Rudolf Hillebrecht

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Grave of Rudolf Hillebrecht in the Engesohder cemetery in Hanover

Rudolf Hillebrecht (born February 26, 1910 in Linden ; † March 6, 1999 in Hanover ) was a German architect and urban planner . As a city planning officer, he planned the city ​​of Hanover, which was heavily destroyed by air raids in the Second World War, as a modern, car-friendly city and had numerous preserved historical buildings demolished.

Education and early employment

Hillebrecht was born as the son of the grain merchant Ernst Hillebrecht and his wife Bertha, geb. Arning was born in Linden, which was still independent at the time (a district of Hanover since 1920). He attended the Kaiserin-Auguste-Victoria-Gymnasium, today's Helene-Lange-Schule , and graduated from high school there in 1928.

He studied architecture at the Technical University of Hanover and in the winter semester of 1930/31 at the Technical University of Charlottenburg with Heinrich Tessenow and Hermann Jansen . In 1933 he completed his diploma examination in Hanover and initially worked for the Hanover architects Hans Nitzschke and Adolf Falke . At the beginning of 1934 he helped Walter Gropius in Berlin to work on plans for the architectural competition "Houses of Labor" advertised by the German Labor Front . He then found employment with the Reich Association of the German Aviation Industry in Travemünde and Hamburg and built anti-aircraft barracks in Hamburg-Ohlsdorf as a government building supervisor ( trainee lawyer in public construction) .

Office manager at Gutschow

Following the 2nd state examination, Hillebrecht resigned from civil service in 1937 and became “chief architect” in the office of the Hamburg architect Konstanty Gutschow , who organized a large-scale competition to design the banks of the Elbe with a 250 m high-rise for the party and a 65 m wide embankment at the personal decision of Adolf Hitler won. Gutschow was named "Architect of the Elbe Bank" by Hamburg Gauleiter Kaufmann in 1939 and commissioned with drawing up a general development plan for the "Führerstadt" Hamburg. Hillebrecht belonged to Gutschow's closest group of employees, the office employed around 150 people at the beginning of 1941, and by the end of 1942 there were already 250. From 1941 onwards, due to increasing war damage, the office operated as an “office for war-important operations”, organized rubble clearance, air raid protection measures and the procurement of replacement accommodation.

Hillebrecht developed great organizational talent as Gutschow's office manager. He was concerned with the plans for the redesign of Hamburg, coordinated the deployment of prisoners of war and forced labor and organized the procurement of building materials for Hamburg air raid shelters, including from the clinker brick works of the Neuengamme concentration camp . From 1944 he was active in Albert Speer's reconstruction staff . Hillebrecht went on a journey with Gutschow in January 1944, which took them through 24 cities badly destroyed by the aerial warfare . They developed “guidelines for statistics” and damage mapping, which should serve as the basis for reconstruction planning.

Hillebrecht was drafted in autumn 1944 and experienced the end of the war as an American prisoner of war . From 1946 he worked under Viktor Agartz in the construction department of the Central Economic Office of the British zone of occupation in Bad Pyrmont , and from 1947 as secretary for construction and housing in the zone advisory council in Hamburg.

City planning officer in Hanover

After his successful application as a town planning officer in 1948, Hillebrecht continued the concepts developed in Speer's reconstruction team in Hanover with the support of Konstanty Gutschow as a consultant . Under the motto “Germany wants to live - Germany must build”, he and Gutschow initiated the construction trade fair “ Constructa ”, which in 1951 showed the development achievements of German cities and underlined Hanover's exemplary character. Hillebrecht and the Auschwitz architect Hans Stosberg , who took over the city's planning office in 1948, formed a “well-trained team that can make independent decisions even without any legal planning requirements”, according to the architectural historian Werner Durth . Another Hillebrecht employee from Speer's reconstruction staff was the Bremen architect Wilhelm Wortmann , who developed the land use plan for Hanover in 1951 .

In the face of considerable resistance, Hillebrecht managed to talk the landowners out of their old lines of flight in order to enable a car-friendly inner city planning . The landowners gave 15 percent of the 61 hectare planning area in the completely destroyed city center to the city free of charge. This is how, for example, the Kreuzkirchenviertel in Hanover's old town was created. Baroque axes of the former residence city of Hanover were given up in favor of curved streets. The tangents and the inner city ring should keep the city center free of traffic and at the same time facilitate access to all central areas. Der Spiegel dedicated a cover story to him and the development of the city of Hanover in June 1959 about the miracle of Hanover with his likeness. Hillebrecht is now considered a prototype of urban planning that implemented the model of the “car-friendly city”.

