Guelph mausoleum

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The area from the iron grating over the access through the linden avenue from 1726 to the mausoleum is the property of the Guelphs

The Welfenmausoleum in Hannover is - similar to the royal crypt in Celle - the listed grave lay numerous personalities from the noble family of Guelph . The mausoleum is located in the Berggarten in the Herrenhausen district .

history

Immediately after the death of Queen Friederike von Hannover on June 29, 1841, her husband, King Ernst August , commissioned his chief building officer Georg Ludwig Friedrich Laves on July 1 of that year to design plans for a mausoleum and to propose a location for its construction . To the king himself a place in the Great Garden , "behind the orangery ", seemed the most suitable.

Only a good six weeks later, Laves presented the king with two concepts, including "a kind of temple [... in] the Egyptian style". For his installation, instead of the Great Garden, he suggests buying a few acres of land at the end of the beautiful "Lindenallee just opposite the front facade of the Herrenhausen Palace", where the mausoleum could be hidden by planting or as a point-de-vue from the palace could apply.

"The mausoleum in the park at Herrenhausen near Hanover" around 1858;
Original steel engraving by E. Höfer after JF Lange
View into the Guelph mausoleum with the sarcophagi of Queen Friederike and King Ernst August ;
about 1861, photo by Wilhelm August Degele in the occasion of the inauguration of the Ernst-August-Memorial incurred Ernst August album in Klindworth's Verlag .

Despite the hurry that King Laves and the executing architect, Hofbauinspektor Georg Schuster, always urged, the construction of a third, "Doric" design at the proposed location only began in May 1842 due to delays. The court garden inspector Heinrich Ludolph Wendland was now responsible for the outdoor facilities around the found location ; During the construction work for the mausoleum, the final extension of the mountain garden was created on newly purchased land.

In the meantime, Christian Daniel Rauch , who had previously created the tomb for the royal sister Luise in Charlottenburg , had also succeeded in winning over as a sculptor for the tomb of Queen Friederike. The third, “Doric” design by Laves was therefore apparently based on the solution found in Charlottenburg by the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel with the mausoleum in the Charlottenburg Palace Park , as drawings in the Laves estate suggest.

Overall, Laves was busy building the Guelph mausoleum from 1842 to 1847.

Building description

The mausoleum up close

After King Ernst August I died and his tomb was also placed in the Guelph mausoleum, the architect Georg Schuster submitted the following building description in 1855:

“... the building [consists] of a vestibule with a Doric portico, a square central building and a semicircular altar niche placed in front of it on the north side . From the entrance hall a staircase leads to the to receive the coffins certain tomb ; Two flights of stairs lead to the upper hall, in the middle of which the grave monuments of the king and queen are placed. In the niche there is a simple altar table with a crucifix and two altar candles. "

In contrast to the renovation in “ patriotic ” granite in Charlottenburg in 1828 , the outer shell of the Guelph mausoleum was made of sandstone . Against it

“The stairs of the vestibule, the Corinthian columns and pilasters of the upper hall, their entablature and the cornices [...] made of white Carrarian marble ; the walls are clad from the floor to below the architrave with panels of the same kind, which, like the first part, are only half ground to avoid disturbing reflected light. "

Originally the barrel vault and the dome were to be vaulted in brick ; However, because of the "very unusual hurry" ordered by the king, wood was used and clad in white stucco marble .

The oak grove

A U-shaped grove of pedunculate oaks that date from the 18th century was created around the Guelph mausoleum .

During the construction work for the mausoleum, the king had commissioned his court garden inspector Heinrich Ludolph Wendland to design the new garden area from 1843 onwards. The king's instruction has been handed down to frame the tomb with pedunculate oaks: "Plant the trees as big as possible and take the trees where you can find them". Schuster succeeded in the sensational transplantation of 36 oaks that were already 60 years old, without any major damage to the trees: after the root balls of the trees in Cananohe in the north had been pierced in the previous winter, the pedunculate oaks came in 1844/45 especially for this purpose constructed wagons and with the traction of 16 horses to their destination. Previously, other trees had been trimmed and bridges reinforced on the route, "in order to get the precious cargo" undamaged to its destination. Not least for these successful campaigns, which lasted until 1846, Wendland received special recognition, among others from Prince Pückler, who was experienced in such matters .

In spring, early bloomers such as the snow pride Chionodoxa luciliae and dwarf daffodils (narcissus nanus) bloom under the mighty treetops of the pedunculate oak, which is now more than 200 years old .

