Former synagogue in Heilbronn, Germany
The Heilbronn Synagogue was a Jewish congregation and synagogue, located in Heilbronn, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The synagogue, located on "Allee" and constructed from local sandstone, was designed by Stuttgart architect Adolf Wolff in the Moorish Revival style and is regarded as the high point in the Neo-Orientalism phase in synagogue construction. The synagogue was completed in 1877 and demolished in 1940 following desecration by Nazis during "Kristallnacht" in November 1938.
A memorial stone and a sculpture are located on the site of the former synagogue.
Location and surroundings.
The synagogue was built between 1873 and 1877 on the then still sparsely built-up east side of the southern "Allee", beyond the original city limits of Heilbronn. The adjoining property to the north on "Titotstraße" was still undeveloped; on the neighboring property to the south, a doctor had the "Villa Gfrörer", named after him, built in the Italian country house style in 1867. At the time of the destruction of the synagogue in 1938, this villa housed the Kahleyss Women's Clinic. At the same time the synagogue was the dominant building on the southern "Allee", the (old) "Harmonie" festival hall was built on the middle of the "Allee". There was only one other building between the synagogue and the Harmonie on the eastern side of the "Allee"; the rest of the land was still undeveloped. The eastern part of the synagogue property facing "Friedensstraße" (today "Gymnasiumstraße") remained undeveloped.
The address of the synagogue was "Obere Allee 14". It was not until 1899 that the four streets "Obere Allee", "Untere Allee", "Obere Alleestraße" and "Untere Alleestraße" were merged into a single street, "Allee", with the houses being renumbered. The synagogue was given the address "Allee 4".
The east side of the "Allee" was gradually built on. On March 15, 1928, more than 50 years after the synagogue was built, the head post office presented plans for a new Heilbronn main post office building to replace the old main post office building on the Neckar on the plot to the north of the synagogue on the corner of "Allee" and "Titotstraße" (Allee 6). The five-story-high modern new building would have blocked the view of the synagogue. In discussions between the post office, the Israelite church congregation and the city administration, it was agreed that the post office would move the new building back by two meters, dispense with a porch and keep the roofs flat so that the synagogue would continue to be visible even after the inauguration of the new post office building on 20 February 1931.
The new rulers renamed the avenue "Adolf-Hitler-Allee" in 1933, so that the address of the synagogue was now "Adolf-Hitler-Allee 4" until its destruction in 1938 and demolition in 1940. After the collapse of the Nazi regime, the avenue was given its original name again in 1945.
On July 19, 1928, the Heilbronn municipal council decided to take ownership of the private connecting path between "Allee" and "Friedensstraße", which ran south of the synagogue, and to widen it. As it had long been known to the residents as "Synagogengässchen", it was called "Synagogenweg". In contrast to "Allee", nothing is known about the renaming of "Synagogenweg" (which has no house numbers) during the Nazi era. It appeared in the Heilbronn address book in 1929 and was still listed in the 1934 address book. It was missing from the last address book of the Nazi era in 1938/39. "Synagogenweg" was also missing from the post-war address books and city maps for a long time. It was only after 1982 that it was once again included in the city map of Heilbronn and in the Heilbronn address book.
Architecture and interior.
The two-story synagogue, which was built from Heilbronn sandstone, took up mainly oriental style elements in its appearance, but also European style elements in the interior and is regarded as the high point of the neo-oriental style phase in synagogue construction. It was basically built like a church, but transformed into a synagogue through the use of oriental architectural forms. Like many medieval churches, the synagogue had a double-tower façade with a large rose window, the domes were borrowed from Indian or Persian architecture and Moorish style elements were also used, whereas the tracery of the windows was more reminiscent of Gothic architecture.
The synagogue was around long, wide and, including the main dome, around high. It was aligned along a northwest–southeast axis; the front façade facing the "Allee" was in the northwest. Its layout was somewhere between a central building and a nave, which is why the building has been described both as a central building with side aisles and as a three-aisled nave with central and side aisles or as a nave synagogue with a dome and two-tower façade.
The basic building type was a central structure in the shape of a Greek cross, which was set in an almost square rectangle. The resulting spandrels between the arms of the cross and the rectangle were open as part of "side aisles". Four large pillars formed a square in the middle of the building and supported a large tambour dome. Further columns separated the "side aisles" from the central building and contributed to the impression of a three-aisled building inside, although it was not divided into aisles by a regular column position.
This central rectangle was adjoined by an extension to the east and west across the entire width of the building. In the east, this was open to the "nave" and housed the pulpit. Further to the east was a choir in the form of a protruding, polygonal apse, in which the Torah ark ("Aron Kodesh") was located. At the sides of the pulpit room, adjacent to the "side aisles", there was a room for the precentor and a room for the rabbi. The corresponding extension to the west was designed in the middle as a low entrance hall for the men, supported by several columns standing one behind the other, from which three doors led into the interior. On the sides were staircases leading to the side aisle galleries for the women. The middle section of the western extension with the front façade facing the avenue protruded. As a result, the façade was narrower than the actual structure, and the external western ends of the "side aisles" with domes and Gothicized windows contributed to the impression the façade created on the viewer.
