors of the Kingdom of Sweden as well as those of the emperor and the imperial estates were gathered in the Osnabrück town hall ; In contrast, the imperial envoys and those of France negotiated at the same time in the town hall of Munster . The portraits of 42 European envoys from the peace congress in the peace hall of the Osnabrück town hall remind of the negotiations to this day . There are also three portraits of the rulers of the warring parties at the time, namely the Swedish Queen Christina , the French King Louis XIV and the German Emperor Ferdinand III.
Between 1846 and 1880, the town hall's Friedenssaal was converted into a so-called “State Hall”. This change was reversed at the beginning of the 20th century and the Friedenssaal returned to its original state. Its original function as a council chamber is only given by the Osnabrück Handgiftentag on January 2nd.
On September 13, 1944, the Osnabrück town hall was hit several times and severely damaged in bombing raids by Allied, in particular British, bombers. The building burned to the ground. Since the almost complete historical furnishings were already in safe storage some time before the attacks, most of the interior furnishings were saved. On October 24, 1948, for the 300th anniversary of the Peace of Westphalia, the restored town hall with its historical furnishings was returned to its intended use.
On the night of July 5, 2019, a 47-year-old man carried out an arson attack on the more than 500-year-old door of the town hall. Since the damage was only superficial, the traces could be removed.
Structural system
The Osnabrück town hall is built in the late Gothic style and makes a significant impression from the outside. The front view is determined by an 18-meter-high hipped roof , the height of which almost corresponds to the other height of the building from the floor slab to the eaves . At the lower end of the roof there are a total of six towers, which are reminiscent of the guard and corner towers of a fortress. In addition, there has been a large open staircase at the front of the town hall since 1846 , which leads from two sides to the approximately 500-year-old entrance door (previously access was via a retractable wooden staircase). The doorknob on the front door, made of heavy bronze, shows the year 1648 and a dove .
Above the entrance is a statue of Charlemagne as the founder of the city and diocese of Osnabrück . On both sides next to him are the so-called Kaiser sculptures, which depict the German Emperors Sigismund , Friedrich II (Staufer Emperor) , Rudolf von Habsburg , Wilhelm I (also King of Prussia ), Friedrich I. Barbarossa , Arnulf , Maximilian I. . and Ludwig of Bavaria represent. The statues are a gift from the Prussian royal family from the 19th century, which explains the portrayal of the Prussian king and German emperor Wilhelm I in the row of dignitaries.
On the ground floor, a few meters behind the entrance, on the left, is the passage to the aforementioned Friedensaal, directly opposite is the town hall treasury. A large number of valuable treasures are kept and exhibited here, including council silver , coins , stamps and various documents. Outstanding here are the imperial cup from the 13th / 14th centuries. Century and the oldest chain of rifles in Osnabrück. The existing documents are also of historical importance, including a replica of the Westphalian Peace Treaty "Osnabrück Peace Instrument" and a facsimile of the document, which gave Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa the right to his own jurisdiction in 1171 Osnabrück.
On the upper floor is a model that shows Osnabrück in 1633. The template was a city map from that year, which was created by the engraver Wenceslaus Hollar . It was made from 1955 to 1957 by the sculptor and genre painter Heinrich Bohn (1911–1990).
literature
- Peter Schreiber: In the town hall of Osnabrück . Fromm, Osnabrück, 1975.
- Kordula Egenolf: 500 years of the Osnabrück City Hall: Documentation around the festival . City of Osnabrück, Press and Information Office, Osnabrück, 1990.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Site of the Peace of Westphalia - Osnabrück Town Hall becomes a European cultural heritage , accessed on December 7, 2015
- ↑ City of Osnabrück: Fire at the town hall door: the alleged perpetrator is in custody. In: www.osnabrueck.de. August 19, 2019, accessed February 1, 2020 .
Coordinates: 52 ° 16 ′ 38.8 " N , 8 ° 2 ′ 28.3" E