The construction of large car routes ( Hamburger Allee, Berliner Allee , Leibnizufer ) through the city center led to the further dissolution of the pre-war development. The wide streets still separate entire parts of the city and, with their architecture of singular buildings, look like foreign bodies in the otherwise dense development of the inner city. Urban squares became traffic distributors. Characteristic square elements such as corner-concreting buildings disappeared. The Calenberger Neustadt , in the 17th century the first major expansion of the actual old town, is separated from the old town in the area of ​​the Leine by the six-lane street Leibnizufer . The former leash island in the area of ​​the old town was removed by filling in a leash arm.

In addition, despite protests from the population, Hillebrecht had numerous historical buildings that had survived the war demolished: For example the legendary water art at the Leineschloss or the Friederikenenschlösschen of Laves on Friederikenplatz. Many of the buildings demolished in the post-war period came from the Wilhelminian era and were backyard buildings (e.g. today's Berliner Allee ). Buildings from the Wilhelminian style were removed until the 1970s. However, the planned demolition of entire quarters from this era in the List district was not implemented. Hillebrecht himself later described the demolition of the water art as a mistake.

In contrast to other urban planners, he geared his planning towards motorized individual transport very early on. Hillebrecht was a “ Bauhaus man ”, adored the classicist architectural style, rejected historicism , created traditional islands, was an enemy of high-rise buildings and preferred to talk about new construction rather than reconstruction. During his tenure , the largest contiguous pedestrian zone in Germany at the time was created in downtown Hanover, including the Kröpcke , Georgstrasse and Bahnhofstrasse . This established the reputation of Hanover as a shopping city in northern Germany . However, Hillebrecht's work in Hanover is also viewed critically. As early as 1957, he spoke of missed opportunities. Although Hillebrecht did not care for architectural details (“ I don't think about regulating window bars ”), he saw it - in contrast to other city building councils - to ensure extensive so-called street furniture through art in public spaces for which he often won patrons who commissioned young artists.

Hanns Adrian succeeded Hillebrecht in 1975.

Hillebrecht's grave is located in the Engesohde city cemetery in Hanover. The square in front of the building administration next to the Hanover town hall was named after him.

Honorary positions and awards

literature

  • Miracle of Hanover . In: Der Spiegel . No. 23 , 1959, pp. 61-63, 66, 68 ( online ).
  • Fritz Eggeling : Urban planning in Hanover. In: Bauen + Wohnen , 1956, issue 10, p. 327ff.
  • German Academy for Urban Development and Regional Planning (Ed.): Between the city center and the city region. Reports and thoughts. Rudolf Hillebrecht on his 60th birthday. Krämer, Stuttgart 1970. (= contributions to environmental planning )
  • Axel Düker: Transport planning of German cities between 1920 and 1960, illustrated using the example of Hanover. Master's thesis, Leibniz University Hannover, 2002, ISBN 978-3-8366-5737-2 .
  • Dirk Böttcher , Klaus Mlynek , Waldemar R. Röhrbein , Hugo Thielen : Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon . From the beginning to the present . Schlütersche, Hannover 2002, ISBN 3-87706-706-9 , pp. 168-169. Online at Google Books
  • Friedrich Lindau : Hanover. Reconstruction and destruction. The city in dealing with its architectural identity. 2nd edition, Schlütersche, Hannover 2001, ISBN 3-87706-659-3 .
  • Friedrich Lindau : Planning and building in the fifties in Hanover. Hanover 1998, ISBN 3-87706-530-9 .
  • Paul Zalewski: Rudolf Hillebrecht and the car-friendly reconstruction of Hanover after 1945. In: Rita Seidel (Ed.): University of Hanover 1831-2006, commemorative publication for the 175th anniversary of the University of Hanover. Volume 1, Hildesheim 2006, pp. 89-102.
  • Paul Zalewski: Between city highways and traditional islands. On the role of historicity in the reconstruction of Hanover after 1945. In: Koldewey-Gesellschaft (Hrsg.): Report on the 44th conference for excavation science and building research. Stuttgart 2008, pp. 28-36.
  • Sid Auffarth , Ralf Dorn (editor): A life for Hanover. Festschrift for the 100th birthday of Rudolf Hillebrecht. Hanover 2010.
  • Gerhard Kier, Sid Auffarth, Karljosef Kreter : Rudolf Hillebrecht: Born February 26, 1910. Documentation of the exhibition on the 100th birthday in the building administration of the state capital Hanover , accompanying document of the exhibition from February 26 to March 26, 2010, publisher: State capital Hanover , Department of Planning and Urban Development, Hannover: Landeshauptstadt, 2010
  • Helmut Knocke : Rudolf Hillebrecht. In: Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein (eds.) U. a .: City Lexicon Hanover . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2009, ISBN 978-3-89993-662-9 , p. 295.
  • Ralf Dorn: "Planning is creative design". On Rudolf Hillebrecht's tools for planning methodology. In: Hannoversche Geschichtsblätter , 65 (2011), pp. 21–31.
  • Ralf Dorn: On the way to a car-friendly city? For traffic planning in Hanover under city building officer Rudolf Hillebrecht . In: Exhib.Cat .: Getting going . Automobilization after 1945 in the Federal Republic of Germany . Edited by Rolf Spilker, Osnabrück Industrial Museum, Bramsche 2012, pp. 204–219.
  • Paul Zalewski: On the “construction of the homeland” in the functionalist structure of Hanover after 1945. In: Renata Skowronska, Helmut Flachenecker (Ed.): Bulletin of the Polish Historical Mission at the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg. No. 7/2012 (materials for the conference “Vielerlei Wiederaufbau”, 2011), Würzburg 2012, pp. 293–337.
  • Ralf Dorn: Rudolf Hillebrecht and the New Building - On the professional beginnings of the Hanover City Planning Council. In: Hannoversche Geschichtsblätter 68 (2014), pp. 71–83.
  • Ralf Dorn: The architect and city planner Rudolf Hillebrecht. Continuities and breaks in German planning history in the 20th century. (Hannoversche Studien. Series of publications by the Hannover City Archives; 16), Berlin 2017.
  • Ralf Dorn: Traditional islands in a sea of ​​rubble. On the genesis and role of the old town in the construction planning of Hanover under city planning officer Rudolf Hillebrecht. In: Hannoversche Geschichtsblätter 72 (2018), pp. 163–178.
  • Michael F. Feldkamp : The Lower Saxony State Parliament as a symbol for democratic building? In: Julia Schwanholz / Patrick Theiner (eds.), The political architecture of German parliaments, Of houses, castles and palaces, Wiesbaden 2020, ISBN 978-3-658-29330-7 , pp. 229–242.

