Synagogues in Nuremberg

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The synagogues in Nuremberg

Several synagogues existed in the course of the history of Nuremberg and the history of the Jews in Nuremberg . Today the synagogue in Arno-Hamburger-Straße 1 is the seat of the IKG Nürnberg and the synagogue in Regensburger Straße of the orthodox Chabad Nürnberg.

Synagogues in Nuremberg

First medieval synagogue

Location: 49 ° 27 ′ 14.4 ″  N , 11 ° 4 ′ 40.8 ″  E

It stood on the site of today's Frauenkirche on the main market and was as a result of coming from France and later throughout Europe occurring pogroms destroyed in 1349th

Second medieval synagogue

It stood in Wunderburggasse and was torn down in 1499 as a result of anti-Jewish church policy in Europe.

Synagogue on Hans-Sachs-Platz

Synagogue on Hans-Sachs-Platz, built in 1874 according to plans by Adolf Wolff (architect) . Photography by Ferdinand Schmidt
Synagogue on Hans-Sachs-Platz, photograph (1891)

The synagogue of the reform community on Hans-Sachs-Platz, built according to plans by Adolf Wolff , was the main synagogue and was inaugurated on September 8, 1874 with a speech by Mayor Otto Stromer von Reichenbach . She stood at the site of the former Harsdörfferhofs the patrician family Harsdörffer which originally Jerome Holzschuher had heard.

Even before the November pogroms , it was demolished together with the parish hall on August 10, 1938 on the instructions of Julius Streicher because they “seriously disrupt the beautiful German cityscape”.

In a report by the "District President of Upper and Middle Franconia" of July 7, 1938, a preliminary work for the secret reports from the Reich , it says:

“On June 15, 1938, the Israelite religious community held an extraordinary meeting of the members of their general administration in Nuremberg, in which it was announced that the main synagogue in Nuremberg would have to be demolished in order to enforce the law on the redesign of German cities. This news had a devastating effect on the Jews present there; However, it was generally clear that objections to this measure were pointless. "

Another document, taken from the same source, states, dated September 7, 1938:

“The city of Nuremberg's party rallies experienced a memorable day on August 10, 1938: Julius Streicher gave the signal to demolish the main synagogue on Hans-Sachs-Platz, which had to be removed in order to carry out urban planning measures. Tens of thousands of national comrades attended the historical hour. […] Shortly before the synagogue was demolished, the Jews secretly had a 5-centimeter stone with an inscription in memory of the first synagogue in Nuremberg that burned down 500 years ago removed from the synagogue and taken to the Jewish cemetery. The Nuremberg builder Fritz Frisch, who had only been admitted to the NSDAP in 1937, took care of the removal of the stone. Frisch was immediately expelled from the party and his lack of character was appropriately denounced in public. "

At the Nuremberg Trial , Streicher was asked: “In August 1938 the main synagogue in Nuremberg was demolished. Was this on your order? "

Streicher replies: “Yes. In my district there were an estimated 15 synagogues, in Nuremberg one main synagogue and a somewhat smaller one and, I think, a few more prayer rooms. The main synagogue stood in the soft image of the medieval imperial city . Even before 1933, the so-called time of struggle , when we still had another government, I declared publicly in a meeting that it was a shame that such an oriental , immensely large building was being placed in the old city have. After the seizure of power , I told the mayor to have the synagogue demolished and the planetarium at the same time . I would like to point out that after the World War a planetarium, an ugly brick building, was built in the middle of the ring of facilities that were available for the citizens to relax . I gave the order to demolish this building and said that the main synagogue should also be demolished. If I had intended to use the synagogue as a place of worship for the Jews, or if I had wanted to give a beacon , then I would have given the order to have all synagogues demolished in my Gau after the takeover. Then I would have had all synagogues demolished in Nuremberg as well. It is certain that only the main synagogue was demolished in the spring of 1938; the synagogue on Essenweinstrasse in Neustadt remained untouched. That the order was then given in November of that year to set fire to the synagogues, I cannot help it. "

The simultaneous demand for the demolition of the educational institution, built in Nuremberg in 1927 as one of the world's first modern planetariums, is co-led by him. In the process, he also admitted that he had had the synagogue demolished not for anti-Semitic reasons, but for urban planning reasons.

The main reasons for Streicher - when the planetarium was demolished - were largely different. Old rivalries with the mayor Hermann Luppe (DDP) , who had promoted the construction of the projection planetarium, and an allegedly “synagogue-like” architectural style are named as the real motives. Thus, here too, the anti-Semitism of Streicher, the editor of the anti-Semitic hate speech Der Stürmer , was one of the main reasons. In this building too, as is generally the case with planetariums and synagogues, a dome represented the starry sky.

The synagogue combined elements of Christian church architecture with oriental decoration and, after 400 years of the city's ban on Jews, stood for the integration of the Jewish community. The self-confidence of liberal, bourgeois Judaism was reflected in the size and location of the synagogue, as well as in the "Alhambra style" with its Moorish ornamentation. It was not only the new home of the Nuremberg Jews, but also appreciated by tourists. The building was often admired as the “pearl in the silhouette and ornament of the city”. In the 1920s, however, hostile voices formed and attacks on Nuremberg Jews took place; on the other hand, police officers were still protecting the building in 1934 when SA men tried to storm the synagogue after the Nazi party rally.

