Wichernkirche (Berlin-Hakenfelde)
The Wichernkirche in Berlin-Spandau is a more than 100 year old house of worship that stood as a "traveling church" in two other places before it found its current place in the Hakenfeld district of the Berlin district of Spandau . Together with the community center in Radeland , it forms the Evangelical Church Community of Wichern-Radeland in the church district of Spandau .
location
The Wichernkirche stands on the southwestern edge of the Hakenfelder Waldsiedlung at the confluence of the Schlehenweg and Wichernstrasse, which connects the Niederneuendorfer Allee with the Pappelweg and the grounds of the Evangelical Johannesstift . Up until the end of the 1950s, there was an industrial track running directly in front of the church , which led from the Bötzowbahn along Wichernstrasse to Niederneuendorfer Allee and which was used to service the Hakenfeld industrial companies with freight trains. There were repeated dangerous situations in front of the church until the track was moved to the southern side of Wichernstrasse.
Surname
The church bears its name after Johann Hinrich Wichern (1808–1881), the founder of church social work and the Johannesstift, which was moved from Berlin-Plötzensee in 1908 to the immediate vicinity. The street on which the church stands today has had the name since 1909.
According to the request of the pastor Hermann Bunke responsible for Hakenfelde, the building should bear the name Wicherns. As the second preaching place of the Luther community , it was not an independent parish church when it was inaugurated in October 1932, which is why it was initially called Wichernkapelle . In connection with the inauguration of the neighboring parish hall in 1970, the name Wichernkirche became established . Pastor Bunke had preached at the inauguration about Johann Hinrich Wichern's motto - “Our faith is the victory that has overcome the world” ( 1 Jn 5,4 LUT ). This saying was formerly also above the arch of the altar niche, since the renovation in the 1960s it has been to the right of it.
history
The Westendkapelle 1897
The story of the "Wandering Church" begins in the Westend district of the then independent city of Charlottenburg . At the end of the 19th century, the Charlottenburg parish wanted its own place of worship in the Westend area. The congregation's financial means were exhausted because the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church was being built at the same time , so a temporary solution was sought. The community leased the grounds of the old horse market on Spandauer Damm at the corner of Fürstenbrunner Weg for ten years, on which a building was to be built that could not cost more than 20,000 marks .
Under these conditions, the building, which was first called the “Westendkapelle”, was built as an emergency solution. The architects Johannes Vollmer and Heinrich Jassoy , who also designed the Trinity Church on Karl-August-Platz in Charlottenburg and the Heilbronn Church of Peace , designed the building. On April 4, 1897, the church was inaugurated.
The Siemensstadt Chapel in 1908
In 1906 the lease period for the site expired. The small church was also superfluous because the construction of the nearby Epiphany Church, which had begun in the meantime, was completed. The Westendkapelle was sold for demolition.
But after only two years the emergency church found a new use. Across the Spree , in the Siemensstadt district of Spandau, where the St. Nikolai parish was responsible, large industrial buildings were built that attracted new workers who also made their home there. The Siemens company , which was also obliged to build church rooms under the settlement law at the time , acquired the former Westend chapel and had it rebuilt on a plot of land provided on Rohrdamm corner of Schulstrasse (today: Jugendweg). The inauguration of the now Siemensstadt chapel took place on September 6, 1908.
From 1932: Wichernkirche and Wicherngemeinde
After 23 years, the small church became superfluous at this location in autumn 1931, because the more spacious Siemensstadt church had been built on Schuckertdamm .
At that time there was on the other side of the Havel , in the newly built forest settlement from 1914 in the Spandau district of Hakenfelde, a still young and growing parish. The Evangelical Christians there belonged to the Luther community. Their parish church council had already decided in January 1924 to “make the forest settlement independent”, but this was not implemented until January 1, 1937 with the establishment of the “Evangelical parish Berlin-Spandau-Hakenfelde”.
