Town house (Düsseldorf)

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View from Mühlenplatz. Right building (N): former Jesuit grammar school, today town hall, Mühlenstraße. In the middle of the picture the Andreas Church (K)
Building in the immediate vicinity of the academy around 1800
Mühlenstraße 31: 1625 start of construction at Jesuit College, 1710–1805 Jesuit grammar school, 1784 electoral chancellery, 1806–1813 seat of government of the Grand Duchy of Berg under Napoleon, 1815 Prussian government chancellery, then old town hall, 2009–2014 conversion to a hotel
View from the Botanical Garden in the Hofgarten over the buildings on Mühlenstrasse and Friedrichsplatz (today Grabbeplatz ): today's town house is the house with the white gable and the dark rectangular roof turret, the observatory of the astrologer Johann Friedrich Benzenberg (gouache by Johann Heinrich Weiermann, early 19th century) . Century).
View from the Hofgarten, 1838
The townhouse (2011)

The Düsseldorf townhouse is located in Düsseldorf's old town on Mühlenstrasse. In the east it is bordered by the Andreas Church , in the south by Andreasstrasse and in the west by Mertensgasse. The town house, as it was called especially after 1945, has had an eventful history of construction and use, which in turn is closely linked to the history of the city of Düsseldorf . Over the centuries the house was used as a monastery, school, observatory, government and administration building, police headquarters and Nazi memorial.

Monastery and seat of government

The original building has been constructed in three phases since the end of the 17th century. Most of the buildings were built by the Jesuit Order , which had been active in Düsseldorf since 1619 and maintained a monastery and the Düsseldorf Jesuit high school there from 1622 to 1629 . The wing of the building that is visible today and faces Mühlenstrasse was built around 1710. The building was directly connected to the Andreas Church . An observatory was also built on the upper floor of the monastery , which was initially used by the Jesuit father Ferdinand Orban (1655–1732) and then by the astronomer Johann Friedrich Benzenberg . It remained until around 1953. After it was used as a Jesuit monastery and college, the building continued to serve as a school. The “aula academica”, which was used by the Düsseldorf Law Academy as a classroom, was also located in the school building .

When the Jesuit order was abolished (1773), the property passed into state ownership and from 1784 was used as an electoral chancellery in addition to the governor's palace opposite (see below). From 1806 to 1813 it then served as the seat of government of the Grand Duchy of Berg . In 1823 the facade at Andreasstrasse 4, 6 and 8 was redesigned in a classical style based on plans by the Prussian master builder Karl Friedrich Schinkel . In 1824, after the founding of the Prussian Rhine Province, the Royal Government of Düsseldorf moved in , which moved out several times and rented or sold parts of the building, but at the end of the 19th century it was again fully used. The house was the seat of the district president between 1824 and 1911 with interruptions . In the years 1889/91 and 1901/02 further parts of the building were added on the west side. At that time, the buildings at Mühlenstrasse 29 to 31 were then designed according to plans by building officer Bongard and government architect Kochs. The government only moved out of the building in 1911 and moved into today's regional council on Cecilienallee , which was built between 1907 and 1911 and had much larger room capacities. The city of Düsseldorf then took over the building from the state. As a result of the extensions, the town house now had a total of three inner courtyards.

Immediate neighborhood

Opposite the building were the ducal stables and the old opera house. Both buildings had become dilapidated in the middle of the 18th century. The Jülich-Bergisch governor Johann Franz von Goltstein had court builder Ignatius Kees build a representative governor's palace at the same location from 1764 to 1768 , which, as the governor's private palace, was directly opposite the town hall. During the Prussian period, the palace belonged to the state. The provincial assembly of the Prussian Rhine Province met here between 1843 and 1851 before it moved to the Düsseldorf Palace . On July 13, 1843, the deputies of the 7th conference demanded, among other things, the complete emancipation of the Jews in the Rhineland, and a corresponding resolution was passed. The old palace was demolished in 1912 except for the front facade (the central projection was preserved and moved). The district and regional court was built here from 1913 and was used as a courthouse until March 2010. In the courtyard of the court, the old facade of the governor's palace has been rebuilt.

The Andreas Church, the Dominican monastery, the traditional restaurant and wine house "Tante Anna" (since 1820), which was previously the location of the house and sick chapel of the former Jesuit monastery, and the "Noah's Ark" (Mertengasse 1), which belonged to Simon van Geldern, an uncle of Heinrich Heine .

Police headquarters and Nazi authorities

After the First World War, the municipal police in Düsseldorf (Stadtpolizeiamt), which was nationalized by the Prussian Ministry of the Interior on July 1, 1926, set up its police headquarters here under the direction of Hans Langels (Mühlenstrasse 29-31). There were administrative rooms, detention cells, a criminal and forensic investigation department and a small "crime museum" which was used for public relations work. Vehicles for patrols and raid teams were housed in the large inner courtyard (west side). The serial murders of Peter Kürten in 1929/30 were among the most spectacular cases by the Düsseldorf police .

