Synagogue (Bad Wildungen)

View of the synagogue in Bad Wildungen from the west, around 1914

Aerial view of the old town from the south-southwest, the synagogue in the right foreground, around 1925

The synagogue in Bad Wildungen was built in 1914. It only existed for 24 years and was destroyed during the November pogroms in 1938 . The building on the south-western edge of the old town, in the street Dürrer Hagen, is largely unknown today because there are hardly any published photos of it.

Building history

Individual Jews or Jewish families had lived in the city as early as the 15th century, but only after Jews in the Principality of Waldeck were legally equated with other subjects and protection money ceased to exist did their number gradually increase. In the second half of the 19th century, their number grew so much that a Jewish community ( Kehillah ) could be founded in 1877 . The synagogue replaced a room in the orphanage in Waisengasse, which had served the Jewish population as a prayer room since 1890 (the former orphanage had been privately owned in the mid-19th century). In 1913 the Jewish community in Bad Wildungen submitted the building application for the new church to the municipal authorities. As early as August 5, 1914, a "supplication service for the emperor, the empire, and for the troops leaving and for the success of our weapons" took place in the synagogue. The first regular service took place on September 19, 1914. An inauguration ceremony formerly planned for August should "be reserved for a later time due to the current chaos of the war ".

The church was financed by the Jewish community, but also by Jewish spa guests from all over the world. It therefore offered space for 200 believers, although the congregation itself only consisted of a maximum of 152 people. The economic upswing of the city through the spa and bathing operations in the empire was the prerequisite for this large building, the cost of which amounted to 50,000 marks.

architecture

The synagogue was considered "one of the most beautiful and unusual Jewish prayer houses in German small towns". Erected on a hillside and free-standing, it was visible from afar from the south. It looked imposing, massive and oriental. The architect was Ernst Cohn , who was a partner in the Essen "Atelier for Architecture and Applied Arts J. Bremenkamp & Ernst Cohn". He was influenced by Edmund Körner , the builder of the Old Synagogue in Essen , which (together with the Hurva Synagogue in Jerusalem) was a model for the church in Bad Wildungen. The architectural style of the new monumentality was an expression of a Judaism that rose and became self-confident in the society of the Empire.

A staircase and a forecourt led to the vestibule and finally the domed room with the gallery for the women. In the main room stood the Almemor with the Torah shrine . The dome, covered with copper sheet , measured over twelve meters in diameter. The days of creation were shown on the lower six rectangular windows. Each of the six high windows in the upper part of the domed hall represented two of the twelve sons of Isaac, who became the ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel - one in the round window section above, the second in the round section of the rectangular window below. General symbols from Jewish art were shown on another nine round windows. Only a few black and white photographs of these windows have survived.

use

In the basement of the building there were eight rooms: living room, dining room, bedroom and kitchen, office, two basement rooms and a class and meeting room. In the latter, religious instruction was held for the children as well as meetings of the Jewish community, the synagogue board and the Israelite Humanitarian Association. The apartment was used by the cantor and teacher of the Jewish community and his family. Until 1933 this was Jonas Hecht; he was followed by Hermann Stern, who moved to Wiesbaden in 1938. The name of his successor, who moved in about two weeks before the pogrom night, is not known. The boiler room, laundry room and ritual bath were located under the basement .

Pogrom Night 1938 and the consequences

The Bad Wildung synagogue after it was partially blown up on November 19, 1938

Memorial plaque on Dürren Hagen

On the night of November 9th to 10th, 1938, the synagogue was looted and destroyed by arson. The fire brigade was present, but only protected the neighboring buildings.

"On November 9th, around 11 p.m., the synagogue was broken into by plain clothes SA men and some BdM girls, all furnishings destroyed. ... The apartment of the young Jewish teacher who had just moved in about 2 weeks ago was completely destroyed. ... The fire brigade was quietly alerted around 4:00 am and kept watch at the building. ... should not be extinguished. The activity is limited to protecting the adjacent buildings. "

A contemporary witness remembers rescuing the Torah and taking it with him on the run to Bolivia. One day later, the board of directors of the Israelite Community had to cede the property to the city of Bad Wildungen, which removed the remains of the synagogue “in return”. On December 13, 1938, the dome roof was blown up. In 1951 the city sold the property to a private citizen, today no remains of the synagogue are visible. A memorial stone erected on the former synagogue site in 1946 was later placed on the Jewish cemetery. A memorial plaque inaugurated in 1985 is located on Dürren Hagen, a little away from the property.

