Stadtgottesacker

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Stadtgottesacker is a cemetery complex in the city of Halle an der Saale . It was built from 1557 on the model of the Italian Camposanto complex and is considered a masterpiece of the Renaissance north of the Alps .

Interior view of the entrance with gate tower
Memorial plaque for Marianne Witte in the entrance area
Aerial view
Arcades on the north side
View to the gate tower
Stadtgottesacker in winter

history

In the 16th century, people began to bury the dead outside the city walls in cities. In 1529 , territorial ruler Cardinal Albrecht in Halle gave the order to dissolve the old inner-city burial grounds.

The Martinsberg, on which the Martinskapelle was located until 1547 and which at that time was still in front of the city, was chosen for the church to be newly built. The area, which has been used for mass burials in times of the plague since 1350 , was surrounded by a wall, on which 94 candle arches were built from 1557 according to designs by the city master builder and stonemason Nickel Hoffmann over a period of more than thirty years , which formed arcades that opened inwards. It is no longer possible to determine which artists and craftsmen worked on the grave arches due to the destruction in 1945 and the subsequent deterioration. An investigation in 1882 revealed 92 different stonemason's marks; In 1986 only 50 were recognizable.

There were tombs in the arcades , which ended with artistically forged iron or wooden bars. Originally, the coffins were visible in the up to four meters deep crypts on the floor. In order to meet the increased hygienic requirements in the 19th century, most of the tombs were filled with earth in 1862.

The tombs are numbered and were the property of the city. But they could be rented or bought by the citizens of Halle. The first free field in the interior of the complex was not buried until 1822. After further cemeteries were set up for the residents of the city, the Stadtgottesacker developed into the preferred burial place of the urban upper class. The families of industrialists, university professors, senior civil servants and officers mostly found their final resting place in hereditary funerals. Today there are around 2,000 grave sites in the cemetery. After a lengthy ban on burials in the Stadtgottesacker, urns can now be buried within the cemetery walls.

Bombings in the last weeks of World War II , especially on March 31, 1945, severely damaged the facility. In the following decades it fell into disrepair. After the establishment of a citizens' initiative in 1985 and the “Stadtgottesacker Foundation”, the renovation of the listed complex began.

In addition, the " Bauhütte Stadtgottesacker" was founded, which was founded by committed citizens in GDR times and was registered on March 1, 1990 as one of the first associations in the city. It emerged from the Stadtgottesacker working group because association activities during the GDR era were only possible to a very limited extent and with the consent of the regime. After the reunification, the work could be intensified. However, only a generous private donation from the daughter of the Nobel Prize winner for chemistry Karl Ziegler , Mrs. Marianne Witte (1923–2012), made it possible to reconstruct the entire complex almost true to the original from her father's legacy from 1998 onwards. On May 21, 2003, a memorial plaque created by the sculptor Bernd Göbel for the donor was unveiled. Marianne Witte was granted honorary citizenship of the city of Halle (Saale) on October 2, 2003.

The Bauhütte decided to have the tomb arches destroyed in the war made by students of the sculpture class of the Burg Giebichenstein Art College in Halle . The sculptor Martin Roedel and others were the first to create copies of the reliefs of the Renaissance complex for which there were templates. However, there are no longer any templates for almost two dozen of the 89 art-historically significant reliefs. Here the “Bauhütte Stadtgottesacker” eV set itself the goal of completing the lost crypt arches with contemporary relief designs. This is done in cooperation with the monument protection authorities and is unique in Germany. The reliefs created in this way were awarded the highest prize of the German Foundation for Monument Protection and the Stonemasonry, the Peter Parler Prize, in 2007 . The cooperation is trend-setting, because there are many monuments where parts can no longer be reconstructed. Here, a supplement with contemporary work can offer new, exciting insights.

Marcus Golter, the first West German student at the Kunsthochschule in Halle, initially carried out arch 13 with modern reliefs as a diploma thesis in 1998. The result was convincing, so that in 2017 the sculpting work on the arch reliefs could almost be completed. This means that after two decades, 27 new arcades have been created. In addition to Marcus Golter, who completed eleven crypt arches, the remaining arches were created by the sculptors Martin Roedel, Bernd Göbel , Steffen Ahrens and the sculptor Maya Graber . The metal sculptor and restorer Pavel Meyrich was also involved in the restoration of the metal grilles.

