St. Lambertus (Erkelenz)

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View of the Lambertus Church at Erkelenzer Markt (on the right in the foreground the old town hall )

St. Lambertus that the Holy Lambertus consecrated Catholic parish church in Erkelenz had three previous buildings, the first of a Frankish was Saalbau and early 11th century a Romanesque was extended longitudinal building, which in turn one in 1418 consecrated and in the Second World War destroyed the Gothic nave gave way. The 83 meter high church tower was built in 1458 in the style of Flanders or Brabant towers.

Since January 1st, 2015 it has been the parish church of the new, merged parish of Christkönig Erkelenz.

Building history

Schematic floor plan of the foundations

Franc time

When the new building of today's nave began at the end of 1947, excavations revealed the foundations of older church buildings that were located within the destroyed church. The innermost building, oriented roughly east-west, was a Franconian hall church, which formed a rectangle twice as long as it was wide and to which a rectangular choir adjoined in the east .

The foundation masonry consisted of quartzite sandstone and sandstone blocks up to half a meter in length, some of which had precisely worked out dowel holes ten by ten centimeters in size, which proves their previous use elsewhere. In these foundations there were isolated fragments of Roman bricks.

Within the rectangular choir, there were two different layers of charcoal between three layers of clay resulting from the planned backfilling of the site, and another layer of clay under a mortar pan, as used as a stake in half-timbered construction. This layer of clay was colored red from above by fire. In it lay two shards of vessels, one of which was Badorf ceramics with a beaded rim and stamped patterns . Since the mortar layer was connected to the rectangular choir, it was laid out together with it, so that the conclusion that the lower layer of stiffening stems from an older structure, possibly from a chapel , is obvious . Underneath it was found the filling of a grave shaft without any additions with a few skeletal remains and parts of a wooden plank on the bottom of the shaft.

Romanesque extension

Glance into the neo-Romanesque interior

As the further excavations showed, the Franconian hall building had been expanded into a longitudinal building in the Romanesque period by adding two side aisles, an apse that completely encompassed the old rectangular choir, and smaller extensions. Fragments of a Roman screed floor lay near the rectangular choir in front of the front wall of the north aisle . In the west, a tower with a square floor plan had been added to the outside of the foundation of the old hall building, the foundations of which were in turn built with quartzite sandstones, between which larger fragments of Roman roof tiles were found. As it rose, the masonry of the tower was covered with tuff blocks, and its base profile indicated the 11th century. Towards the church there were still remnants of the Romanesque floor made of square clay tiles and a thin layer of fire on top. Bases and capitals were sometimes used as building materials for the apse, but their simple design suggested the 12th century. All foundations, both those of the Franconian hall building and those of the Romanesque longitudinal building, were built over an older grave field with wooden coffin burials .

Gothic new building

When the city was conquered and partly destroyed in 1371, the nave of the Romanesque church was probably also damaged, so that while the Romanesque tower was retained, a new Gothic building took its place, which was consecrated in 1418 and expanded again with a choir ambulatory in 1482 has been. Although the roof burned down in the great city fire of 1540, this nave was to survive for more than 500 years until the end of the Second World War.

In 1457 the old tower collapsed and a year later, further west next to the old tower foundations, construction began on the tower that is still preserved today. Two inscriptions carved in stone provide information about this, a brief one in Latin on the outside next to the portal and a somewhat more detailed one in Lower Franconia inside the tower hall. The latter reads:

In the years ons her MCCCCVII of the first day nae sent peter and pauwels dach toe IV uren veil hie eyn gates ned ind the other year op de selve dach waited dese begonden weden. (In the years of our Lord 1457 on the first day after Saint Peter and Paul's Day around four o'clock a tower fell down here and in the next year on the same day it was started.)

The seven-storey tower is 83 meters high, its walls are sometimes more than three meters thick and built in the style of Flemish or Brabant towers made of bricks with bright bluestone bands. After a lightning bolt had burned down the then wooden spire in the 18th century, it fell victim to the fire again in a heavy snow storm in February 1860. Since 1883 it has consisted of a riveted steel structure that is clad with thin copper plates.

The church was also a burial place during the Middle Ages until the cemetery was laid out outside the city in 1825. The dead were buried in the churchyard around the church and on the north side of the church there was an ossuary , which was customary in the past , in which the bones from old graves were collected and piled up for the purpose of relocating. Noble citizens were also buried under the floor in the church. Multiple burials on top of each other were common. Two grave slabs walled in today in the west wall of the aisles bear testimony to the “church corpses”, as they were called.