In September 1925, a small community center was set up in rented rooms at Fichtenweg 76, where children's services, youth groups, Bible groups, women's groups and the rehearsals of a newly founded choir took place, as well as the kindergarten and apartments for the deaconry sisters. The financial means to build their own church were not available. Then Siemensstadt became aware of them and they were lucky: the interim chapel was awarded to the Hakenfeldern, which was able to prevail over the monastery fields in Spandau, which were also looking for a church building. In October 1932 the reconstruction took place, and the "Wandering Church" was given its location in Hakenfelde. On October 23, 1932, it was inaugurated by Spandau superintendent Martin Albertz - for the third time in its history. In 1938 the parish was given its name after the church at the request of the parishioners; with the deed of January 11, 1938, the name Wichern parish was officially approved by the consistory .
From 1934 onwards, there were fierce conflicts over direction between Christians of the Confessing Church with Pastor Hermann Bunke and church elders such as Walter Friedrich on the one hand and German Christians with Pastor Johannes Rehse on the other. In April 1933, by resolution of the parish church council, a Hitler oak was consecrated in front of the Wichern chapel on the occasion of the Führer’s birthday , which in the following years regularly became the location for nationalist progaganda events, also in connection with church services. Hermann Burke, as the priest in charge, had carried out the consecration, but only saw through the political propaganda character at a late stage. At first he did not stand at a distance from the Volkish ideology and avoided any appearance of "public hostility"; occasionally he hoisted the swastika flag in front of the church. The particularly active group of German Christians in the Luther community nevertheless managed to transfer Pastor Bunke - pastor in the Hakenfelde district since 1927 - to another district because of "rooting out work" against National Socialism; in October 1934 Johannes Rehse, NSDAP member, was introduced as pastor for the parish. However, attendance at church services has steadily decreased since then. Rehse held “German confirmation celebrations” and year-end church services with a National Socialist character, which had little in common with the agenda of Protestant church services. A strong group of around 150 parishioners stood behind Pastor Bunke and he continued to provide pastoral care. On January 1, 1937, the church authorities elevated the Wichern district to an independent parish and appointed Hermann Bunke as the sole parish priest. Johannes Rehse continued to try to enforce celebrations in the Wichernkirche by submitting submissions and circumventing resolutions, which he succeeded several times. After the end of the Nazi era , Rehse left Berlin. Hermann Bunke, who led the Spandau district synod of the Confessing Church together with the Church Elder Friedrich from 1942 while Superintendent Martin Albertz was imprisoned , remained pastor of the Wichern parish until his retirement in 1956.
The bell in the roof turret of the church, cast in 1934, bore the image of a swastika. It was rung until, after discussions in the community, it was replaced by a new bell in 2017. The parish formed a working group that examined the history of the parish from 1933 to 1945 and made it accessible in a book in 2020. The bell from 1934 is to be included in the holdings of the Spandau City History Museum on the Spandau Citadel and shown there.
In 2004 the parish was merged with the Radeland parish to form the parish of Wichern-Radeland. The Wichernkirche continues to be the place of worship and assembly for the "Wichern parish" of this parish. Pastor Sigrid Jahr has been pastor since 2016.
In July 2018, a thorough, substance-preserving renovation began on the timber frame of the church building.
Building description
The Wichernkirche is a rectangular half-timbered church , the facades of which are covered by delicate half-timbering and which is closed off by a choir in five- eighths, covered by parts of a tent roof . At the front of the steep gable roof there is an open ridge turret with a curved hood , which, with the crooked hip above the entrance area and the pointed arched windows, makes the church look like a building from the 19th century in the low mountain range. The church interior is separated from the choir area by a straight altar wall with a retracted chancel; In the choir area there is a community hall called "Wichernsaal".
The interior of the hall church is kept simple. A wooden altar table and a large wall cross above it characterize the chancel. On the left side next to the chancel is the wooden pulpit , on the right side, above the wooden baptismal stand in front of it, the life motto of the namesake of the church is noted: "Our faith is the victory that has conquered the world" ( 1 Jn 5 , 4 LUT ).
organ
On the gallery opposite the altar above the entrance area stands the organ , the work of which was made in 1962/1963 by the Walcker company (Ludwigsburg) based on a design by Herbert Schulze and Karl Theodor Kühn (both Berlin). The Schulze-Kühn disposition was changed after ten years. In 2005, the organ building company Klein (Leipzig) carried out a basic overhaul .
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
- Coupling : I / P, II / P, II / I.
Bells
The first bell in the bell carrier on the church roof was cast by bell caster Franz Schilling in 1934 . At a height of 55 cm and a weight of 180 kg, it sounded in g . The diameter was 66 cm, at the crown 11 cm.
