Tower hill
The tower hill was a military installation of the Magdeburg Fortress .
location
The fortification, known as the tower hill, was located on the Elbe bridge on the eastern bank of the Elbe in what is now Magdeburg 's Brückfeld district .
meaning
The jump served as an eastern bridgehead to secure the Elbe crossing. In the case of the capture of Magdeburg's citadel to the west of the city, it also served as the last protection against enemy troops invading from the west across the Elbe into Prussia . From the gate tower it was possible to see the citadel, which is lower on the east side.
history
Already in the Middle Ages there was a hill of the medieval city fortifications of Magdeburg, which was called Zollschanze . During the siege of the city in the Schmalkaldic War in 1550/1551, it gained greater importance. While Magdeburg was able to repel this siege, the city and also the Zollschanze were largely destroyed by imperial troops during the siege during the Thirty Years' War .
After a Brandenburg garrison was located in Magdeburg from 1666 , repair work began. The first major expansion took place between 1709 and 1714. An extensive expansion then took place in the years 1718 to 1731 under the fortress builder Walrave. The hill was also given a massive gate tower for the bridge leading west over the Elbe. This led to the naming as tower hill.
The walling was completed by 1731. Access to the hill was via two drawbridges. One was in the east to the surrounding area and led through the Cracauer Tor , another led across the Elbe towards the citadel. Inside the ski jump there was free building land, which was released for settlement from 1731. Friedrichstadt was created here , today's Brückfeld district.
In 1815 the glacis surrounding the ski jump was planted . In 1818 the tower hill received a second land-side gate, the Charlottentor .
Another renovation took place from 1825 to 1839. During a cholera epidemic in 1831 and 1832, the complex was home to a cholera hospital led by Eduard Dohlhoff .
A final reconstruction took place in 1870. The tower hill was expanded into a tenaillierte wall.
With the new weapon technology, however, the Magdeburg fortress and the tower hill lost their importance. The ski jump was abandoned and torn down. Today the name of the Turmschanzenstraße in the area still reminds of the former fortification.
Literature / source
- 39104 Magdeburg. In: Martin Klöffler: Inventory of German fortresses from the early modern period to 1918. = Fortress inventory. Section: State of Saxony-Anhalt. 9th, enlarged and corrected edition. Düsseldorf 2010, pp. 1–8, online (PDF; 105 kB) .
- Erich Wolfrom: The building history of the city and fortress Magdeburg (= Magdeburg cultural and economic life. No. 10, ZDB -ID 545106-1 ). City of Magdeburg - The Lord Mayor, Magdeburg 1936.
Coordinates: 52 ° 7 ′ 37.6 ″ N , 11 ° 39 ′ 11.5 ″ E