St. Johann market

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The St. Johann market
St. Johanner Markt, market activity at the end of the 19th century, view of the Keltermann corner house, (Saarbrücken City Archives)
St. Johanner Markt before the Nazi redevelopment program with market fountain in its original position and Kautze Eck in neo-Renaissance forms, (Saarbrücken City Archives)
St. Johanner Markt after the Nazi redevelopment program with a displaced market fountain and Baroque-style Kautze Eck, (Saarbrücken City Archives)
St. Johanner Markt, city model

The St. Johann market is a market square and district in the Saarbrücken district of St. Johann and forms the center of the Saarland capital.

history

middle Ages

After the former village of St. Johann ("Sente Johan dat dorf") was granted city rights in 1322 with a letter of freedom, it expanded and presented today's market square as the center of the village, surrounded by a few streets and the city wall. The village had extended to the streets around the St. Johann basilica (today's Türkenstrasse or Kath-Kirchstrasse), which stands on the site of the medieval St. Johanns chapel. This explains the location of the church away from today's market, on the Katholisch-Kirch-Straße, which is quite wide by medieval standards, on which the market probably originally took place. Both the original St. Johann market at today's St. Johann basilica and the current St. Johann market emerged as typical medieval street markets . The layout of the St. Johanner Marktplatz can be explained by the proximity to the Saar crossing or the old Saar Bridge as well as the crossing of trade routes from Metz to Mainz and from Strasbourg to Trier . A fire is reported to have occurred in 1503, which probably destroyed most of the medieval buildings on the market.

Thirty Years' War

Hardly any medieval house with its typical wooden galleries survived the Thirty Years' War on the market, which was expanded to an irregular square in the western part .

Baroque remodeling

St. Johanner Markt, excerpt from the geometric floor plan St. Johann 1776/1778 (Saarbrücken City Archives)

In the middle of the 18th century, under the reign of Prince Wilhelm Heinrich, new baroque town houses were built around the market based on a concept by the master builder Friedrich Joachim Stengel . However, there is no evidence that Stengel was directly involved in any house construction on St. Johanner Markt. The most striking object of that time is the St. Johann market fountain , which replaced an older fountain from 1602 by the palace builder Heinrich Kempter. The fountain from 1602 showed an armed man with two shields, the coat of arms of the count and the coat of arms of St. Johann. However, a similar fountain from 1556 has already been documented. The builder of the new baroque fountain was Ignatius Bishop. The sculptural work was carried out by Johann Philipp Mihm . Sontag Bückelmann created the iron bars, the ironwork was carried out by Johann Ludwig Hör. From 1890, the Saarbrücken tram drove across the market.

Nazi redevelopment program

Under the direction of Hermann Keuth , the director of the Saarland Museum and the Conservatory Office, the St. Johanner Markt was subjected to a radical renovation program from 1938. The background to this was that the NS Mayor Fritz Schwitzgebel saw "the task and importance of the city of Saarbrücken" in being "between Aachen and Strasbourg (...) the economic and cultural center for the German population in the west of the Reich". Schwitzgebel demanded that "in the German interest, the most important traffic routes from Calais , Paris , Antwerp - Brussels - Luxembourg and Nancy via southern Germany to the Danube-Balkan countries and via Mannheim - Frankfurt to central and northern Germany must be led through this gate ."

During the renovation work on St. Johanner Markt, all traces of historicism and Art Nouveau were removed from the market development in order to give the market a uniform baroque character. Since there were differences in height in the houses on the market, houses that appeared too high were reduced and houses deemed too low were increased. At the museum building between Markt and Katholisch-Kirchstrasse, elaborate neo-baroque style elements were given up in favor of a uniform design. The three-dimensional oak trunk at the “Zur Eiche” inn (house no. 16) was chopped off. The house on the corner of Obertorstrasse and the corner of Türkenstrasse was rebuilt as a half-timbered building in historicizing forms, as the previous building did not appear to be capable of restoration. The richly designed house "Kautze Eck" (formerly "Bentze Eck") with its cross- frame windows , elaborate tail gables and the corner bay window in the forms of the neo-renaissance was redesigned into a simple pseudo-baroque building. Most of the cost of the renovation work carried out on the houses against the will of the house owners had to be borne by them themselves. The city of Saarbrücken had worked out the desired changes for each individual house and made appropriate sketches. These ranged from a new coat of paint to extensive renovations.

For traffic-related reasons, the market fountain was moved to the other side of the square to “Kautze Eck”, as this made it easier for the Nazi party formations to march past and other traffic flows through the market. The houses, which in Keuth's opinion protruded too strongly into the Katholisch-Kirchstrasse, were all torn down as part of the renovation work. All the houses in the market were painted a uniform light gray in the Stengels sense. For the sake of standardization, this measure was also carried out on the pre-baroque houses, which can be shown to have had original tints ranging from beige to red. The baroque remodeling of 61 house facades was carried out within a period of two months, as the market was supposed to be redeveloped for Adolf Hitler's visit in October 1938.