The town house was the scene of mass arrests and political and personal upheavals when the National Socialists came to power in 1933/34. The first synchronization of the state police in Düsseldorf and the surrounding area was controlled centrally from here. Langels was given leave of absence and the SS leader Fritz Weitzel was appointed the new police chief. From the end of April, the state police station (Gestapo) of the Düsseldorf administrative district, which later became the Düsseldorf state police headquarters, was established here . Numerous political opponents were interrogated and mistreated in the rooms of the town hall, of which the actor Wolfgang Langhoff , for example, reports in his book "Die Moorsoldaten".

WW2 air raid shelter in the memorial in Düsseldorf

The police headquarters moved out of the town hall by April 1934 and moved into the new building on Mackensenplatz (Jürgensplatz). The 20th SS standard, the army base administration and the military district command gradually moved into the vacant offices of the town hall. Some city authorities, such as the Office for Statistics and Elections, the Property Office, the City Police Office and the Central Workers' Office were now accommodated in the building complex. All of these institutions were more or less involved in the persecution of political opponents, so-called "anti-social", the Jews in Düsseldorf , Sinti and Roma, homosexuals, forced laborers, mentally ill and alleged "deserters" in their respective areas of activity . At the beginning of the war, public air raid shelters were built in the basement and are still in their original state today.

History after 1945

After the liberation of Düsseldorf in April 1945, the building was occupied by the city director and city councilors as well as again by municipal offices. The designation “town house” became more and more popular in order to conceptually differentiate this administration building from the town hall. From 1946 the main committee for the denazification of the city district of Düsseldorf met in the “coat of arms hall” of the town hall. The offices of the city administration included the registry office and the social welfare office. Some authorities stayed in the town house until the end of 2009.

On April 1, 1985, the state capital Düsseldorf put the town house under a preservation order.

On September 17, 1987, on the initiative of the citizens of Düsseldorf , the Dusseldorf memorial was opened on the western ground floor , which commemorates the time of National Socialism with exhibitions and events, research and educational work and is dedicated to all victims of the Nazi dictatorship.

On October 1, 2009, the city sold the building to Derag (Deutsche Realbesitz AG), which has since expanded the townhouse into a high-class hotel. The memorial, which had been closed since February 2011 due to renovations, was expanded, fundamentally renovated and modernized, and reopened on May 16, 2015.

The previous permanent exhibition "Persecution and Resistance in Düsseldorf 1933-1945" has been replaced by a new permanent exhibition. The topic: "Düsseldorf children and young people under National Socialism".

literature

  • Bastian Fleermann / Peter Henkel / Frank Sparing : The Düsseldorf town house. Jesuit monastery, police headquarters, memorial and Hotel De Medici on Mühlenstrasse (= Small series of publications by the Dusseldorf Memorial and Memorial, Vol. 4), Droste-Verlag, Düsseldorf 2014, ISBN 978-3-7700-1532-0
  • The four last Jesuits of Düsseldorf: four life pictures; a historical study . Deiters, Düsseldorf 1891. Digitized edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf
  • Architects and Engineers Association of Düsseldorf (ed.): Düsseldorf and its buildings. Verlag L. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1904, p. 172 f.
  • Bastian Fleermann / Frank Sparing / Astrid Wolters: From the place of terror to the memorial. On the history of the Düsseldorfer Stadthaus, in: Gedenkstättenrundbrief. Vol. 155 (2010), pp. 18-25.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Government building" - JF Wilhelmi: Panorama of Düsseldorf and its surroundings. JHC Schreiner'sche Buchhandlung, Düsseldorf 1828, p. 80
  2. ^ Bastian Fleermann: Marginalization and Emancipation. Everyday Jewish culture in the Duchy of Berg 1779–1847 (= Bergische Forschungen 30), Neustadt / Aisch 2007, p. 143.
  3. ↑ Fleermann, Bastian: "... follow up until destruction": Wave of arrests and violence against political opponents in the spring of 1933 in Düsseldorf, in: Engelbrecht, Jörg / Frank, Simone / Krumm, Christian et al. (Ed.): Rhein Maas: Studies on history, language and culture. Ed. By the Institute for Lower Rhine Cultural History and Regional Development, Vol. 1 (2010), pp. 167–198.
  4. ↑ Entry in the monument list of the state capital Düsseldorf at the Institute for Monument Protection and Preservation
  5. ↑ Stadthaus Baustelle cleverly veiled ( memento of the original from April 30, 2011 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. in rp-online @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rp-online.de
  6. ↑ The memorial is saved  ( 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. in rp-online@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.rp-online.de  
  7. ↑ Support group of the Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Düsseldorf eV: on Saturday, May 16, 2015, from 2 to 7 p.m., the reminder and memorial site of the state capital Düsseldorf at Mühlenstrasse 29 will open its doors again to the public after more than four years of closure.
  8. ↑ New memorial and remembrance site

Coordinates: 51 ° 13 ′ 38.5 ″  N , 6 ° 46 ′ 25.9 ″  E