The Garrison Church (German: Garnisonkirche) was a Baroque church in Potsdam, eastern Germany. It was built under the second Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm I. between 1730 and 1735. During World War II, the church burned down on 14 April 1945. The ruin was demolished on 23 June 1968 by the SED leadership under Walter Ulbricht. A reconstruction society aims to rebuild the Garrison Church by 2017, financed with donations.
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From 1720 to 1722, the first Potsdam Garrison Church was built as a square half-timbered building on the plantation between the roads Dortustrasse and Yorckstrasse. After the completion the military community and the German Reformed Church moved in. Regular church services were hold.
The swampy land in Potsdam and the inadequate foundation of the building required demolition plans a few years later as the building began to sag. The king Friedrich Wilhelm I commissioned the architect Philipp Gerlach to build a new church. Fascinated by the high church towers he had seen on a visit to Holland, he decided, that the garrison church should also receive a high tower. Constructions began in 1731 and were completed in 1735. In 1740, Frederick Wilhelm I, who built the church, was interred there, as was his son Frederick the Great in 1786. Their coffins were removed prior to the church's destruction.
On September 27, 1817, King Frederick William III announced that on the 300th anniversary of the Reformation Potsdam's Reformed court and garrison congregation, led by Court Preacher Rulemann Friedrich Eylert, and the Lutheran garrison congregation, then both using the Calvinist Garrison Church would unite into one Evangelical Christian congregation on Reformation Day, October 31. Frederick William expressed his desire to see the Protestant congregations around Prussia follow this example, and become Union congregations.
Both, Calvinist and Lutheran church, were then subject to state supervision, carried out by the newly created Prussian Ministry of Religious, Educational and Medical Affairs (German: Preußisches Ministerium der geistlichen, Unterrichts- und Medizinalangelegenheiten, est. in 1817). Karl vom Stein zum Altenstein was appointed as minister. In the years that followed, many Lutheran and Reformed congregations did follow the example of Potsdam, and became single merged congregations, while others maintained their former Lutheran or Reformed denomination.
On 21 March 1933, which became known as the 'Day of Potsdam', after a sermon held by Otto Dibelius, the competent pastor, the new Chancellor Adolf Hitler was sworn in by Reich's President Paul von Hindenburg in the church because the Berlin Reichstag was damaged by fire previously. In a bomb attack on 14 April 1945 the Church seemed to remain intact. Then, however, the adjacent "Long Barn" began to burn and the fire reached the church.
Walter Ulbricht, first secretary of the SED Central Committee, visited the city in 1967 and decided that the garrison church, as well as the other ruins of war, must be demolished.
The tower and steeple are planned to be reconstructed as a first step, followed by the whole building. The groundbreaking ceremony, at which numerous celebrities such as Richard von Weizsäcker and Manfred Stolpe participated, was held on 14 April 2005.
There has been some opposition to the reconstruction of the Garrison Church, both from members of the Lutheran church and also from left wing political groups, due to fears of it being seen as a glorification of Prussian militarism and a rallying point for neo nazis. A citizen's group opposing the reconstruction was formally founded in May 2011.[1]
The tower of the garrison church, with a total height of 88.43 metres, extended into the street and thus formed their appearance. The spire was an oak engineered floor on which a weather vane was installed. The side walls of the tower were broken on either side with narrow longitudinal windows with decorative figures at the corners. Above the main portal was an inscription in golden letters, which read: "Friedrich Wilhelm, King of Prussia built this tower along with the garrison church for the glory of God in 1735." Some of the letters still exist.