The Nikolaikirche is the oldest intact church building in the historic center of Berlin and is a listed building. It is located in the Mitte district in the Nikolaiviertel between Spandauer Straße, Rathausstraße, Spree and Mühlendamm. The church, which was developed in 1938, is a museum belonging to the Stadtmuseum Berlin Foundation, in which concerts also take place regularly.
Building history
Today's Nikolaikirche goes back to at least two
predecessor buildings. The first was created from around 1230 and
corresponded to the regional type of a late Romanesque, 40 meter long,
three -aisled, flat -covered pillar basilica made of field stone with
six axes, transept and three east papings. Its western building was
built around 1230 and was already wearing early Gothic features; The
west portal is pointed. She has her name from St. Nicholas of Myra. The
Nikolaipatrozintium indicates that it was the church of a merchant
settlement. As the oldest building in Berlin, it formed the core of the
molken market in Berlin, while the Cölln settlement grew up around the
Petrikirche on the opposite spree side.
Even before the end of
the 13th century, the nave of the field stone basilica was broken off
and replaced by a three -aisled early Gothic brick hall. Before 1379, it
began to replace the late Romanesque choir of the original building with
a significantly expanded indoor range choir. The arching of this
ambitious chorbaus must be dated to the early 15th century at the
latest. The floor plan of the choir with the choir circumstances is
based on the model that was created in the 1360s, the Spandauer
Nikolaikirche-which in turn went back to St. Sebald in Nuremberg-but the
wall design was much more rich and perfected in many ways.
Accompanying plans for a new hall long house adapted to the dimensions
of the diversity choir were only implemented from around 1460. In 1460,
Bishop Dietrich IV said that a 40-day indulgence was granted to those
who contribute to the construction at the Church of St. Nikolai, which
is apparently at risk of collapse. Forming elements of the early Gothic
predecessor hall were not included. The two -storey Liebfrauenkapelle on
the southwest corner of the new nave is to be dated around 1465 and is
related to the foundation of a Marienbrotherhood by the Elector Kitchen
Master Ulrich Czewschel. The red bricks of the chapel form a significant
contrast to the gray of the tower. Around 1470/1480, the last medieval
construction phase also followed a two-storey sacristy and chapel
cultivation on the north side of the way of dealing. The late medieval
crowning of the south side of the cross bar-like field stone west
building with a slim top tower is no longer dated. In 1876–1878 Hermann
Blankenstein built the neo -Gothic double tower facade today, while
perception of the early Gothic bases. It is quite remarkable for the
time that this comprehensive interference in the historical building
fabric among the members of the architectural association in Berlin was
discussed violently and thus provides an important testimony to the
development of monument preservation in Germany in the second half of
the 19th century.
Church
In 1461, the Berlin bakery, which was
one of the wealthy four works, donated an altar with an annual pension
for the salary of an altarist.
According to the Berlin
Reformation of 1539, around 150 inheritances for Berlin statesmen,
scholars and wealthy citizens were admitted to the choir and side aisle.
The interior of the church was equipped with valuable art treasures at
that time. A baptismal kettle cast in 1563, a 1680 carved pulpit and the
altar from 1715.
One of the important inheritance burials created
since the 16th century is the tomb designed by Andreas Schlüter for the
court gold smith Daniel Mänlich. The natural rights teacher Samuel von
Pufendorf and the Protestant theologian Jakob Spener were also solemnly
buried here. The tomb of the von Kötteritzsch family, which was created
in 1610, was also important on the ground floor of the
Liebfrauenkapelle.
Political and church history
In 1539, the
Council of Berlin and Cölln transferred to Lutheran in the
Nikolaikirche.
