St. Joseph (Essen)
The Church of St. Joseph was a Catholic church in the western quarter of Essen between 1896 and 1943 .
history
prehistory
In 1870, a Marian congregation led by Jesuits acquired an extensive piece of land on Frohnhauser Strasse in the west of Essen, on which, in addition to a few houses, was a former boiler shop. In this a chapel was set up by the Jesuits as a new settlement. It was named St. Joseph's Church . Two years later the Jesuits had to leave the city of Essen for the third time, this time because of the culture war under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck . Their first expulsion dates back to the Thirty Years' War , the second followed in 1773 with the repeal of the order by the Pope .
After the expulsion, the St. Joseph's Church, which was set up in the former boiler shop, was retained for services by the Roman Catholic Church. The episcopal authority appointed a rector and two chaplains for this. However, since this building was not considered worthy as a church, a church building association was formed, which raised funds for a new church building. In 1893, a suitable building plot was acquired on the corner of Ottilienstraße / Jägerstraße, known today as it was then, in the west of Essen.
In 1896, the pastoral care district in Burgaltendorf received the small steel bell and the high altar from the chapel in the former boiler shop for its bed room in the restaurant Zu den Drei Linden . When their Herz-Jesu-Kirche was completed in 1900, still without a tower, the steel bell on a roof turret of the church was still in use until 1914. In 1972 it was finally dismantled and stored in a nursing home in Burgaltendorf. Since the 90th anniversary of the Kolping family in Burgaltendorf in 2010, it has been used by altar servers as a conversion bell.
Church building and community history
The construction of St. Joseph's Church from solid ashlar began in 1894 according to plans by the architect August Menken . It was completed two years later and inaugurated on March 21, 1896. On December 1, 1900, the parish of St. Joseph was established by the Archbishop of Cologne, Hubert Theophil Simar , and approved by the state on May 25, 1901. At the time it was founded, the church had around 6,000 members.
In the east-facing main choir of the church was the ciboric altar designed by August Menken in the early Gothic style .
In the western area of the church, the Krupp cast steel factory continued to expand, see map. The reason was initially the First World War , as the armaments industry became its most important source of income. After the war, the arms industry came to a standstill as a result of the Treaty of Versailles , which resulted in a sharp reduction in the workforce. During the time of National Socialism , the Krupp factory rose again to become the so-called armory of the German Reich and thus expanded strongly in area. The proportion of the resident population in the parish fell steadily. The Essener Volkszeitung wrote on December 2, 1935:
“The area of the parish was bordered in the north by Limbecker Chaussee and Limbecker Strasse , in the east by the axis Lindenallee, Maxstrasse and Selmastrasse, in the south by the Bergisch-Märkische Railway to the city limits [...] In the official activities of Pastor Fink A shadow was already falling, which in the following time became more and more intense: the number of souls in the parish decreased. As a result of the expansion of the Krupp factory, entire streets were closed. The Kanonenstrasse, Grüner Weg, half of Kniestrasse, half of the Westend Colony, parts of Frohnhauser Strasse and Schwanenkampstrasse, which all the active parishioners of St. Joseph had counted, disappeared . "
In 1937 the pastor wrote in a report that the number of parishioners had dropped to around 3,500. Other reasons, in addition to the expansion of industry, are the conversion of living space into office and business premises, road widening and breakthroughs as well as vacancies in outdated old apartments without comfort.
During the Second World War in 1943, St. Joseph's Church was destroyed along with the entire area by Allied air raids, except for the tower, which was blown up in January 1957. The St. Joseph Congregation had 200 members after the war and was dissolved. Today there is a retirement home built in 2000 on the site of the former St. Joseph's Church.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d T. Kellen: The industrial city of Essen in words and pictures. History and description of the city of Essen. At the same time a guide through food and the surrounding area. Fredebeul & Koenen, Essen 1902.
- ↑ 90 years of the Kolping family Essen-Burgaltendorf ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; Retrieved October 25, 2015
- ^ Archdiocese of Cologne (Ed.): Handbook of the Archdiocese of Cologne, 19th edition . Essen 1905, p. 21 .
- ^ Wilhelm Lucke: St. Josephskirche Essen-Altstadt, your becoming-work-offense. In: Das Münster am Hellweg, bulletin of the Association for the Preservation of the Essen Minster (Münsterbauverein e.V.), issue 7/1957, p. 85
Coordinates: 51 ° 27 ′ 19.1 ″ N , 7 ° 0 ′ 16.2 ″ E