St. George Chapel (Spremberg)
The St. George Chapel , which is colloquially known as the Georgenberg Chapel , was a simple chapel on the Georgenberg in Spremberg . It was built in the 15th century and demolished on June 10, 1970.
history
After a Spremberger forecast to Jutta von Kittlitz of thanks for the safe return of her lover Seyfried of Loeben from the Third Crusade in 1189, the chapel have donated. However, this information is neither verifiable nor historically credible. They probably only refer to a smaller, simple wooden chapel that is assumed to be the previous building. Rather, it can be assumed that the chapel, in its last form, was only built towards the end of the 15th century as a successor to this wooden chapel or only on its former location. The basis for this is the first documentary mention of a Georgen chapel in the Meißner diocese register from 1495. After the end of the Thirty Years War , Spremberg was also ravaged by the plague . At that time, since there was no cure, it was customary to bring plague sufferers outside the city gates. This happened here on what is now the Georgenberg, which at that time was still outside the city limits. The chapel, which was partially destroyed during the war, was rebuilt as a plague house to care for and accommodate the sick .
The chapel survived all the turmoil of the years and subsequent wars with almost no damage. According to entries in the church register, however, it burned down in the course of the 17th century and was then rebuilt. In the period that followed, there were repeated major conservation measures, for example in 1827 and 1876, to keep the chapel from falling into disrepair . In 1878 the chapel became the property of the Protestant parish by a resolution of the city council of Spremberg. From 1925 the chapel was officially used as a burial chapel for funeral services. In 1928 the parish had a burial house built two meters south of the Georgenberg chapel by the Spremberger building contractor Mittag , in which up to five coffins could be laid out. The size of the burial house was 5 meters in an east-west direction and 4.50 meters in a north-south direction. For 1939 the Protestant parish planned extensive repair work that would have affected both the interior and the exterior. However, with the outbreak of World War II , these plans were never implemented.
Even after the end of World War II, it was still used for funeral ceremonies. Parts of the building materials that had been purchased for repairs before the war were confiscated and released for the construction of the heavily damaged residential buildings in the city. On June 30, 1961, the Georgenberg Chapel had to be closed by the building authorities due to structural defects, after previous plans for a thorough repair had not been implemented. Another building appraisal was carried out in 1962, in which the chapel was measured and documented for the last time.
When the old Georgenbergfriedhof was transformed into a city park in 1965, the Georgenkapelle lost its importance. The roof was severely damaged in a severe storm in 1968. Creeping decay and vandalism continued to affect her. As the city, as the owner of the property, had no utilization plan and the Protestant parish, as the owner of the chapel, had no financial means to maintain it, it was mutually agreed to demolish the chapel. Initial discussions on this took place in January 1968. On August 13, 1968, the then mayor of Spremberg, Günther Frenzel, gave permission to demolish the chapel. This happened on June 10, 1970 with heavy recovery equipment from the NVA Panzer Division stationed in the immediate vicinity with the support of Soviet troops stationed in Welzow . An archaeological accompaniment did not take place, so that important dates of its origin remained in the dark. In the local press of the time there was no mention of the demolition of this important part of Spremberg's history.
On January 11, 2017, the Georgenberg Chapel with the number 120494 was added to the list of archaeological monuments of the State of Brandenburg.
Building description
Predecessor wooden chapel
The existing floor plan when the chapel was first mentioned was 8.70 meters in north-south direction and 11 meters in east-west direction. There are no records or data about the exact structure and materials used.
Successor building
The successor building from the 15th century was 10 meters in north-south direction and 16 meters in east-west direction.
It was a massive church building that was closed in the east with an apse . The chapel was crowned by a turret, which was about the altar . The height of the chapel to the roof ridge was 12 meters, to the top of the tower about 18.50 meters. Access to the chapel was possible via an entrance on the west side (main entrance) and an entrance on the north side. The walls were 70 centimeters thick and were built in the Wendish Association , also known as the Märkischer Verband. There were two arched windows in the apse and three on the south side of the chapel . The foundations were made of field stones. In its final phase, the entire chapel was plastered gray on the outside.
The interior of the chapel was kept rather simple. The wide pillars connected to the outer wall stood out clearly in the interior. The floor was designed with bricks, the ceiling was designed as a flat ceiling . The seating consisted of simple wooden benches set in rows. Above the altar area there was a crescent moon Madonna from 1470/1480, which was brought to the Protestant church in Spremberg before the demolition in 1970.
plans
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In 2014 the association Laga Spremberg e. V. to bring this chapel to life again. Concepts were worked out what is technically possible and financially affordable in order to save this valuable piece of Spremberg history from oblivion. From the beginning, the aim was not to rebuild the chapel, but to present the chapel and its basic structure in the public space as something visible and usable and thus to bring back an important piece of Spremberg's city history into the collective memory.
Initial plans were to expose the foundations of the chapel and restore them to 40 centimeters above ground level. It was also possible to finance this project through funds from the Special Monument Protection Program IV. The association received significant support from the Bundestag members Ulrich Freese and Johannes Kahrs , who found out about the planned measures on site on August 23, 2016. However, after the archaeological examination in March 2017, these first plans had to be discarded due to the lack of building fabric. In a second step, it is planned to build the chapel in its external structure in the form of a steel skeleton (imagination) based on the model of the Ihlow monastery . All work on the remains of the chapel is subject to the requirements of monument protection .
Preliminary examination
Since the Georgenberg chapel was torn down to the foundation walls in June 1970 and the location at that time was only recognizable as a large lawn in the city park, the exact location of the chapel first had to be explored . This was done by means of georadar investigation, with the help of which it was possible to precisely localize the exact position of the structures still present in the ground.
Archaeological observation
In the last week of March 2017, under the direction of archaeologists, voluntary archaeologists and members of the Laga Association, parts of the foundations were viewed, uncovered, measured and mapped in a so-called cross excavation. During this cross-excavation, two approximately one meter wide cuts were uncovered in the longitudinal and transverse direction of the chapel. The extensive damage caused by the demolition was already visible right into the foundation walls. While well-preserved remains of the foundations could be found and uncovered in the structure on the west and south sides, only fragments of the foundations were left on the east side and no foundations whatsoever on the north side. No remains of the floor or the like could be found either.
First evaluations of the foundations suggest that it was built at the end of the 15th century. However, this does not allow any conclusions to be drawn about possible predecessor buildings, of which no remnants could be found or proven. Found settlement ceramics can be found on the 12./13. Assign century.
swell
- Spremberger home calendar
- Church archive Spremberg
- Spremberg City Archives
- City archive Lübben - Outsourced files of the Spremberg city archive
- Copy of the construction drawing of the burial house from June 23, 1928
- Copy of the Georgenkapelle survey from June 1939
Individual evidence
- ^ Brandenburg State Office for Monument Preservation and State Archaeological Museum - Spremberg Kirchplatz . German digital library
- ↑ Federal government gives money for the foundations of the chapel scaffolding on Georgenberg . In: Lausitzer Rundschau-online . November 11, 2016.
- ↑ Association hopes for money for Georgenberg . In: Lausitzer Rundschau-online . August 24, 2016.
- ↑ Looking for old memorial plaques . In: Lausitzer Rundschau-online . May 23, 2016.
- ↑ The Georgenkapelle very close . In: Lausitzer Rundschau-online . April 1, 2017.
Web links
Coordinates: 51 ° 34 ′ 29 ″ N , 14 ° 22 ′ 51 ″ E