Destruction in World War II

As early as May 1940, a night air raid by British bombers burned down some houses in the immediate vicinity of the church. a. the old town hall on the market. In the last months of the Second World War, the church tower, in which there was an observation post high up and at times also a radio department of the Wehrmacht , received its first hits during an air raid on the city in December 1944. The church choir was badly damaged in another air raid in January 1945.

In the last days of this war, the richly furnished church with its monumental tower was to be blown up for military reasons by pioneer units of the German Wehrmacht, which were retreating from the Rur front . Rector Edmund Knorr , local commandant of Erkelenz in the last days of the war, was able to prevent this.

But just a few days later, on February 23, 1945, the church was bombed in the fourth and heaviest air raid. The interior of the nave was completely destroyed and the west side of the church tower below the main gallery was torn up over two floors. In the following days he was repeatedly under Allied shell fire, which further destroyed his masonry.

The triumphal cross remained undamaged in the open choir and could now be seen from a great distance from outside. It fell a few days after the US 102nd Division captured the city on February 26th. His fall was cushioned by the rubble of the ruined church; it therefore remained undamaged again.

reconstruction

In January 1946, more than a hundred volunteers began clearing the church. The heavily damaged church tower, which is close to collapsing, was secured that year by installing three concrete ceilings. In the years from 1952 to 1964, extensive restoration work was carried out on the masonry and the galleries.

Plans to build or destroyed nave again involve its last remnants into a new building with were discarded, so that the stalled ambulatory and the southern wall in 1947 blew up to today, the controversial neo-Romanesque construction according to the plans of Aachen architect Peter Salm to soft . The crypt under the choir was completed at Christmas 1948 and the first holy mass could be celebrated in the choir itself at Christmas 1950 . After the nave was completed, the church was consecrated on August 8, 1954.

After its extensive restoration in 1958, the tower was inaugurated as a memorial to the fallen soldiers of the border region , as evidenced by a bronze plaque - created by Cologne's Prof. Josef Jaekel - on the north-west side. Their inscription reads:

God did not let the tower go down. Smashed by bombs in 1945. Restored in 1953 with the help of the residents of the Erkelenz district. Memorial to the Fallen in the Frontier. In memoriam 1458-1958.

The relief shows the Archangel Michael fighting the dragon and in the lower left corner the Lambertiturm, which was battered during World War II.

The spire was completely renovated from 2012 to 2013. The spire above the last gallery was cut off and set up next to the church for renovation using a crane. The load-bearing iron structure was extensively refurbished and missing parts that were caused by the bombardment in World War II were supplemented with new steel parts. A wooden formwork was placed on this framework, on which the new copper plates were then attached.

Works of art

The Marian chandelier from 1517
The eagle's desk from the middle of the 15th century

In the newly built nave there are some works of art that could be saved from the destroyed church.

  • The triumphal cross (1486) with the crucifixion group (15th century), the seven-armed and more than three-meter-high Mary chandelier with the radiant Madonna made of gilded wrought iron and carvings from 1517, the two-meter-high eagle lectern in the middle, date from the Middle Ages The two sculptures Crispinus and Crispinianus , as well as the late Gothic Terheeg pulpit from the time before 1500, which had formerly been in the Leonhard Chapel, which was secularized by the French in 1802 and then in the Chapel of Terheeg , was made in brass in the 15th century in Dinant .
  • The pair of figures of Saint Mary and her mother Anna come from the Baroque era and the teaching of Mary is depicted. From the destroyed in World War II , Father Church , the Franciscan Church, the baroque characters come Anthony of Padua and Aloisius . The latter was a Jesuit , his figure was only erected after the former Franciscan monastery was dissolved.
  • The high altar from 1896 was designed in the neo-Gothic style by the carver Ferdinand Langenberg .
  • The Erkelenz sculptor Franz Xaver Haak created some woodwork; the Madonna at the Marienaltar , donated in 1937 by the Kevelaer Brotherhood, as well as large figures for the Christmas crib, created between 1934 and 1937.
  • The sculptor Peter Haak, son of Franz-Xaver Haak, carved the stations of the cross in 1953 , which originally stood in the parish church of St. Stephen in Kleingladbach .
  • The sculptor Klaus Iserlohe redesigned the church interior in 1999 and created the baptismal font , cafeteria and antependium . The crucifixion group was redesigned and hangs between the choir and the nave as it did before 1945 .
  • The stained glass windows in the church were designed by the following artists.
    • Hubert Spierling created the new creation in the choir in 1964 and the Lamb in the Heavenly Jerusalem in 1967 .
    • In 1954, Will Völker from Lövenich designed the seven sacraments and creation in the nave and the fish haul in the tower . In the same year he designed ornaments and geometric ornaments from semicircles for the high windows.
    • J. Geffers designed a free composition in the entrance to the market.
  • The windows in the crypt are by Klaus Iserlohe ("Creation") and Ludwig Schaffrath (free composition).

