Reconciliation Church (Berlin-Mitte)
The Reconciliation Church was a Protestant church located at Bernauer Strasse 4 in the Mitte district of Berlin . It was built in 1892 and blown up in 1985 at the instigation of the GDR government .
architecture
The red brick church building was built in the neo-Gothic style. The church tower, which reached a height of 75 meters, had a square base and was provided with a tent roof with an octagonal base. In the bell room with a square floor plan (5 m side length) there was a three-part ringing made of three cast steel bells that had been cast by the Bochum Association . An inventory list of the foundry contains the following information: the ensemble of bells with clapper, bearing, axes and chime lever cost 4204 marks to manufacture (adjusted for purchasing power in today's currency: around 29,200 euros).
| size | Chime | Weight (kg) |
lower diameter (mm) |
Height (mm) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| greatest | d | 1350 | 1490 | 1315 |
| middle | f | 1008 | 1335 | 1008 |
| smallest | as | 616 | 1125 | 1005 |
The nave, whose floor plan was also an octagon , was characterized by a vault that did not have any supporting pillars. As a result, each of the up to 1000 visitors to the church had a good view of the altar.
history
The Reconciliation Church was built from 1892 according to plans by Gotthilf Ludwig Möckel . The Empress Auguste Victoria donated church was on Aug. 28, 1894 inaugurated . At the end of the 1920s, the reconciliation church had 20,000 members and three pastors.
The church was badly damaged in World War II , but although from 1945 it was exactly on the border of the Soviet and French sectors of Berlin , it was restored in 1950 and used for church services until 1961. The number of members of the community, which extends across the sector boundary, had been reduced to a third compared to the former 20,000 community members.
The construction of the wall on August 13, 1961 drastically worsened the border situation of the reconciliation community, because on August 21, the main portal of the church wall - about ten meters in front of the building - was bricked up three meters . From now on it was no longer possible for the West Berlin parishioners to visit the church, as the church as well as the parish and parish hall were located in the eastern part of Berlin . From October 23, 1961, the church was no longer allowed to be visited by East Berliners. It was on the death strip and was initially closed. The church tower was later used by the GDR border troops as a watchtower with a machine gun station. On January 22, 1985, the GDR government ordered the church to be blown up and, six days later, the tower too.
The demolition order was signed by the State Secretary for Church Affairs, Klaus Gysi . The relevant documents can be found in the Documentation Center of the Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer Strasse . Previously, the parish council of the reconciliation community in Wedding in West Berlin had agreed by resolution of May 31, 1983 to comply with the "request of the consistory (east) for the transfer of property and church 'with deferring concerns'" mediated by the Consistory West . The East Berlin consistory and the magistrate in East Berlin then undertook a notarial exchange of the property of the Reconciliation Church with a property in Berlin-Malchow to "establish an evangelical community center".
After the political change , the reconciliation community received the property of their demolished church back for sacred use. The congregation then had the Chapel of Reconciliation built on the foundations of the demolished Church of Reconciliation . This was inaugurated on November 9, 2000, and services have been held here regularly ever since. The old bells that were found are now in a scaffolding in front of the new chapel. The badly damaged altar and the tower cross also found their place in the Chapel of Reconciliation.
The surviving figure of Christ from the Church of Reconciliation was placed in front of the Gethsemane Church in Prenzlauer Berg . The tower clock, which had been removed and stored before the church was blown up, was restored in 2019 and installed in the building of the Evangelical Work for Diakonia and Development , not far from its former location.
The foundations and remains of the basement of the Church of Reconciliation are under monument protection .
Clergy of the community
- Ernst Boehme
- Manfred Fischer
- 1950–1961: Helmut Hildebrandt , until 1961, previously in Johannisburg and before that in Adlig Kessel
Web links
- Image of the Church of Reconciliation around 1968 ( Memento from 7 July 2017 in the Internet Archive )
- The church behind the wall. In: evangelisch.de , January 28, 2015
- Reconciliation Church and construction phases of the Berlin Wall (computer reconstruction)
- Ground monument foundations and basement remains of the Reconciliation Church
Individual evidence
- ↑ Compilation of the bells delivered to Berlin and the surrounding area ; Bochum Association, around 1900. In the archive of the Köpenick Church of St. Josef, viewed on August 6, 2019.
- ↑ Quoted from: Christian Halbrock: Weggeschengt. ( Memento from June 28, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) In: Horch und Guck , special issue 2008, pp. 61-68, accessed on November 16, 2019.
- ↑ Berlin “Clock of Reconciliation” strikes again. It is a symbol of the division of Germany - the clock has stood still since 1961. Now it is back in operation. In: Der Tagesspiegel , August 28, 2019, accessed on September 4, 2019.
Coordinates: 52 ° 32 ′ 9 ″ N , 13 ° 23 ′ 31 ″ E