The further renovation measures dragged on until the beginning of the Second World War. All the back buildings in Gerberstrasse and Katholisch-Kirchstrasse were demolished and the facades were standardized. More houses in the Katholisch-Kirchstrasse were demolished to allow a better view of the extension of the St. Johann town hall with its small arcade. When the front line of the Katholisch-Kirchstrasse was shifted back, new houses were built in imitated forms of the 18th century.

Saarbrücken-St. Johann, NS forum on the banks of the Saar with a connection to the St. Johanner Markt, on the far left the semicircle of the State Theater, next to the bell tower the old Saar Bridge, (State Capital Saarbrücken, Lower Monument Protection Authority)

A large National Socialist forum with a bell tower on the Alte Brücke and Großer Halle was to be built between the Saar and St. Johanner Markt, which would have stretched from today's State Theater to Dudweiler Strasse. A representative gate with an imperial eagle would have been created as an architectural link between the St. Johann market and the Nazi forum.

Destruction in World War II and reconstruction

During the bombing raids on 29./30. July and October 5, 1944, the marketplace development was partially badly damaged. Houses No. 3–5 were restored in their old form in the post-war period; the houses on the south side, nos. 9–21, rebuilt while preserving the baroque facades. The houses up to the former Obertor (Türkenstrasse / Fassstrasse) and those in Saarstrasse and Türkenstrasse were also restored. The Evangelisch-Kirchstrasse remained unrestored. The Fröschengasse along the old town wall of St. Johann has been completely renovated. After the Second World War, the red light district increasingly established itself on the run-down St. Johanner Markt. At the beginning of the 1960s, historic houses that had survived the Second World War were torn down for traffic reasons, such as the Keltermann house and the neighboring house No. 3. The St. Johanner Markt was to be expanded and equipped with large-scale structures. But this did not happen. The Karstadt department store and the IBM high-rise were built a little further away. The vacant vacant lot of the two houses was closed in 1975 with a single baroque building as a corner house.

Refurbishment in the 1970s and expansion into a pedestrian zone

Corpus Christi procession with station altar on the St. Johann market

The newly founded "Arbeitsgemeinschaft Bildender Künstler eV" demanded in its association statutes "the cooperation of visual artists and designers in the preservation, further development and humanization of the old town of St. Johann, especially a pedestrian zone to be created", this also in writing to the then Mayor Fritz Schuster and the parliamentary groups of the parties represented in the city council. This initiative met with approval from local politicians. In 1975 the citizens' initiative “Altstadtfest” (later “Saarbrücker Bürgerforum eV”) also asked the city council to redesign the entire area into a pedestrian zone . In a city council meeting in March 1976 this request was granted, since at that time the old city centers were being converted into such zones all over Germany. According to a planning process, under Mayor Oskar Lafontaine, a thorough renovation of the market and a conversion of the thoroughfare into a pedestrian zone were carried out from 1976 to 1979. At the same time, a structural renovation of the entire old town of St. Johann started. The St. Johann pedestrian zone was inaugurated on May 1, 1978.

In the war-torn area between Obertorstrasse, Bleichstrasse and Fassstrasse, flat-roofed new buildings were placed on the old, small-scale parcels. Cultural institutions such as the city gallery and a cabaret in the historic “Zum Stiefel” inn , which had to give way to a major renovation and conversion into an adventure brewery in the 1990s, were intended to complement the range of restaurants and shops. In 1978, the sculptor Paul Schneider initiated an international sculpture symposium together with the Saarbrücken Cultural Office, at which seventeen stone sculptures were created. The pavement was also laid from an artistic point of view according to plans by Paul Schneider. The market fountain, which was relocated during the Nazi era, was moved back to its original location. Trees should provide shade-giving green. At the same time, the Sankt Johanner Markt and its side streets were included in the Saarland's list of monuments . On May 1, 1979, the completion of the renovated St. Johann market was celebrated in the presence of Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt . In addition to the traditional mercantile function, a large number of cultural, religious, political or culinary events take place on the market today, including the Saarbrücken Old Town Festival or the Advent market (Christkindlmarkt).