The façade was designed similarly to the Nuremberg synagogue on Hans-Sachs-Platz, which had also been built according to Wolff's plans: A large rose window with Moorish star ornamentation above a five-part arcade frieze dominated the façade. An arch on slender columns framed the rose window and was itself inserted into an ornamental wall panel. The entrance hall was reached through a three-part portal with Moorish-style arches. Above the portal was a gilded Hebrew inscription with words from Isaiah 56:7 ("My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations"). Slender turrets with tempietto-like domed tops closed off the two sides of the façade.
The synagogue had flat hipped roofs The roof of the rectangle had a smaller dome without a tambour (base) at each of its four corners, above the spandrels, which otherwise corresponded to the shape of the large central dome. The tambour of the large central dome had twelve round-arched windows; the dome itself was covered with patinated, shimmering green copper.
The side view of the synagogue reveals a clear floor plan. Two rows of windows were located one above the other, with the upper windows being larger than the lower ones. Five fragments of the synagogue windows, which a citizen had salvaged and kept after the synagogue fire, were given to the Heilbronn city administration in 1988 for the municipal museums. They were created according to the technique of medieval stained glass window art, framed with lead rods, tinted slightly purple and yellow and showing plant motifs in Art Nouveau style.
In the middle of each of the two long sides, side portals provided access to the interior of the synagogue, which also had rose windows but were smaller and simpler than the main portal. Pilaster-like strips of masonry gave the building a vertical structure. The sandstone masonry was decorated with rich ornamentation, without any reference to human, animal or other models from nature.
Inside, the columns, arches and stuccowork were inspired by the Moorish architectural style of the Alhambra. However, these decorative forms were subordinate to the European style of the building, which is reminiscent of a medieval church. The pulpit was modeled on church pulpits. Wide cornices in the Neoclassical style, which separated the lower and upper floors, and Gothicized windows also softened the oriental impression.
The synagogue had three galleries. A gallery in the north-west, above the entrance hall, held the Walcker organ. The galleries above the side aisles, which could be reached by the staircases next to the entrance hall, were intended for women (as the sexes are separated in Jewish places of worship); there were 33 benches here. In the main room, under the central dome, there were 34 benches for the men. In the central dome there was a large brass chandelier with 80 burners for gas and electric light. The dome itself was supported on the inside by strong pilasters, which were decorated with bundled half-columns at the height of the galleries and placed in front of the pillar in the form of services.
A vaulted, polygonal (five-part) choir with a Gothic appearance formed the south-eastern end of the building behind a high horseshoe arch. Three large choir windows showed the Star of David (Hebrew: מגן דוד", Magen David," English: "Shield of David") in multiple variations as decorative tracery in their upper parts.
The Torah ark (Hebrew: ארון הקודש, "Aron ha-Qodesh", "Holy Ark") covered with a parochet stood in this choir. It combined the Moorish forms of the interior with the shape of the domes and was decorated with rich stucco work. The bima (prayer desk) was placed a little higher in front of the Torah ark. Above the shrine hung a light, called "Ner Tamid" or Eternal Light. The oak pulpit was placed diagonally to the right of the Torah ark.
Organ.
The Heilbronn synagogue was already equipped with an organ at the end of the 1870s. The instrument came from the workshop of the Heilbronn organ builder Johann Heinrich Schäfer; it had 28 stops, spread over 2 manuals and pedal. The organist Johannes Graf, later the cathedral organist in Ulm for many years, was employed as organist and choirmaster by the Jewish community of Heilbronn in those years.
In 1925, a new synagogue organ was built as Opus 2095 by the Walcker company from Ludwigsburg and had 22 stops on two manuals and pedal. The disposition of the instrument was as follows:
History.
Planning, construction and inauguration.
From 1830, Jews settled in Heilbronn again for the first time in 354 years. Due to further immigration, especially from rural communities, the Jewish community in Heilbronn grew considerably from the middle of the 19th century. On October 21, 1861, it separated from its mother congregation in Sontheim and formed an independent Israelite church congregation. The Lehrensteinsfeld district rabbinate, which was superior to the Israelite parishes, was moved to Heilbronn on July 1, 1867. In 1862 there were 137 Jews in Heilbronn, in the 1864 census there were 369, and in 1871 there were already 610.
The only synagogue in the city at the time had been located in the central building of the "Deutschhof" since 1857, but the space there was very limited. On February 1, 1865, the congregation's church council decided to purchase a plot of land on "Allee" for 10,000 guilders. As the decision was not unanimous, the purchase could only be made in 1871 after fierce controversy, whereby the price of the land had already risen to 16,000 guilders. The decision to build was made on June 21, 1871. In 1873, the design by Stuttgart architect Adolf Wolff was approved, the third synagogue to be built in Heilbronn after the Stuttgart Synagogue (1859 to 1861) and the Ulm Synagogue (1870 to 1873). The congregation decided by 60 votes to four in favor of installing a synagogue organ, although instrumental music was not provided for in the orthodox liturgy and this led to a conflict with the orthodox members of the congregation. The costs for the new synagogue