Organs

From 1907 until the war destruction in 1945 was in church one Klais - Organ , she had 44 registers , three manuals and a pedal . In 1949 an organ was installed by R. Seifert , Kevelaer, which was replaced in 1979 by an Oberlinger organ, which had 53 registers and three manuals. It was dismantled and sold in 2012.

The choir organ was built between 1911 and 1912 by the organ builder Johannes Klais (Bonn) as op. 475 for the St. Martinus Church in Borschemich. Since this church fell victim to open-cast lignite mining, the organ was built in St. Lambertus and inaugurated in 2013. The instrument has 16 stops on two manual works and a pedal. The actions are pneumatic. The swell is expanded to g 4 . The instrument was restored by the organ builder Martin Scholz from Mönchengladbach.

I Hauptwerk C – g 3
1. Drone 16 ′
2. Principal 8th'
3. Hollow flute 8th'
4th Salicional 8th'
5. Octave 4 ′
6th Mixture Cornett III 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
II Swell C – g 3
7th Starktongamba 8th'
8th. Darling Dumped 8th'
9. Aeoline 8th'
10. Vox coelestis 8th'
11. Violin principal 4 ′
12. Transverse flute 4 ′
13. Intoxicating fifth II 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
Pedals C – d 1
14th Sub bass 16 ′
15th Dacked bass 16 ′
16. Violon 8th'
  • Coupling : II / I (also as sub and super octave coupling), I / P, II / P
  • Playing aids: Fixed combinations (ff, f, mf, p), piano pedal

The organ building company Martin Scholz from Mönchengladbach is currently building a new main organ (inauguration in 2021). The new instrument will have 55 stops on four manual works and a pedal. In addition, the Glockenspiel and Zimbelstern effect registers are taken from the old organ. A new addition is a tubular bell chime. For the new main organ still to be created, an organ stage financed from donations was built between the inner tower pillars in spring 2015. Access is via the tower staircase with an outlet at the level of the organ stage via an access walkway.

I Positive C – a 3
1. Principal 8th'
2. Reed flute 8th'
3. Salicional 8th'
4th Principal 4 ′
5. Flauto dolce 4 ′
6th Sesquialtera II 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
7th Octave 2 ′
8th. Fifth 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
9. Mixture minor 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
10. Clarinet 8th'
Carillon
Zimbelstern
Tremulant
II main work C – a 3
11. Principal 16 ′
12. Principal 8th'
13. Harmony flute 8th'
14th Drone 8th'
15th Viola da gamba 8th'
16. Octave 4 ′
17th Reed flute 4 ′
18th Fifth 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
19th Super octave 2 ′
20th Mixture major 2 ′
21st bassoon 16 ′
22nd Trumpet 8th'
Tremulant
III Swell C – a 3
23. Covered 16 ′
24. Violin principal 8th'
25th Double flute 8th'
26th Lovely covered 8th'
27. Viol 8th'
28. Aeoline 8th'
29 Vox coelestis 8th'
30th violin 4 ′
31. Transverse flute 4 ′
32. Nasard 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
33. Piccolo 2 ′
34. third 1 3 ⁄ 5  ′
35. Progressio 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
36. Bombard 16 ′
37. Harmony trumpet 8th'
38. Bassoon oboe 8th'
39. Vox humana 8th'
40. Clarine 4 ′
Tremulant
IV Solo work C – a 3
41. Chip. Trumpet 8th'
42. Chip. Trumpet 4 ′
43. Cornett V 8th'
Tubular chimes
Pedals C – g 1
44. Pedestal 32 ′
45. Principal 16 ′
46. Subbass (Ext. No. 44) 16 ′
47. Violon bass 16 ′
48. Octavbass (Ext. No. 45) 8th'
49. Dacked bass 8th'
50. violoncello 8th'
51. Octave 4 ′
52. Contraposaune 32 ′
53. Trombone (ext.no.52) 16 ′
54. Trumpet 8th'
55. Trumpet 4 ′
  • Coupling : I / II, III / II, IV / II, III / I, III / I (sub-octave coupling), III / II (sub-octave coupling), III / III (sub-octave coupling), I / P, II / P, III / P , IV / P, III / P (super octave coupling)

