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Album: Germany 2010
Image: 728 / 3108
Date: 2010-04-06 17:18:25
Tags: Germany, Hamburg, St. Nikolai

With its 147.3 meters in height, the spire of St. Nicholas is the highest in Hamburg. The scorched spire directs the eye towards a church that was destroyed several times and whose ruins today stand as a memorial against war and persecution. Originally built in the 12th century, St. Nicholas Church was destroyed for the first time in the Great Fire of Hamburg in 1842 and was rebuilt in the Neo-Gothic style between 1845 and 1874 based on designs by London architect George Gilbert Scott.

The church was again severaly damaged during the air-raids of July 1943; only the spire, the quire and parts of the nave were preserved. It was never seriously considered to rebuild St. Nicholas after the war, since development issues in connection with Ost-West-Straße and the considerably decreased number of parishioners made such a rebuilding project unrealistic. In the mid-1950s, a new St. Nicholas Church was built in Klosterstern square in the Harvesterhude district of the city. The ruins of the old St. Nicholas Church were listed as a historic monument in 1960.

Following a suggestion by the Lutheran Bishop of Hamburg, Hans-Otto Wölber, the ruins were converted into a memorial in several steps. In 1973/74, a black-and-white version of the mosaic "Ecce Homines" by the artist Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) was laid in the tower hall of the old St. Nicholas Church, while a coloured version of the same mosaic was laid in the altar room of the new church in Klosterstern square. In 1977, the ruins of the Church of St. Nicholas were officially opened as a memorial and a commemorative plaque for the victims of the air-raids on Hamburg was put up. The support group "Save St. Nicholas Church", founded in 1987, made further development work possible. Over the following years, Hamburg City Council and the support group, which received generous donations from many citizens, spent a considerable amount of money on the preservation of the structure. In addition, the support group opened a documentation centre in the church's former crypt, where numerous photographs, exhibits, a video presentation and a bookshop provide information on the history of St. Nicholas and the air-raids on Hamburg, Warsaw and Coventry during WWII.

During the aerial attacks on Hamburg, the Allied pilots used the highest church spire in the city as a landmark by which they navigated. During "Operation Gomorrah" in July 1943, the 147,3 meters high spire of St. Nicholas also served as a "beacon" for the bomber squadrons.

All photographs displayed on the observation platform were taken shortly after the bombings from the burnt-out ruin of the spire. Willi Beutler, who took these photographs, worked as a professional photographer for official war propaganda purposes at the time. The copies of his photographs were supplied by the Hamburg Office for the Preservation of Historic Buildings and originally come from dissolved archives of the Hamburg State Film and Photographic Resource Centre. Text by Dr. Detlef Garbe and the "Save St. Nicholas Church" support group, design by Tanja Souissi and Gerhard Hirschfeld.