The Stadtgottesacker was awarded the Bestattungen.de award by a jury in 2011 and voted one of the three most beautiful cemeteries in Germany.

description

Typical design of a crypt during the baroque period
Epitaph of Gottfried Olearius in the crypt arch 74
Crypt arch 80/81: Francke family crypt
Relief portrait of Georg Friedrich Handel by Bernd Göbel on crypt arch 60
Grave of Fritz Gustav von Bramann in the interior of the cemetery complex

The complex has the shape of an irregular rectangle and measures 113 × 123 × 129 × 150 meters. The sides are secured with a five to six meter high wall. That is why the Stadtgottesacker looks like a strongly fortified castle from the outside . Bastions and loopholes show that the cemetery also served as an element of city defense. Hoffmann's successors provided the entrance on the city side in the west in 1590 with a gate tower. A relief portrait of Nickel Hoffmann is located above the arch of the inner entrance . It is a copy of the portrait from the end of the 16th century. The original is in the Stadtmuseum Halle . In 1721 and 1832 the cemetery was expanded to the north and east.

The fields above and the pillars between the arches are adorned with tendril ornaments and some are provided with putti , symbols and fantasy figures . The round arches also contain Bible verses from both Testaments . The grave niches do not form a coherent sequence of rooms, but are separated from one another by walls like a chapel. The entire arcade is covered with a high gable roof.

Burial facilities

According to the cemetery statute of January 14, 2000, urn burials are again carried out. A limited number of grave sites without a tomb are available in the grave field. The descendants of the buried can acquire new rights of use for graves with existing and listed tombs. Rights of use for grave arches and grave sites of personalities of the city's history will not be reassigned.

In order to create additional burial options, urn niches were built into 10 candle arches to use them as columbaria ; more are planned.

Tombs and personalities

Important dignitaries of the city and important professors of the University of Halle rest under the grave arches and in the interior , so among others (chronologically according to year of birth):

Others

In Leipzig there was a similar facility in front of the Grimmaischer Tor with the Alten Johannisfriedhof , which was built in 1536, but it no longer exists. Even the crown cemetery in Eisleben and the old cemetery in Buttstädt near Weimar were designed accordingly.

See also

literature

  • Anna-Franziska von Schweinitz: Der Stadtgottesacker in Halle In: Die Gartenkunst 5 (1/1993), pp. 91-100
  • Collective of authors: The Halle Stadtgottesacker - Unique cemetery of the German Renaissance. Ed .: Stadt Halle (Saale), 2nd, expanded and updated follow-up edition 2003; without ISBN
  • Anja A. Tietz: The city gods field in Halle (Saale). Fly Head, Hall 2004; ISBN 3-930195-66-6
  • Author collective: Der Stadtgottesacker in Halle. mdv, hall 2004; ISBN 3-89812-195-X
  • Uta Tintemann: The Stadtgottesacker in pictures. H. Berthold printing house, Halle 2011; ISBN 978-3-00-036750-2
  • Anja A. Tietz: The early modern church field - origin and development with special consideration of the architectural type Camposanto in Central Germany. State Office for Monument Preservation, Halle 2012; ISBN 978-3-939414-83-4
  • Collective of authors: Der Friedhofswegweiser. Publisher and editing: Mammut-Verlag in cooperation with the city of Halle, 4th edition 2015; without ISBN
  • Joachim Penzel: A Requiem in Stone. The redesign of Halle's Stadtgottesacker by contemporary artists. Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 2018; ISBN 978-3-95462-931-2 .

Web links

Commons : Stadtgottesacker Halle  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Crafts, technology, industry . In: Monumente , Magazine for Monument Culture in Germany, No. 4, August 2015, pp. 18/19.
  2. ↑ The most beautiful cemeteries 2011 at www.bestattungen.de

Coordinates: 51 ° 28 ′ 56 "  N , 11 ° 58 ′ 39"  E