Family resting place

The coffins of the royal couple were housed in the crypt of the Guelph mausoleum , but their sarcophagi were in the grave chapel above :

  • The sarcophagus for Queen Friederike, who died in 1841, was created by the sculptor Christian Daniel Rauch over a period of three years from 1844 to 1847.
  • After King Ernst August died on November 18, 1851, he was first laid out in the Leineschloss before being transferred to the mausoleum on the 25th of the month. The townspeople said goodbye to the deceased in large numbers: "They had shown respect and admiration for the aged monarch in the last years of his life and, above all , appreciated his willingness to compromise during the critical days of the March Revolution ." The king's sarcophagus also comes from Rauch's workshop and was created from 1852 to 1855 by his students Albert Wolff and the Hanoverian Heinrich Hesemann , who, in similar cooperation, also created the Ernst August monument in front of the main train station between 1856 and 1861 .

After the death of the last ruling monarch from the house of the Guelphs, Ernst August von Hannover (III.), Duke of Braunschweig, Duke of Braunschweig and Lüneburg, Prince of Hanover , there was a funeral service for the deceased on February 6, 1953 in the Marktkirche held, the body transferred to the mountain garden and buried in front of the mausoleum.

During the Second World War , the Leineschloss, in which the National Socialists housed the Wehrmacht Air Guard Command and Air Force offices, was destroyed except for the chamber wing during the air raids on Hanover on July 27, 1943. After the Second World War, the remaining castle walls were intended for the construction of the Lower Saxony state parliament , and on December 5, 1957, a total of 11 more sarcophagi were transferred from the princely crypt of the castle ruins to the Guelph mausoleum, including

Finally, on December 11, 1980, Viktoria Luise von Prussia , who died at the age of 88 , was the only daughter of Empress Auguste Viktoria and Kaiser Wilhelm II. She was also buried in front of the Guelph mausoleum at her husband's side.

Media coverage (selection)

literature

Web links

Commons : Welfenmausoleum (Hannover)  - Collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Gerd Weiß: Berggarten In: Denkmaltopographie ... (see literature)
  2. ↑ NN : The princely crypt and the grave slabs of the dukes of Braunschweig-Lüneburg in the city church of St. Marien Celle , with photos by Dietrich Klatt, Friedrich Kremzow and Ralf Pfeiffer illustrated leaflet, in DIN A5 format (4 pages, o. O., o . D.) designed by Heide Kremzow, after: Dietrich Klatt: Evangelical-Lutheran town church St. Marien Celle (= Little Art Guide No. 1986). Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2008, p.?.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h Dieter Lange: The mausoleum in the mountain garden (see literature); according to Dieter Lange: Main State Archive Hanover , LN 8181.
  4. ↑ after Dieter Lange: Main State Archive Hanover, LN 267/69.
  5. ^ A b The mausoleum at Herrenhausen by Oberhofbaudirektor Laves, communicated by Oberhofbaurat Schuster. In: Journal of the Architects and Engineers Association in Hanover , number 19, 1873, Sp. 33ff.
  6. ↑ see the aerial or satellite images accessible via the geographic coordinates (click on the top right above this article)
  7. ↑ a b c d e see plate number 20 in the Berggarten
  8. ↑ According to Dieter Lange, the garden department of the city of Hanover [Green Area Office] keeps a Wendland diary with "Expenditures and work on the new system at the mausoleum" and a "report on the new system at the mausoleum".
  9. ↑ a b c d e f Helmut Knocke, Hugo Thielen: Mausoleum (see literature)
  10. ↑ a b Hugo Thielen: Mausoleum (see literature)
  11. ↑ Dieter Brosius : Restoration and the "fateful year" 1866. In: History of the City of Hanover , ed. by Klaus Mlynek and Waldemar R. Röhrbein, Vol. 2: From the beginning of the 19th century to the present , Hanover: Schlütersche Verlagsanstalt und Druckerei , ISBN 3-87706-364-0 , p. 311
  12. ^ Helmut Knocke, Hugo Thielen: Ernst-August-Platz. In: Hannover Art and Culture Lexicon , p. 104f.
  13. ↑ Waldemar R. Röhrbein: 1953. In: Hannover Chronik , here: p. 245 below
  14. ^ Helmut Knocke: Leineschloss. In: Stadtlexikon Hannover , p. 398f.
  15. ↑ Waldemar R. Röhrbein: 1957. In: Hannover Chronik , here: p. 245 below
  16. ↑ a b c d leaflet Royal Mausoleum in the Berggarten [no year, 2012?]
  17. ^ Waldemar R. Röhrbein: 1980. In: Hannover Chronik , here: p. 281

Coordinates: 52 ° 23 '43.1 "  N , 9 ° 41' 57"  E