St. Anna House
The St. Anna House is a hospital on Herderstrasse in Cologne-Lindenthal . It was founded in 1888 by the Order of Cologne Cellites and owes its creation to the legacy of a wealthy Lindenthal citizen. The house, dedicated to Saint Anne and run by religious sisters, initially served as a hospital and home for the children of the poor population of the district. The facility later became a regular hospital . As such, it lasted until 1979. The historic buildings of the house became the “St. Anna senior citizens' home” after their renovation and redesign in the following years.
history
Cellitinnen St. Maria in the Kupfergasse
With the French occupation of Cologne in 1794 and the subsequent secularization , many church institutions, as well as the houses run by Cellitinnen, faced financial ruin . The former monastery of the Carmelites who fled in 1798 in Kupfergasse was also mostly empty. The monastery buildings were temporarily used as a school and were only inhabited by the pastor , the chaplain and the sexton of the adjoining church of St. Maria in the Kupfergasse .
In 1828 religious sisters moved into these buildings from two monasteries that were also closed. They were women religious of the forbidden convent “Zur hl. Dreifaltigkeit "(Achternstrasse, founded 1470) and that of the community" Zurzelle "(Komödienstraße, founded 1314), each of whom sent six sisters to the abandoned monastery. They founded a new cellite community in the property that has meanwhile passed into municipal ownership. After the miraculous image in the former monastery church raised to the parish church, they called themselves the community of the "Cellitinnen zur St. Maria in the Kupfergasse ”. In November 1828 the Archbishop of Cologne confirmed the new foundation.
The order, which prospered in the following years, experienced ups and downs in its history. The order grew so much that church and state authorities put a stop to it. In 1875, new members were prohibited by law, but the ban was lifted again in 1882. The Order gained widespread recognition for its charitable work and continued to enjoy a large number of religious admissions. This led to the establishment of new convents subordinate to the parent company , which in many cases could be realized through foundations (donations of large amounts of money or land). One of these donations received was the legacy of Lindenthal's widow Anna Jansen, which, however , linked her legacy with conditions .
Jansen Foundation
In 1887 Anna Jansen gave the clergyman Hubert Joseph Titz the amount of 18,000 marks and linked this donation with the earmarking of acquiring the house at Lindenthaler "Wilhelmstrasse" 42 and creating a home for senior citizens in it. Pastor Titz turned the request for a foundation to the nuns in the Kupfergasse, who were able to implement the conditions associated with the foundation in 1888. The house number 42 acquired with the donation and a new building on an immediately adjacent property then became the St. Anna House , Lindenthal.
St. Anna House, Wilhelmstrasse
In 1873 Sister Ursula Krütt was elected the first General Superior of the Cologne Order because of the branch monasteries that had been created . The nuns entrusted by her to take over the new branch in Lindenthal elected Sister Caecilia from among their number to be their first superior and began work in the facilities of the new convent.
Nursing home and outpatient help
The fields of activity of the Lindenthal start-up were the outpatient care of the poor and sick, but also the inpatient care of the elderly and the weak in the own rooms of the St. Anna House. In the first reporting year (1888) of the house 164, and in the following year, 244 people in need of help took advantage of the nursing or catering provided by the sisters. The “waiting wage” received by the nurses was modest. They received it through the poor administrations introduced in 1816 due to the general Prussian land law in the area on the left bank of the Rhine.
In the middle of 1890 a decree of the Cologne-Lindenthal district committee came into effect, according to which the "infirmary and nursing home" of the St. Anna Hospital was to set up a ward suitable for the reception of people with infectious diseases. The authority's requirements for the isolation of the sick and those caring for them as well as requirements for the disinfection of used materials such as clothing, linen and blankets were met.
Children's institution
The establishment of a “Kinderbewahranstalt” ( kindergarten ) opened by the sisters looked after an average of 80 children who were not required to attend school. They were children from the poor, the "working class". This choice of words can be found in a preserved correspondence between the order's leadership and the Cologne-Lindenthal administration, which requested the "poor deputation". In the 1890s, the office asked for specific information about the services provided by the custodial institution. Information was requested about the number of children being looked after by the sisters, information about the amount of food they had been provided with, and information about the time required for the care.
The background to the request was a request from the General Superior to the city asking for a subsidy from community funds for childcare . She argued that the previous remuneration of a maximum of 10 pfennigs per day and child by the parents with an actual cost of 75 pfennigs was completely inadequate. In addition, the order's leadership stated that, due to the growing demand due to the increasing number of inhabitants, children had to be turned away because the buildings were becoming too small.
In addition, there was another field of activity for the sisters. It was the in-house classes for young girls who were taught sewing and housekeeping there. As there were no alternative institutions, they received a basis for their further life. Due to the variety of tasks to be mastered and the increasing numbers of those in need, the need to build a larger building became inevitable.
Hospice and hospital
After only a short one-year construction period, the new St. Anna Hospital was inaugurated on December 10, 1898 by the Cologne auxiliary bishop, who later became Archbishop and Cardinal Fischer . Despite initial concerns about being able to bear the financial burden caused by the new building, the sisters were able to look optimistically into the future due to the rapid utilization of the new and old buildings. In 1899 a chaplain was appointed. There was no need for the elderly and the sick to attend church services in the neighboring parish church of St. Stephan on Bachemer Strasse. After a short time, a chapel was built to replace the nuns' prayer room, which stretched over an entire floor , and was consecrated in 1902. In 1905 a novitiate was added to the facilities of St. Anna's House . The modest number of 29 religious women living in St. Anna's house in 1905, including the postulants and novices , had grown to 65 religious women in 1909.