literature

  • Hartwig Beseler, Niels Gutschow: War fates of German architecture, losses - damage - reconstruction, a documentation for the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany, Vol. II: Süd, Wiesbaden 2000, p. 1074.
  • Rainer Knauf: Urban planning in Saarbrücken under National Socialism, master's thesis Saarbrücken 1992.
  • Karl August Schleiden : Illustrated history of the city of Saarbrücken , Krüger Druck + Verlag Dillingen 2009 ISBN 9783000285691 , p. 91 ff.
  • Fritz Schwitzgebel : Task and importance of the city of Saarbrücken , The work program of the city administration, Saarbrücken 1938.
  • Fred Oberhauser : Das Saarland , DuMont Buchverlag Cologne 1992, ISBN 3770116437 , p. 88.
  • Rolf Wittenbrock (Ed.): History of the City of Saarbrücken, Vol. 1, From the beginnings to the industrial awakening (1860), Vol. 2, From the time of rapid growth to the present, Saarbrücken 1999.
  • Charly Lehnert : The “Gute Stube” of Saarland, How the old town was saved in the 1970s and the St. Johann pedestrian zone was created, magazine “Nemmeh dehemm”, Volume 30, Issue 1-2015, pp. 8-10, Lehnert Verlag , Saarbrücken.

Web links

Commons : St. Johanner Markt (Saarbrücken)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hanns Klein: The freedom letter for Saarbrücken and St. Johann, in: Journal for the history of the Saar region, 19, 1971, pp. 132-146, here p. 141.
  2. ↑ Hans-Walter Herrmann: Saarbrücken and St. Johann from the beginnings of urban life to its decline in the 30 Years War, in: Rolf Wittenbrock (ed.): History of the city of Saarbrücken, From the beginnings to industrial awakening (1850), vol. 1 , Saarbrücken 1999, pp. 199-298, here pp. 266-267.
  3. ↑ Ruth Bauer: The war of faith around the Ludwigskirche, other times, other tastes, how the buildings of the baroque architect Friedrich Joachim Stengel were changed over the centuries, in: Saargeschichten, magazine for regional culture and history, ed. from the historical association for the Saar region and the regional association of historical-cultural associations of the Saarland, 3/2012, pp. 16–23, here p. 18.
  4. ^ Karl August Schleiden: Illustrated History of the City of Saarbrücken, Dillingen / Saar 2009, p. 91.
  5. ^ Robert H. Schubart: The fountain on the market square of Saarbrücken-St. Johann (1759/60) and the Fontaine triomphale en Piramide in Nancy (1753/56), in: Journal for the history of the Saar region, 16, 1968, pp. 248-281.
  6. ↑ Fritz Schitzgebel: task and importance of the city Saarbrücken, the work program of the city government, Saarbrücken 1938, p. 5
  7. ^ Karl August Schleiden: Illustrated History of the City of Saarbrücken, Dillingen / Saar 2009, p. 59.
  8. ↑ Ruth Bauer: The war of faith around the Ludwigskirche, other times, other tastes, how the buildings of the baroque architect Friedrich Joachim Stengel were changed over the centuries, in: Saargeschichten, magazine for regional culture and history, ed. from the historical association for the Saar region and the regional association of historical-cultural associations of the Saarland, 3/2012, pp. 16-23. According to the building file for the Markt 43 building, the city of Saarbrücken arranged for and paid for the building to be increased.
  9. ^ Karl August Schleiden: Illustrated History of the City of Saarbrücken, Dillingen / Saar 2009, pp. 519-522.
  10. ↑ Susanne Heidemann: The Fuehrer's Gift, in: Stadtverband Saarbrücken, Regionalgeschichtliches Museum (ed.), Ten instead of a thousand years, National Socialism on the Saar (1935–1945), catalog for the exhibition of the Regional History Museum in Saarbrücken Castle, Saarbrücken 1988, Pp. 89–97, here p. 93.
  11. ↑ Hans-Walter Herrmann: Saarbrücken under the Nazi rule, in: Rolf Wittenbrock (Ed.): History of the City of Saarbrücken, Vol. 2, From the time of stormy growth to the present, Saarbrücken 1999, pp. 243–338, here p. 307.
  12. ↑ Hartwig Beseler, Niels Gutschow: War fates of German architecture, losses - damage - reconstruction, a documentation for the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany, Vol. II: Süd, Wiesbaden 2000, p. 1074.
  13. ↑ Ruth Bauer: The war of faith around the Ludwigskirche, other times, other tastes, how the buildings of the baroque architect Friedrich Joachim Stengel were changed over the centuries, in: Saargeschichten, magazine for regional culture and history, ed. from the historical association for the Saar region and the regional association of historical-cultural associations of the Saarland, 3/2012, p. 18.
  14. ↑ Marlen Dittmann: Saarbrücken since 1974, urban development and living, in: Rolf Wittenbrock (Ed.): History of the City of Saarbrücken, Vol. 2, From the time of stormy growth to the present, Saarbrücken 1999, pp. 575–597, here Pp. 582-584.

Coordinates: 49 ° 13 ′ 57.6 ″  N , 6 ° 59 ′ 46.7 ″  E