See also

• List of synagogues destroyed in the German Reich from 1933 to 1945

literature

• Paul Arnsberg : The Jewish communities in Hessen , Volume 2, Frankfurt am Main 1971, ISBN 3-7973-0213-4 .
• Volker Berbüsse: A house of worship in the style of the “new monumentality” , in: Waldeckische Landeszeitung , April 23, 1987
• Volker Berbüsse and Johannes Grötecke: Securing evidence. On the history of the Jewish community in Bad Wildungen . Exhibition opening on October 27, 1987 in the youth center on Kirchplatz
• Class 11 of the Gustav-Stresemann-Gymnasium: The Jews and their cemetery in Bad Wildungen . A reader, Bad Wildungen 1988.
• Johannes Grötecke: Bad Wildung Jews and their fate from 1933 to 1945 . In: History sheets for Waldeck , Volume 77, 1989
• Heike Luesse / Werner Bley: Study on the history of Bad Wildungen under National Socialism. Securing of evidence and research approaches , Kassel 1990.
• Volker Berbüsse: History of the Jews and the Jewish community. In: Bad Wildungen. The history of the city and bath . Published by the City of Bad Wildungen, 1992.
• Study Group German Resistance (Ed.): Local history guide to sites of resistance and persecution 1933-1945. Hessen II, administrative districts of Giessen and Kassel. Bad Wildungen, 1996, p. 211f.
• Thea Altaras : Synagogues and Jewish ritual immersion baths in Hesse - What happened since 1945? 2nd edition, Königstein im Taunus 2007, ISBN 978-3-7845-7794-4 , p. 45.
• Arbeitsgemeinschaft Synagoge Bad Wildungen (Ed.): A sky full of stars. Bad Wildungen synagogue. A search for clues . Bad Wildungen 2013.
• Manfred Hülsebruch: Synagogue Bad Wildungen - Supplementary to the Jewish pogrom on November 9 and 10, 1938 in Bad Wildungen, the following days and the compensation proceedings 1948 - 1951. Treasure trove for local history, news from the Bad Wildungen city archive No. 1/2014, Bad Wildungen 2014.

Web links

Commons : Synagogue  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Description of the Jewish history in Wildungen including the synagogue near Alemannia Judaica

Notes and individual references

1. ↑ Prince Karl August Friedrich (1728–1763) von Waldeck awarded letters of protection to Jewish persons, provided they could prove a fortune of at least 1000 thalers. Then the immigration of Jewish residents into the principality began. Soon also poorer Jews came to the Waldecker Land, who could not pay the protection money, but were tolerated for a certain time and upon revocation.
2. ↑ Wildunger Zeitung, August 6, 1914.
3. ^ Waldeckische Zeitung, September 22, 1914.
4. ↑ Bad Wildungen: On the history of the Jewish community. Alemannia Judaica, accessed January 31, 2020.
5. ↑ In the mid-1920s, the synagogue board included Adolf Hammerschlag, Sally Hirsch and Leopold Marx.
6. ↑ This was directed by Isaac Hirsch.
7. ↑ Manfred Hülsebruch: The Mikveh of Bad Wildungen. A slightly different research report. Lecture on February 20, 2013 in the Waldeckisches Geschichtsverein eV, district group Bad Wildungen.
8. ^ The synagogue in Bad Wildungen , accessed on February 23, 2013.
9. ↑ Felix Pusch: Handwritten records. Archive of the Bad Wildungen City Museum.
10. ↑ Copy of the negotiation between Mayor Rudolf Sempf and, as representatives of the Jewish community, Leopold Marx, Lindenstr. 4, and Isidor Mannheimer, Mittelstr. 7; Bad Wildungen city archive.

Coordinates: 51 ° 7 ′ 5.9 ″  N , 9 ° 7 ′ 21.7 ″  E