The Nikolaikirche has a special importance as a
place of work and a place of cooperation between the significant
Protestant hymn poet Paul Gerhardt, who worked here as a pastor from
1657 to 1667, and the hymn composer Johann Crüger, 1622–1662 Kantor an
St. Nikolai. A plaque was attached for both in 1957. The orientalist
Andreas Müller was followed in Provost Lilie at GERHARDTS in 1667. The
Lutheran theologian and significant Pietist Philipp Jacob Spener was
Provost at St. Nikolai from 1691 until his death in 1705. In the years
from 1764 to 1788, the significant enlightenment theologian Johann
Joachim Spalding provided this office.
On July 6, 1809, the first
city council meeting chosen according to the Steinsche Reforms met there
and was solemnly sworn in together with the magistrate and the mayor. On
October 30, 1817, on the day before the 300th anniversary of the
Reformation, the church union in Prussia was carried out in the
Nikolaikirche with a sacrament of Lutherans and reformed the church of
the old Prussian Union.
From 1913 to 1922 Wilhelm Ludwig Georg
Wessel was the pastor, whose son Horst Wessel later became one of the
best -known figures of the National Socialists in Germany. The Wessel
family lived in neighboring Jüdenstrasse.
In November 1938, the
church was abandoned by the Evangelical Church for regular use, besides
worship and given the property of the German Reich dominated by the
National Socialists. In 1939 a last service took place in the
Nikolaikirche for the 400th anniversary of the transition to the
Reformation in Brandenburg. As part of a project for the entire
surrounding district, the church was to be restored and regulated as the
center of medieval Berlin. Based on the existing musical tradition, the
redesign into a "music domination" for Berlin with the conversion of the
existing and installation of a second organ was planned.
During the Second World War, the church lost in 1944 with Allied air
strikes in Blankenstein's tower tips, the roof and part of the vaults in
the choir area. At the end of the war, further damage caused a fire
inside and then years of weather influences and raids from colored metal
thieves, but numerous inventory pieces could be saved. 16 paintings and
the Romanesque chalice of the Nikolaikirche came to the Marienkirche.
Because the heavily damaged church had remained without a emergency
roof, in 1949 all vaults and the northern series of pillars collapsed.
The epitaphs have only been protected since 1957, others came to the
East Berlin State Museums in 1965 and in 1968/1969 to the Märkische
Museum.
Despite foreign help commitments (including from
Scandinavia), the Evangelical Church of the GDR could not raise the
necessary funds for reconstruction. Since the state did not want to
participate in financing either, the church ruin was assigned to the
city of Berlin in 1969. Tower stump and surrounding walls of the
Nikolaikirche stood almost alone on a large cleared open space for a few
decades. In 1978, the GDR government finally waived the ruin that was
feared many times feared by planning the later Nikolaiviertel.
In
connection with the reconstruction of the Nikolaiviertel and the
preparations for the 750th anniversary of Berlin, the Nikolaikirche was
rebuilt from 1980 to 1983 according to old drawings and plans with new
tower helmets. The collapsed cross vault of the 18 meter high hall ship
had to be fully bricked up. The two 44 meter high tower helmets were
mounted on the ground and lifted on the tower base with a crane. On the
occasion of the reconstruction, a bell consisting of 41 bells was
installed in the tower.
Since its completion in 1987, the church
has been used for exhibitions of the Märkische Museum as well as for
lectures and concerts. However, the problematic acoustics of the 250
seating hall limits the range of the musical program considerably. The
renovation 2008–2010 improved acoustics, as did the number of seats.
Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker was appointed the first
overall Berlin honorary citizen on June 29, 1990 in the Nikolaikirche
since the city was divided. On January 11, 1991, the constituent meeting
of the newly elected overall Berlin House of Representatives took place.
Archaeological excavations
Between 1956 and 1958 and on the
occasion of the reconstruction between 1980 and 1983, extensive
archaeological excavations to research the building history of the
Nikolaikirche took place. The remains of a late Romanesque three -aisle
basilica and an early Gothic hall church could be identified. Among
these remains, the archaeologists found graves of an older cemetery with
an estimated number of 120 to 150 burials. The cemetery was dated to the
end of the 12th to the beginning of the 13th century and was on the hill
of a valley sand island of the Spree. The finds indicate that Berlin is
at least 50 years older than previously assumed.
