The Marienkirche (official: Pc. Marien to Luebeck) was built from 1250 to 1350. The citizen and market church is since more jeher a symbol for power and prosperity of the old Hanseatic city and decorates than of Germany third biggest church the highest point of the old part of town island. The church is with the old part of town of Luebeck part of the UNESCO of world cultural heritage.

It applies with its 750 years as nut/mother church of the north German brick gothic and was model for approximately 70 churches this style in the Baltic Sea area. With their in Luebeck the high-rising gothic style made of France with north German brick was converted. It accommodates the highest of the world (38.5 meters in the central ship). The towers are, the taken into account, 124.95 and 124.75 meters high.

The Marienkirche is located in the quarter of the buyers, which of memory at the Traveufer to highly to pc. Marien extends. It is the main parish church of the advice and the citizen of the Hanseatic city Luebeck and therefore in the proximity of the city hall and the market was established.

Building history

Predecessors were first in the course of the first German Kolonisation a wood church and then in the course of the renewed establishment of the city 1156 a larger Roman brick church, however in 13 beginning. Century the spatial and representative requirements of the self-confident, economically strongly rising citizenry any longer was not sufficient. Roman sculptures of the equipment of these second Marienkirche are shown today in the pc. - Annen museum.

Gothical cathedrals in France and Flanders from natural stone were models the new building of the dreischiffigen Basilika. It is the example of church brick gothic and was the model for many churches in the Baltic Sea area.

Before one had so highly built and with a had provided no church from brick. A system from supports diverts the thrusts of the outward over a Strebewerk and makes so the enormous height possible. The stimulus for the advice to such a enormous building works and supplies lay in the embittered argument with the diocese Luebeck justified. One wanted of Heinrich the lion donated the Roman bishop church of the city, which cathedral, clearly and catch upable in size to exceed and thus naturally also the Vormachtanspruch opposite the other members of about at the same time forming (1356) as symbol of the liberty will of the remote buyers and the lay power of the city with the building of churches in the unmittelberen proximity of the of city hall and the market, realm-free since 1226, outward to underline.

Around 1310 east to the south tower the letter chapel was cultivated. It was at the same time Vorhalle and chapel and formed with its portal the second main entrance of the church lain toward market. Originally probably the holy Anna dedicated, the chapel received to its current names in the nachreformatorischen time, when wage writers drew in there. The chapel (12 m long, 8 m deeply and 12 m highly) is over-curved of a stellar vault and is considered as a masterpiece of the high gothic. It was often compared with English Kathedralgotik and the chapter hall of the Marienburg. Today the letter chapel serves the municipality as winter church for the services from January to March.

To the southeast corner of choir handling the advice of the city built its own chapel, the mayor chapel, which is to be recognized in the outside wall work by the change from glazed and unglazed brick to around 1390. In its still received the newly selected advice was used in each case into its office. In the upper floor of the chapel is the Trese, the particularly secured repository of the urban privileges, documents, strong ones and the contracts of the of advice. Also today this part of the church still is in urban possession.

1444 ago the eastern conclusion of choir handling was extended by a einjochige chapel with 5/8-Schluss - the last gothical extension of the church. This chapel served the holding of sung hour prayers as part of the Marienverehrung, the Marienzeiten or Marientiden (centraldown German) and received therefore the names Marientidenkapelle or singer chapel.

Altogether the Marienkirche counts nine larger side chapels and further ten smaller, which are designated as grave chapels mostly after the advice families, which used and bestiftet it.

Destruction and reconstruction

At the night to the Palmsonntag of 28. to 29. March 1942 burned the Marienkirche (like also the cathedral and the Petrikirche) with a bomb attack, with which a fifth of the city center was destroyed, nearly completely out. Also the famous dead dance organ was destroyed, on which among other things and with large probability Johann Sebastian brook played Dietrich Buxtehude. At works of art among other things the Gregorsmesse burned the figures of the Lettners, the Dreifaltigkeitsaltar of Jacob van Utrecht, carved by Bernt Notke, the monumental dead dance (originally replaced by Bernt Notke, 1701 by a copy), and the introduction Christi in Jerusalem of Friedrich Overbeck.Die with the fire down-fallen bells remained being seen as memorial because of the soil to be and are this very day in the Gedenkkapelle in the southern tower. Still during the war the Marienkirche was protected by an emergency roof, the reconstruction began 1947 and twelve years later to a large extent was locked. Due to the experiences of the night of the fire was done to implement the structure of the roof and the polygonal spires wood. Instead all Turmspitzen churches rebuilt after the war are implemented in a particularly developed procedure in lightweight concrete construction way under the copper roofing.

The gilded ridge turret, which stands out 30 meters over the high ship roof, was again created 1980 after old designs and photographies.

The Fresken in the Marienkirche - and Lothar Malskat

To the fire 1942 medieval painting of the Marienkirche came in many places to the appearance and partly still during the war by photos was documented under the finery away-jumped by the heat.

In the year 1948 Dietrich Fey was assigned the restoration of the gothical Fresken. As his assistant it adjusted the painter Lothar Malskat, whose work should become soon the largest art counterfeiter scandal after the Second World War. Since in the Obergaden of the choir area no painting was present, Fey Malskat let Heiligenfresken in the style of the time supplement here around 1300 after own draft "". 1951 criticized a committee of experts its work as inappropriate, but only after Malskats self announcement 1952 came it to a judicial clarifying.

In the public perception and with the fact it is often surveyed that the actual "falsifications "Malskats only a small part of rich painting of the church were washed off briefly to constitute and thereafter on Veranlassung of the bishop at that time.

The notice scene so mentioned with an angel between two pilgrims, who became the motive for postcards and to the collecting main for the two stamps of the expenditure for charity intending 700 years Marienkirche Luebeck of 1951 in an edition of four million, shining in the red green ocher country highly above from the nave north wall, is not, to read how often, an invention Malskats, but a genuine painting 14. Century, which documented by photos of 1944 (see to hate, P. 236).

Literature Lothar Malskat entered by the novel the of Grass, in which Lothar Malskat plays a weighty role.

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