The inscription on the bell shoulder, between two bars over a cross in a halo, read: “OUR FAITH IS THE VICTORY THAT HAS OVERCOMED THE WORLD. WICHERN-KAPELLE SPANDAU. ”On the opposite side there was a 20 cm high swastika , the foundry mark and the inscription“ SPANDAU 1934 ”.
Because of the swastika symbol, the parish decided in autumn 2017 to no longer use the bell from the 1st Advent on December 3rd, 2017 “in full respect and in memory of the people who were killed during the Nazi era ” ring. On December 14, 2017, it was lifted from the bell carrier and replaced with a new bell. It is to be exhibited as a witness of the times in the Spandau City History Museum on the Spandau Citadel . From September 2019 to February 2020, it was shown in advance in a special exhibition “Combative Christianity and Völkische Gesinnung” of the City History Museum on the history of the Spandau parishes in the time of National Socialism, which had been developed by Touro College Berlin .
The new bell was cast in 2016 by the Lauchhammer art and bell foundry and acquired by the Wichern-Radeland community. It is about 50 cm high, weighs 150 kg and bears the inscription “Everything with God, nothing without him”, plus the year 2016 and the foundry sign L824. It rang for the first time at Christmas 2017.
literature
- Hermann Bunke (Ed.): 25 years of the Wichernkapelle in Spandau-Hakenfelde. Festschrift. Berlin 1957.
- Jan Feustel: The Wichernkapelle and 'Notkapellen' in the 19th century. In: Wandering Buildings. From near and far to the Mark Brandenburg. (= Die Mark Brandenburg , issue 53.) Marika Großer Verlag, Berlin 2004, ISBN 978-3-910134-32-4 .
- Parish church council of the Evangelical parish Wichern-Radeland (ed.): “The church fight is nowhere as hateful as in Hakenfelde.” The Wichern parish in Berlin-Spandau at the time of the National Socialist dictatorship 1933–1945 and its bell from 1934. BoD - Books on Demand , Norderstedt 2020, ISBN 978-3-75046-111-6 (authors: Lukas Menzel, Jürgen Elmen, Stephan Heine).
- Christine Goetz , Matthias Hoffmann-Tauschwitz (ed.): Churches. Berlin, Potsdam. Guide to the churches in Berlin and Potsdam. Wichern-Verlag, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-88981-140-X .
- Gunther Jahn (edit.), Office for Monument Preservation (ed.): City and District of Spandau. (= The buildings and monuments of art of Berlin , Vol. 3.) Gebr. Mann, Berlin 1971, ISBN 3-7861-4076-6 .
- Wolfgang Schallnas (Hrsg.): 100 years Wichernkirche. Festschrift. Berlin 1997.
Web links
Individual evidence
-
↑ Peter Noss: Berlin-Spandau - Wichernkapelle. In: Olaf Kühl-Freudenstein, Peter Noss, Claus P. Wagener (eds.): Kirchenkampf in Berlin 1932–1945. 42 city stories. Berlin 1999, p. 483.
Hans-Rainer Sandvoss: “It is asked to monitor the church services…” Religious communities in Berlin between adaptation, self-assertion and resistance from 1933 to 1945. Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-86732- 184-6 , p. 94. - ↑ Peter Noss: Berlin-Spandau - Wichernkapelle. In: Olaf Kühl-Freudenstein, Peter Noss, Claus P. Wagener (eds.): Kirchenkampf in Berlin 1932–1945. 42 city stories. Berlin 1999, pp. 482-488.
- ^ Klaus-Dieter Wille: The bells of Berlin (West). History and inventory. Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-7861-1443-9 , p. 138.
- ^ Abendblatt-berlin.de: New home for Spandau swastika bell , February 28, 2019.
- ↑ André Görke: Swastika bell can now be seen in the citadel. In: people.tagesspiegel.de, September 10, 2019 , accessed on March 13, 2020.
- ^ André Görke: From day to day. In: Der Tagesspiegel , December 6, 2017, p. 7; Norbert Koch-Klauke: The thing with the swastika. In: Berliner Zeitung , December 13, 2017, p. 15.
Coordinates: 52 ° 34 ′ 3 ″ N , 13 ° 12 ′ 22 ″ E