Chimes

Five resonant bronze bells hang in the tower of St. Lambertus Church. With the exception of the medieval bell by Jan v. Trier, the bells all come from the renowned Otto bell foundry from Hemelingen / Bremen, which supplied bells for the St. Lambertus Church in 1914, 1927, 1955 and 1957. The Otto bells cast before 1939 were all melted down during the war , with the exception of the b 0 bell from 1917. The Otto bells from 1955 and 1957 replaced the peal from 1927. The entire ringing hangs partly on wooden and partly on steel yokes in the steel bell cage. A counter pendulum system has also been installed in the tower.

No.
 		 Surname
 		 Casting
year		 Caster
 		 Weight
( kg )		 Nominal
(16th note)		 Throughput
diameter
mm		 annotation
 
1 Savior's bell 1914 Bell foundry Otto 3,450 b 0 +3 1,762 Third heaviest and fourth deepest bell in the Heinsberg district
2 Mary Bell 1535 Jan (II) van Trier 2,200 of 1 +4 1,512 Largest preserved bell from Jan van Trier
3 Lambertus bell 1955 Bell foundry Otto 1,450 it 1 +4 1,318
4th Christ the King bell 1957 Bell foundry Otto 1,050 f 1 +3 1,165
5 Elisabeth bell 1957 Bell foundry Otto 850 ges 1 +1 1,098

literature

  • Josef Gaspers, Leo Sels u. a .: History of the City of Erkelenz , Erkelenz 1926, p. 104 ff.
  • Jack Schiefer: Destruction and reconstruction in the Erkelenz district , Grenzland-Verlag Heinrich Hollands, Aachen 1948, p. 10 ff.
  • Edwin Pinzek: Erkelenz - A city changes its face , illustrated book with explanatory texts, City of Erkelenz 1966
  • Josef Lennartz: When Erkelenz sank into ruins , Stadt Erkelenz 1975, p. 56 ff., 95 ff.
  • PA Tholen : The excavations in the parish church of St. Lambertus zu Erkelenz , in: Early church building in the Heinsberg district, Museum publications of the Heinsberg district, Volume 8, Heinsberg 1987, p. 206 f, ISBN 3-925620-02-8
  • Parish church and parish of St. Lambertus in Erkelenz , publications of the Heimatverein der Erkelenzer Lande, Volume 23, Erkelenz 2009
  • Vera Henkelmann: Late Gothic Mary chandelier. Forms - functions - meanings , eikoniká. Artistic contributions, on behalf of the Görres Society , Volume 4, Regensburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-7954-2694-1
  • Hiram Kümper, Christina Clever-Kümper: Erkelenz , Rheinische Kunststätten No. 556, Cologne 2015, ISBN 978-3-86526-109-0

Web links

Commons : St. Lambertus (Erkelenz)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Press reports: https://rp-online.de/nrw/staedte/erkelenz/ein-wahrzeichen-erhalten_aid-12557241 https://www.bankinformation.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1886:auf- these-stones-can-actually-be-built & catid = 43 & Itemid = 330 https://rp-online.de/nrw/staedte/erkelenz/erhellende-einblicke-im-lambertiturm-inneren_aid-14371785
  2. ↑ Information on the choir organ ( Memento of the original from January 26th, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the municipality's website @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kirchenmusik-erkelenz.de
  3. ↑ Information on the new main organ ( memento of the original from January 26, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the church music website @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kirchenmusik-erkelenz.de
  4. ^ 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. 84, 345, 401, 531, 553, 554 .
  5. ↑ Gerhard Reinhold: Church bells - Christian world cultural heritage, illustrated using the example of the bell foundry, Hemelingen / Bremen . Nijmegen / NL 2019, p. 556, here in particular pp. 472, 483, 490, 492, 510 , urn : nbn: nl: ui: 22-2066 / 204770 (dissertation at Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen).

Coordinates: 51 ° 4 ′ 48 ″  N , 6 ° 18 ′ 56 ″  E