St. Pauli Church (Bremen)

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The new building of the St. Pauli Church in Bremen from 1967, photo 2009

Today's Reformed St. Pauli Church in Bremen Neustadt on the left bank of the Weser was built in 1967 at Große Krankenstraße 11, opposite the Neuer Markt, as a successor to the church building on Osterstraße, which was destroyed in the war in 1682.

The baroque church building

The former St. Pauli Church in Bremer Neustadt. Lithograph by Christian Grabau, 1872.

In the Thirty Years' War , from 1623, the ramparts , which until then had only surrounded the old town, were supplemented by a ring of fortifications on the left side of the Weser. The residents were initially parish with St. Martini , only in 1639 - with the gradual settlement of the area - a separate parish was set up and Conrad Laelius was appointed preacher. A converted house with a turret on Osterstrasse served as a temporary church space . It was given the name of the apostle Paul , whether in memory of the Paul monastery that was demolished over 100 years earlier is controversial.

Christine Graevaeus (1589–1675), widow of a Bremen councilor, had made it possible through her estate to purchase a flood-proof property for a new building. The simple church was built from 1679 to 1682 on Osterstrasse. We don't know the architect. The only decorations of the hall building made of exposed brick were a roof turret (1686) and two sandstone portals with coats of arms in the front gable. The roof was covered with sandstone slabs. One of the two galleries on the narrow sides carried the organ from 1718, from which parts of the prospectus were taken over in the post-war building. A pulpit altar stood in the middle of the long wall between the entrances. A white coat of paint and colorless windows gave the interior a brightly lit, but also sober appearance. This restraint, exemplified in the Frisian and Dutch hall churches of the 16th and 17th centuries, corresponded to the strict spirit of the Bremen Reformed church discipline , and St. Pauli became a model for some of the subsequent Bremen churches.

On October 6, 1944, the church burned down completely in an air raid. Today, the axis of the Great Weser Bridge, which was completed in 1960 and moved 40 m up the Weser River compared to its predecessor, today the Wilhelm Kaisen Bridge, runs across the property .

The construction from 1967

On a plot of land on the narrow side of the Neuer Markt, 100 m west of the old location, the community built a new building in 1967, after a community center had already been built there in 1956, also by the architect Jan Noltenius. Both components are linked by a slender bell tower. The prismatic structure dominates the narrow side of the square. In the light interior, the white painted brick walls contrast with large colored windows (Albrecht Kröning). Equipment: A stone portal crown with the mayor's coat of arms, part of the organ front and the baroque sacrament devices were taken over from the church . Metalwork by Walter Wadephul, organ by Kleuker, Bielefeld. In 1966, the Otto bell foundry from Bremen-Hemelingen supplied three bells with the striking tones: f sharp '- d' '- e' 'and the following diameters: 1151 mm, 725 mm and 646 mm.

The parish

When the community was founded, it included the residents of Neustadt and Feldmark Lehnstätt. Then the Teerhof, in 1772 the Neueland, in 1850 the former Arster part of the Buntentorsteinweg was assigned to the community. Towards the end of the 19th century the church was very active in the city ​​mission . The daughter congregations Jakobi (1884), Zion (1893), Hohentor (1927) emerged.

Pastors and important church members who are active in the church include: the theologians Georg Gottfried Treviranus (1788–1868) and Gottfried Menken (1768–1831) as well as the mayor and trade minister Arnold Duckwitz (1802–1881).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heitmann, p. 162
  2. ↑ Iken, p. 56 mentions the “master mason Frerich Ottersen” for the execution, Fliedner / Kloos teaches the perhaps misunderstood name “Hermanos de Vogel” (= Spanish Brothers Vogel  ?) Of a “Dutch architect” without citing the source . The builder of the roof rider was H. Rust (Iken, p. 62).
  3. ↑ Buchenau, p. 307
  4. ↑ Photo by Stein, Fig. 40
  5. ↑ Ground plans in Stein, Figs. 37 and 38, p. 84
  6. ^ Stein, pp. 38–100: St. Michaelis, destroyed; Church in Rablinghausen (1750); old Remberti Church (1736).
  7. ↑ Other church buildings by Jan Noltenius are listed here: Bremer Architekten
  8. ↑ Heitmann, p. 164
  9. ^ Gerhard Reinhold: Otto bells. Family and company history of the Otto bell foundry dynasty . Self-published, Essen 2019, ISBN 978-3-00-063109-2 , p. 588, here in particular pp. 552, 553, 561 .
  10. ↑ Gerhard Reinhold: Church bells - Christian world cultural heritage, illustrated using the example of the bell founder Otto, Hemelingen / Bremen . Nijmegen / NL 2019, p. 556, here in particular 508, 509, 514 , urn : nbn: nl: ui: 22-2066 / 204770 (dissertation at Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen).
  11. ↑ For the location of Lehnstätt / Ledense see Buchenau, p. 223 f.

literature

  • Johann Friedrich Iken: History of the St. Pauli Church and Community in Bremen. Bremen 1882.
  • Eberhard Syring: Bremen and its buildings 1950–1979. Bremen 2014, p. 382.
  • Claus Heitmann: From Abraham to Zion. Pp. 161-164.
  • Franz Buchenau : The Free Hanseatic City of Bremen. (2nd edition) Bremen 1934, p. 307.
  • Siegfried Fliedner and Werner Kloos: Bremen churches. Bremen 1961, p. 129.
  • Rudolf Stein: Bremen Baroque and Rococo. Bremen 1960, pp. 86-88.
  • Bremen Center for Building Culture: Light tent and strong castle. Sacred building in Bremen since 1945. , Bremen 2009, p. 200 f.
  • Gerhard Reinhold: Otto Glocken - Family and company history of the bell foundry dynasty Otto. Essen 2019. ISBN 978-3-00-063109-2
  • Gerhard Reinhold: Church bells - Christian world cultural heritage, illustrated using the example of the bell founder Otto, Hemelingen / Bremen. Diss. Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, 2919. DNB access signature L-2019-333968.

Coordinates: 53 ° 4 ′ 18.8 "  N , 8 ° 47 ′ 52.3"  E