The synagogue was not rebuilt, although the property would have been available after 1945. The winning design of the 1947 architectural competition for the reconstruction of Nuremberg did not provide for this. In the work by Heinz Schmeißner (who was in office from 1937 to 1945 as building construction advisor to the city of Nuremberg) and Wilhelm Schlegtendal , the site of the synagogue, which had been demolished nine years earlier, was planned elsewhere, the city plan was changed at this point overformed. A part of the area was later acquired by Eduard Kappler (an architect of the reconstruction period) and built on with an office and residential building. A new riverside path was laid out on the southern half of the property (towards the Pegnitz). The main synagogue, which was also erased from the town plan, has only been commemorated by a memorial stone since 1988 ( synagogue monument ).

The model of the Nuremberg main synagogue, which was destroyed in 1938, is located in the entrance hall of the Nuremberg Jewish Community. Through the windows you can see the finely crafted interior with lighting.

More pictures

Synagogue in Essenweinstrasse 7

The synagogue on Essenweinstrasse, 1920s

Location: 49 ° 26 ′ 45.6 ″  N , 11 ° 4 ′ 22.1 ″  E

It had been the synagogue of the Orthodox community with the Adass Yisroel religious society since 1903 , was destroyed in 1938 during the pogrom night of November 9th to 10th, 1938 and was not rebuilt after 1945.

Synagogue at Wielandstrasse 6

It was occupied in September 1945. In 1984 it was given up in favor of the new synagogue in today's Arno-Hamburger-Straße 1.

Synagogue on Arno-Hamburger-Strasse 1

Location: 49 ° 28 ′ 27 ″  N , 11 ° 6 ′ 6 ″  E

It has been the seat of the Israelite religious community in Nuremberg since 1984.

Synagogue at Regensburger Strasse 54

Since 2010 it has been the synagogue of the Jewish Orthodox community in Nuremberg and the seat of the Chabad Nuremberg.

The Nuremberg Judenstein

The so-called “Nuremberg Jew stone” is a Torah essay carved from sandstone , which has been in Nuremberg synagogues since the 14th century and which has been saved over the centuries.

This "Jew stone" bore the Hebrew inscription "Keter Tora" (crown of the Torah) and was the gable stone of the Torah shrine of the old synagogue, which was destroyed in 1499. The stone was re-acquired from private ownership by the Jewish community in 1909 and placed in the vestibule of the main synagogue in Nuremberg. An attached plaque bore the inscription:

The Judenstain. Landmark from the days before the expulsion of the Jews from Nuremberg in 1499. Acquired by the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde and erected in 1909. A time comes when stones are discarded and another time when stones are collected.

Before the main synagogue was forced to be demolished on August 10, 1938, the stone and tablet were secretly removed and buried in the Jewish cemetery. The Nuremberg builder Fritz Frisch, who had helped, was expelled from the NSDAP. After the end of the war, the stone ended up in the city ​​museum . Since September 23, 1987 it has been in the newly built synagogue.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Saskia Rohde: The destruction of the synagogues under National Socialism. S. 156. In: Arno Herzig, Ina Lorenz (Hrsg.): Displacement and extermination of the Jews under National Socialism. Hamburg 1992, ISBN 3-7672-1173-4
  2. Document No. 336 from Otto Dov Kulka and Eberhard Jäckel: The Jews in the secret mood reports 1933–1945. Düsseldorf 2004, ISBN 3-7700-1616-5 .
  3. Doc. 343 from Otto Dov Kulka and Eberhard Jäckel: The Jews in the secret mood reports 1933–1945. Düsseldorf 2004, ISBN 3-7700-1616-5 .
  4. ^ The Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Court of Justice in Nuremberg. Nuremberg 1947, Vol. 12, pp. 345-381.
  5. ^ Station 1: First Nuremberg Planetarium. astronomieweg-nuernberg.de. Retrieved November 21, 2017.
  6. ^ Nazi mania against the starry sky. pl-visit.net. April 10, 2013, accessed November 21, 2017.
  7. ^ Gustave M. Gilbert: The Nuremberg Diary , Farrar, Straus and Company, New York 1947, pp. 301-306
  8. Harmen Thies, Aliza Cohen-Mushlin (ed.): Synagogenarchitektur in Deutschland. Petersberg 2008.
  9. Thomas Tjiang: Memory of the "pearl" of Nuremberg. Central Bavarian Newspaper . August 9, 2013, accessed December 3, 2017.
  10. Clemens Wachter: Setting the course for construction planning: The architectural competition for the reconstruction of the old town in 1947 , in Reconstruction in Nuremberg (exhibition catalog), Nuremberg 2010.
  11. Ibid., Basic plan for the reconstruction of the old town (Fig.)
  12. Nuremberg main synagogue. Commemoration of the destruction 75 years ago. In: BR-Radio Bayern. August 6, 2013, archived from the original on August 30, 2013 ; Retrieved June 12, 2014 .
  13. As a guest in the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde. In: nn. January 24, 2009, accessed June 12, 2014 .
  14. Tobias, JG Places of Remembrance and Persecution - A City Guide. Nuremberg: Education Center, 1998.
  15. See Koh 3,5  EU
  16. Otto Dov Kulka and Eberhard Jäckel: The Jews in the secret mood reports 1933-1945. Düsseldorf 2004, ISBN 3-7700-1616-5 , p. 291, note 128