World wars
After the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, as Cologne was on the direct railway line to the western theater of war , the house was used as a hospital for the injured soldiers who soon arrived . The St. Anna-Haus survived the bombing raids of the Second World War , from which the Lindenthal district was badly affected, with luck and thanks to the red cross painted on the roof. The neighboring parish church of the house, St. Stephan, did not have this luck. She was hit and burned down to the tower. Their task has now been taken over by the chapel of St. Anna's House. Shortly before the end of the war in January 1945, the nursing ward of the St. Anna House had to cease operations.
Chapel of St. Anna
Some of the buildings in Cologne, built in the neo-Gothic style, survived the destruction of the last world war. One of them is the chapel of St. Anna's House, where mass is still read today by a “chaplain” . The foundation stone of the building designed by the architect Peter Gärtner was laid in 1901. The inauguration took place the following year. An early illustration of the inner choir area makes the differences to the present day clear. The former east wall has a half-height window (like the first and last window on today's south wall). The cross ribs of the choir vault united in a radial representation of the Holy Spirit . The spaces between the right and left vaulted pillars of the yoke were furnished with niches with pointed arches in which there were saints . On both sides, in front of the choir, which is tapering as it is today, there were narrow stone side altars , which ended in filigree neo-Gothic points at the same height as the main altar in the middle of the choir, stepped upwards. Furthermore, the floor of the chapel , which is still covered with ceramic tiles , has a completely different pattern. The timing of these changes, probably after the last world war, is not known.
Laying of the foundation stone in 1901
South window of the chapel (detail)
North-east side
Outer chapel entrance
Building description
The chapel is a single-aisled brick building in neo-Gothic style . The small church with its choir facing east is connected on the north side with the buildings of the St. Anna-Haus on Herderstrasse by a chapel extension. This contains a small oratory and a room used as a sacristy . On the free-standing south and east sides of the building, the buttresses rise between the high, tracery- provided arched windows , which absorb the pressure of the vaulted ceiling of the nave.
The chapel and the annex, which rest on a half-height basement , have their main entrance on the upper floor, so that the chapel can also be accessed by elderly people who are dependent on a wheelchair . The outer chapel entrance from the monastery garden is elevated on the western front side and can be reached via a stone staircase. The flat saddle roof of the chapel has a small bell- shaped roof turret on the west side . At the eastern end there is a stepped roof over the lower choir.
Organ loft
Organ gallery, south u. West window
Way of the Cross and entablature
North entrance to the chapel
In the cross - vaulted four - bay interior, which was simply whitewashed, the ocher-colored pillars and ribs of the chapel vault stand out in contrast. The room receives daylight through four windows on the south wall, glazed in pastel colors, and through windows of different shapes in the western end wall. Above the retracted organ gallery , in the last yoke area, there is a round window in the gable front. The central aisle of the chapel begins under the flat beamed ceiling of the gallery at the centrally installed gate leading to the monastery garden. A way of the cross beginning on the south wall with small murals is interrupted by a confessional , the outer stairway entrance and a half-height window and continues on the north wall of the first yoke. On this wall in the second yoke is the door to the corridors and tracts of the buildings on Herderstrasse.
Post War and Change
In the spring of 1946, hospital operations were resumed in all areas despite a shortage. At the end of the year the nuns were able to register a stock of 125 sick beds again. At that time, the St. Anna House charged a daily care rate of around 4 RM .
In 1951, the war damage had largely been repaired. The expansion plans subsequently worked out led to a wing of the building completed in 1954, which accommodated a maternity and baby ward as well as an X-ray department and other hospital rooms. These new, modern facilities were widely recognized. The occupancy stations, which at the time were considered very progressive due to their still rare twin-bed facilities, barely recorded any vacancies. Despite the structural innovations that were carried out and the excellent reputation of the house, the St. Anna House was unable to assert itself in the form of a hospital.
The St. Anna House in Lindenthaler Herderstraße, the former Wilhelmstraße, run by the nuns of the Cellitinnen, served the district as a primary care hospital for almost a century. In 1980 regular hospital operations were discontinued.
The premises of the former hospital were modernized through construction measures and adapted to the needs of a retirement and nursing home . With the additional new buildings on the parallel Franzstrasse, connected with the monastery garden and its chapel in between , the historical part of the St. Anna House was integrated into the overall complex completed in 1980.
Web links
literature
- Historical archive Archdiocese of Cologne: Handbook of the Archdiocese of Cologne. Vol. 1, Cologne 1966.
- Stephanie Habeth-Allhorn: 175 years of Cellitinnen at St. Maria in the Kupfergasse, a social-charitable religious order in the heart of Cologne. JP Bachem Verlag, Cologne 2003, ISBN 3-7616-1768-2 .
- St. Anna Retirement and Nursing Home (Ed.): 100 Years St. Anna House 1888-1998 Cologne-Lindenthal. Cologne 1998.
- Konrad Adenauer, Volker Gröbe: Lindenthal. The development of a Cologne suburb. ISBN 3-7616-1603-1 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Stephanie Habeth-Allhorn, 175 years of Cellitinnen zur St. Maria in der Kupfergasse, p. 31
- ↑ Festschrift: 100 Years of St. Anna House
- ↑ Festschrift: 100 Years of St. Anna House , p. 4
- ↑ Handbook of the Archdiocese of Cologne, Vol. 1, Cologne 1966, p. 278
Coordinates: 50 ° 55 ′ 33.5 ″ N , 6 ° 54 ′ 46.9 ″ E