Web links

Commons : Rudolf Hillebrecht  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rudolf Hillebrecht in the Munzinger Archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)
  2. ^ Friedrich Lindau: Planning and building in the fifties in Hanover .
  3. ↑ Jörg Hackhausen: Urban Planning in Hamburg - Continuities and Changes from the General Development Plan 1940/41 to the Development Plan 1950 . Norderstedt 2005
  4. ^ Jan Lubitz: Architect portrait Konstanty Gutschow 1902-1978
  5. ^ Werner Durth : German architects: biographical entanglements 1900-1970. Krämer, Stuttgart Zurich 2001, ISBN 978-3-7828-1141-5 , p. 175
  6. ^ Friedrich Lindau: Hannover: Reconstruction and Destruction; the city in dealing with its architectural identity . 2. revised Ed., Schlüter, Hannover 2001, ISBN 3-87706-659-3 , p. 325 f.
  7. ^ A b Margit Kühl: Development of the Kiel-Mettenhof district. In: Architecture and Urban Development in the Southern Baltic Sea Region from 1970 to the Present: Lines of Development - Breaks - Continuities. Edited by Bernfried Lichtnau, Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-936872-85-9 , pp. 68 ff .; limited preview in Google Book search
  8. ↑ Böttcher, Mlynek, Röhrbein, Thielen: Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon: From the beginnings to the present . Hanover 2002
  9. ^ Heinrich Schwendemann: The consequences of destruction. Bombs for building in: Der Spiegel 1/2003
  10. ^ Niels Gutschow: "Ordnungswahn: Architects Planen Im 'eingedeutschten Osten' 1939-1945", Gütersloh 2001. - Stosberg's activity in Auschwitz was neither a cause for concern for Hillebrecht nor for the also informed SPD parliamentary group leader.
  11. ^ Roland Stimpel: Architects in Auschwitz. Low point in architectural history In: Deutsches Architektenblatt 2011
  12. ^ Paul Zalewski: Rudolf Hillebrecht and the car-friendly reconstruction of Hanover after 1945 (PDF; 9.1 MB). In: Rita Seidel (Ed.): Universität Hannover 1831–2006, Vol. 1, Hildesheim 2006
  13. ^ Urban development / Hillebrecht: The miracle of Hanover , Der Spiegel 23/1959
  14. ^ Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein: History of the city of Hanover. Schlütersche, Hannover 1994, ISBN 978-3-87706-319-4 , p. 236.
personal data
SURNAME Hillebrecht, Rudolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German architect and urban planner, city planning officer in Hanover
DATE OF BIRTH February 26, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Linden trees
DATE OF DEATH March 6, 1999
Place of death Hanover