When the 29-year-old student teacher Wolfgang Schindler, an enthusiastic hobby photographer, passed the ruins of the Würzburg Cathedral in 1951, he saw something unusual: a tractor pushed a heavy construction machine through the main portal into the interior of the church, which took place on the night of February 20th Partially collapsed in 1946. Schindler, fascinated by construction sites in his hometown, wanted to see more.
When the way was clear again, he went through the portal and captured the breathtaking view of the interior, where believers had once prayed in the pews: supports that stabilized the south wall of the nave, a pile of rubble in front and a wooden cart behind Scaffolding in the choir room. The reconstruction of the church had really started 70 years ago.
Kiliansdom, next to the residence and fortress, the most important landmark of the episcopal city of Würzburg, was largely intact during the devastating bombardment of March 16, 1945, even if the interior was badly damaged and burned out. But then in February 1946 the north wall of the nave collapsed, and with it the roof vaults of the main nave and the north aisle with irreplaceable stucco work.
Würzburg steel was supposed to replace the burned roof structure
Instead of the burned wooden roof structure, a new roof made of an iron structure had been built over the vaults in the months before ?? Made of steel from the Noell company, which was originally intended for submarines but was no longer needed due to the end of the war. This two and a half centimeter thick special steel lay in the burned-out Noell halls on Nürnberger Strasse. Ten centimeter wide strips were welded together to form T-shaped profiles that formed the supporting structure of the new roof in the winter of 1945/46.
The most important task of the roof: protection from the weather. It was urgently needed. As you could see from Neumünster, the water in the un-collapsed vaulted corners of the cathedral was up to one meter high, writes Georg Stippler in his 2012 doctoral thesis “Reconstruction of the Würzburg Cathedral after the Second World War”. The central nave, which was initially open to the top, sometimes resembled a lake on the bottom where you could go boating.
On February 18, 1946, the new steel structure of the roof structure was ready ?? and lasted only two days. The misfortune announced itself beforehand. As early as February 11, 1946, cracks appeared on a pillar and individual stone blocks began to crumble. The next day the process accelerated; on February 17th there was a sudden fall in the weather with rain showers.
After on February 19th ?? only one day after completion of the roof structure ?? A large detonation of residual ammunition had taken place at the Schenkenturm, which shook the whole city, the art historian Rudolf Edwin Kuhn noted that the pillars were falling apart at an ever faster rate. At that time, Kuhn did a great job of saving important monuments. In the summer of 1945, for example, he was involved in the action of the American art protection officer John Skilton, who built an emergency roof over the stairwell and imperial hall of the residence.
Cracks in the pillars of the cathedral
According to Stippler, Kuhn made the responsible architect aware of the cracks in the pillars of the cathedral. He replied, however, that Kuhn should take care of his “art stuff”, since he would have enough to do. When Kuhn suggested that the pillars were crunching, he was complimented with the following comment: “Your brain crunches ??”
The following night, parts of the cathedral crashed with a “thunderous roar” ?? such an ear witness? a; many Würzburg residents believed in an earthquake. The citizens stood in disbelief in front of the new heap of rubble, which seemed like a symbol for the futility of all rescue and reconstruction efforts.
Some mistakenly blamed the steel structure for the accident. In fact, research has shown that the cathedral was a fragile structure. The walls did not rest on rock, but in the often damp subsoil, and the massive looking pillars looked stable, but were hollow on the inside and filled with a mixture of gravel and lime. The bombing of Würzburg, the fire of the cathedral, explosions of ammunition and an extremely damp winter gave the church the rest.
For many years only the most necessary securing work was carried out
For a long time there was only the most necessary securing work because there was a lack of everything in Würzburg ?? in money, but above all in building materials. So the decay of the centuries-old house of God, which was only a ruin, continued.
In May 1949, dangerous cracks appeared again on the southern wall of the nave; the whole wall leaned slightly to one side and there was a realistic risk that it too could collapse. In this case the south aisle and its stucco would have been lost. Every second pillar was quickly reinforced with reinforced concrete, which seemed to be enough for a few months.
Then, according to Georg Stippler, further cracks were discovered in the pillars of the south wall in December 1949. Again there was a makeshift solution for the cathedral, which was still open and defenseless against wind and weather. This time there were additional special bolts on the pillars that were still standing. In the long run, however, that couldn’t be a solution. Reconstruction had begun everywhere in the city center and so a solution had to be found for the cathedral too? with money from Munich.
In June 1951, the Bavarian state parliament was about the ailing cathedral, which seemed doomed. Shortly before the decisive meeting, the Cathedral Church Foundation turned to the Franconian state parliament members with the request to provide 500,000 DM for the reconstruction, otherwise the church would be finally destroyed. In fact, the view into the roofless interior was harrowing; bushes and small trees grew here by now. On June 22, 1951, the money was finally released.
It wasn’t long before construction workers arrived. As the Main-Post reported at the time, your task was to reconstruct the collapsed north wall in its previous form, but with reinforcing iron ?? again from Noell ?? at the inside. Before that, however, it was necessary to create stable foundations under the wall, which was done with plenty of concrete.
But what should the nave look like in the future? In 1951, according to Main-Post, the plan was to build a vaulted ceiling over the nave after the north wall had been erected, similar to the old one. So again a baroque round vault as it should be before the collapse. Even the replacement of the lost stucco was conceivable at the time. “Whether the stucco should be carried out again is left to later times,” said the article. “As the Falkenhaus proves, the stucco could easily be replaced by artists living today if the financial means were available.”
First, however, was ?? without deciding on the final design of the ceiling ?? A new roof structure was erected between the newly built north wall and the remaining south wall, as well as over the north aisle. The topping-out ceremony was on October 28, 1952. Later, after violent controversies, some of which were publicly carried out, the decision was made to forego the barrel vault and new stucco and to complete the nave with a Romanesque flat ceiling, as it had been in earlier times.
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