City fire of Aachen

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Painting of the great fire of Aachen

The city ​​fire of Aachen was a major fire that broke out on May 2, 1656 and destroyed seven eighths of the city of Aachen within 24 hours .

Schedule

The fire broke out in the apartment of the baker Peter Maw on Jakobstrasse. He had dumped charcoal that was not completely extinguished on the attic of his house. The wood of the roof construction caught fire and the strong south wind caused the sparks to jump to the neighboring houses and ignite them. The typical timber construction of the half-timbered houses in Aachen at the time supported the spread of the fire. At first the houses on Jakobstrasse caught fire, but this soon spread to the buildings on Königstrasse. It didn't take long and all the houses on Templergraben and Pontstrasse were on fire. First, the northern part of the city was destroyed by the flames, before a change in wind direction to north resulted in the south of Aachen being reduced to rubble.

It was rumored that arson was the cause of the runaway fire. Armed groups roamed the city in search of the arsonists. When the unconfirmed report finally spread that the powder tower in Eilfschornsteinstrasse had caught fire, the citizens fled to the outskirts and left their houses to the flames. The fire did not go out until the following day because he ran out of food.

consequences

Reconstruction of a typical 17th century wooden house in Aachen

Seventeen people lost their lives in the fire and many were injured. The estimated number of destroyed houses ranged between 2,600 and 5,612. Official figures spoke of 4,664 houses. At that time, Aachen had around 5300 houses. The strongly fluctuating numbers result from the fact that the lower number only includes the residential buildings, the higher also the outbuildings and stables. The town hall was destroyed as well as 20 churches, hospitals and monasteries. The original fear that all the town hall documents had been burned was not confirmed, as a hidden corridor was discovered in which a large number of important documents were hidden. The cathedral remained almost undamaged due to its stone construction. Seven eighths of the city burned down within 24 hours. It was only possible to stop the fire before reaching St. Anne's Church . Since most of the food stored in the city was burned, food shortages quickly developed.

Assistance

Deliveries of bread and cheese from Maastricht and Liège arrived within a few days . The Cologne magistrate sent 200 Malter rye to alleviate the greatest misery. Other cities joined in with deliveries, so that the greatest bottlenecks could be contained by these aid deliveries.

In order to enable a reconstruction, the council of the city of Aachen issued the affected citizens the watch and all city services. Wood was made available for reconstruction from the urban forests. The dignitaries of the time were asked for support and it did not take long for the first donations to arrive. Pope Alexander VII , the papal nuncio in Aachen, is said to have made the high sum of 4,000 Roman scudi available.

The architects of the reconstruction are hardly known by name. It is said that the city carpenter Gerhard Kraus and master Henri Liegeois repaired the town hall. The church of St. Foillan , which is adjacent to the cathedral , was rebuilt by the master builders Dietrich Decker and Karl von Münster, and a master Wiebrand was responsible for the reconstruction of St. Paul in 1670. The baroque master builder Laurenz Mefferdatis achieved particular merits, who drew up the draft for the reconstruction of today's Ursulinerstrasse, built the Loreto chapel and carried out the reconstruction of the dilapidated church of St. Peter .

The city fire in poetry

Shortly after the fire, the Dutch poet and dramatist Joost van den Vondel wrote a seven-stanza poem about the Aachen catastrophe. It is entitled "Klaghte op den ondergangk der Rijksstede Aken" ("Lament about the fall of the imperial city of Aachen").

Also published in 2010 historical novel flames over Aachen by Günter warrior deals with the city fire.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Aachen professional fire brigade (ed.): 125 years Aachen professional fire brigade . People protect people. Meyer and Meyer, Aachen 1996, ISBN 978-3-89124-392-3 , Der Aachener Stadtbrand from May 2, 1656, p.  15-16 ( delzepich.de aachen.de [accessed on May 3, 2016]).
  2. ^ City fire ( Memento from October 31, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ^ Aachen on fire. Kiwanis Club Aachen Urbs-Aquensis eV, accessed on May 3, 2016 .
  4. ↑ Guided tours through the Aachen City Hall ( Memento from January 27, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ^ Hermann Keussen : Support for Aachen from Cologne after the city fire of 1656 . In: Aachener Geschichtsverein (Hrsg.): Journal of the Aachener Geschichtsverein - ZAGV . No.  22 , 1900, ISSN  0065-0137 , p. 348-350 ( Text Archive - Internet Archive [accessed May 3, 2016]).
  6. ^ Georg Victor Schmid: The mediatized free imperial cities of Germany . Johann David Sauerländer, Frankfurt am Main 1861, p. 14 ( MDZ Munich [accessed on May 3, 2016]).
  7. ↑ Joseph Hansen : Breven des Pope Alexander VII. On the occasion of the Aachen fire of 1656 . In: Aachener Geschichtsverein (Hrsg.): Journal of the Aachener Geschichtsverein - ZAGV . No.  16 , 1894, ISSN  0065-0137 , p. 175–177 ( Text Archive - Internet Archive [accessed May 3, 2016]).
  8. ↑ a b Lutz-Henning Meyer: Johann Joseph Couven. Archived from the original on February 2, 2002 ; Retrieved May 3, 2016 .
  9. ^ De werken van Vondel. Deel 8, 1656-1660. Klaghte Op den ondergangk the Rijksstede Aken. In: dbnl - digital library for Nederlandse letteren. Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague, accessed on May 3, 2016 (Dutch).
  10. ^ Joost van den Vondel : Lament about the fall of the imperial city of Aachen. German translation. In: Echo of the Present. January 7, 1870, accessed May 3, 2016 .