City wall (Eisenach)

The Eisenach city wall was the medieval fortification of the city of Eisenach in today's Thuringia . It surrounded today's old town over a length of 2.83 kilometers.

history

The Eisenach city wall was first mentioned in a document in 1216; its construction began in the 12th century under Landgrave Ludwig II. The inhabitants of the surrounding villages had as forced labor are helping to build the wall; they used different materials and wall thicknesses depending on their own capacities. The building, which was eight meters high on average, had seven watchtowers and ten climbing towers, five guarded and lockable gate towers provided access to the city. Ditches and ramparts in front of the city wall provided additional security.

The wall ran from Nikolaitor along today's Wartburgallee to Frauentor (on today 's Frauenplan ) and to Eisenach Cathedral , from there along today's Domstrasse along the bell tower to the Predigertor (above the Predigerkirche ), past the later Luthergymnasium and the old cemetery at Georgentor in Today's Georgenstrasse, from there in a northerly and westerly direction, in the area of today's Jakobsplan, passing the fifth city gate ( Needle Gate ) to the Wasserburg Klemme , then turning south back to the Nikolaitor. The condition and course of the wall was subject to several changes over the centuries.

At the end of the Middle Ages, the city fortifications lost their strategic importance. As early as the Thirty Years' War , it no longer offered the city complete protection. The city gates, if they still existed, were still closed every evening until 1832. With the onset of industrialization and the resulting expansion of the city beyond the medieval city limits, large parts of the city wall were demolished in the course of the nineteenth century, as were four of the five city gates. The needle gate was the first city gate to be laid down in 1786. The Georgentor was dismantled in 1817, the Frauentor in 1818, the Preacher's Gate followed in 1829 in order to reuse its material in the construction of the cemetery morgue. Major demolition work on the city wall took place in 1835. The Nikolaitor was the last city gate to be preserved.

The preserved remains of the city fortifications have been under monument protection since the 1970s. Remnants of the city wall can be found in Domstrasse, at the Old Cemetery, at Hellgrevenhof , at Annenstift , Behind the Wall, in Grimmelsgasse and in the area of Schillerstrasse behind the Deaconess Mother House . With the stork tower, a guard and prison tower has also been preserved; in a park in the street behind the wall there is a climbing tower.