Use since the
1990s
The Nikolaikirche has been a museum of the Stadtmuseum Berlin
Foundation since 1995. After a comprehensive two -year renovation, the
Nikolaikirche was reopened on March 21, 2010 with a festival program.
The restored pulpit of the unauthorized Franciscan monastery church was
installed in the parameter of the church, and some baroque figures of
the original altar were also set up there. The then ruling mayor Klaus
Wowereit opened a new permanent exhibition, which, under the title from
the city ground to the dual leadership, traces the origin and use of the
church in the past 800 years. In addition, there are exhibition areas to
the personalities associated with the church. In autumn 2017, a work was
presented in autumn 2017 with the installation Lost Words by Chiharu
Shiota. An organ concert takes place every Friday at 5 p.m. in the
Nikolaikirche.
Outdoor area
With its current appearance, the outer facade
illustrates the various construction periods of the church building.
The west facade is dominated by a massive west building made of
gray-brown violet field stones in the tower base, which is nested
into four floors. It is the oldest part of the church and belonged
to a late Romanesque basilica as the first stone building at this
point (first half of the 13th century). Around 1270 the nave was
replaced by a Gothic hall. After the city fire of 1380, a
comprehensive new building took place as a late Gothic hall church
until around 1470, while maintaining the west building. The two
-storey Liebfrauenkapelle, which is also somewhat reset in 1452,
consists of red bricks with a relative gable. The five -year -old
nave received a new type of indoor range. At the same time, the
sacred building received the Chornordkapelle for the sacristy and
the church library.
Towers
The new tower, which was
bricked up in 1880 above the medieval base building with the same
high tower helmets, replaced the historical individual tower. The
tower helmets were destroyed in the final fights of the Second World
War. On the occasion of the preparations for the 750th anniversary
of the founding of Berlin in 1987, the reconstruction of the double
leadership was decided. The new octagonal kink helmets of the 1980s
are largely based on the shape of the only tower tip of the facade,
as it existed until the historic redesign of the church in the years
1876/1878, and less on the design of the two neo-Gothic tower tips
from 1876/1878 their eight corner tower. The eight triangles of the
two octagonal tips of the 1980s are no longer the same as with the
two previous models, but wider and narrower triangles alternate. The
previous tower crosses were no longer set up during the
reconstruction. The modern tower tips were fully assembled on a
concrete base on the ground, where they received two thirds of the
covering over a special steel structure and a copper skin. The
southern tip received a replica of the historic Berlin city coat of
arms as a weather vane on its tower helmet - as a reminder that the
originally only church tower of the Nikolaikirche from the Middle
Ages was here. The other tip received a gilded ball, which serves as
a lightning rod. To put up the new, 53 -ton tower tips, construction
experts had previously applied a reinforced concrete ring anchor on
the stabilized tower fragments. A mobile crane from the VEB
industrial montage Merseburg raised the finished tips in the early
morning of August 20, 1982 and put them on the ring anchor
millimeter precisely, where they were permanently screwed. Setting
up one tip lasted 35 minutes.
Indoor area
The interior of
the church is vaulted in the western area in three Jochen, which
were adapted to the current taste of Gothic or Baroque during the
later structural changes. The choir has been designed as a handle
area with edge chapels. The main ship is worn by buttresses. -
Before destroying in the Second World War, cross -rib vaults
determined the interior on bundle pillars.
The church building was initially already equipped with an organ.
This was rebuilt and expanded in 1902 by the Hofelbauister Sauer from
Frankfurt. On September 14, 1902, the organ was handed over for use in a
festival service from the municipality. This instrument was completely
lost due to the effects of war and subsequent vandalism.
Today's
organ was built in 1997 by the organ building company Jehmlich
(Dresden). The instrument has 44 registers (grinding shops) on three
manuals and pedal. The game tracture is mechanical, the register
tracture electrically.