A while ago, my capable associate and I decided to go try and catch this lovely old example of pre-WW1 religious architecture before it completely collapsed, having been badly damaged in the brief but destructive Belgian potato war of 1968.
Rich in history, German school children are imbued at an early age with the tales of Sankt Wunderspukius, the patron saint of this massive religious institution. He is primarily known for his martyrdom at the hands of a factory foreman, having bitterly opposed the introduction of composite metal wheel rims on the 1908 model Opel mid-sized freight lorry. Germans, as you may know, take their automobiles quite seriously. Perhaps some day they will learn how to drive them.
On the site of his untimely demise (a horrid story involving a pipe wrench, thirty-five tons of Nutella, and a small dog named Klaus), his disciples erected a vast cathedral, utilizing the new industrial architecture then in fashion. At the time, building gigantic steel things was very much the done thing, resulting in such masterpieces of engineering as the Forth Bridge (built in Essen), the Eiffel Tower (Bochum), the original New York statue of liberty (Duisburg, ironically melted down for steel uniform buttons for soldiers headed to Germany, subsequently replaced by a cheap plaster and paper-maché facsimile), and the [Big Bertha howitzer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bertha_(howitzer)) (interestingly actually constructed in France, but ordered by Der Kaiser to shell Paris in a fit of pique over some French waiter feeding the German empress' pug a bowl of laxatives as a practical joke. To show their humility before their god, the acolytes of this massive cult liberally sprinkled the entire facility in coal dust, readily available from the surrounding region.
In World War II, the Propaganda Ministry decided that this national treasure should be protected from the Allies, who were then dropping hilarious quantities of explosives on anything and everything. As a result, a huge angry frowny-face was drawn by workers on the premises, in the hopes of frightening off the bombers. This has eroded over the years, although the massive steel A-framed middle finger, once forming part of a gigantic skyward obscene gesture, still remains. We climbed it.
Unfortunately, on our first trip, we utterly failed to make any inroads into the main chapel of worship, after a bit of filthy improvisation (via a ladder we found in the bushes) and squeezing through asbestos-ridden cable runs - astutely predicting the North German summer (this year it fell on the late afternoon of July 18), we crammed 4 large-ish people into an old Audi TT (whee) and went sightseeing.
Pretty cool, the place, particularly the main chapel, where the fascinating ritual of putting things in baskets and lifting them to heaven, then letting them down again, was practiced every Wednesday evening. The monks of the order would occasionally play pranks on unsuspecting colleagues, surreptiously tying the lifting chains to their belts, and hoisting them up. This was stopped after the tragedy of 1957. It's not spoken of. Do not mention it. Ever.
Rich in history, German school children are imbued at an early age with the tales of Sankt Wunderspukius, the patron saint of this massive religious institution. He is primarily known for his martyrdom at the hands of a factory foreman, having bitterly opposed the introduction of composite metal wheel rims on the 1908 model Opel mid-sized freight lorry. Germans, as you may know, take their automobiles quite seriously. Perhaps some day they will learn how to drive them.
On the site of his untimely demise (a horrid story involving a pipe wrench, thirty-five tons of Nutella, and a small dog named Klaus), his disciples erected a vast cathedral, utilizing the new industrial architecture then in fashion. At the time, building gigantic steel things was very much the done thing, resulting in such masterpieces of engineering as the Forth Bridge (built in Essen), the Eiffel Tower (Bochum), the original New York statue of liberty (Duisburg, ironically melted down for steel uniform buttons for soldiers headed to Germany, subsequently replaced by a cheap plaster and paper-maché facsimile), and the [Big Bertha howitzer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bertha_(howitzer)) (interestingly actually constructed in France, but ordered by Der Kaiser to shell Paris in a fit of pique over some French waiter feeding the German empress' pug a bowl of laxatives as a practical joke. To show their humility before their god, the acolytes of this massive cult liberally sprinkled the entire facility in coal dust, readily available from the surrounding region.
In World War II, the Propaganda Ministry decided that this national treasure should be protected from the Allies, who were then dropping hilarious quantities of explosives on anything and everything. As a result, a huge angry frowny-face was drawn by workers on the premises, in the hopes of frightening off the bombers. This has eroded over the years, although the massive steel A-framed middle finger, once forming part of a gigantic skyward obscene gesture, still remains. We climbed it.
Unfortunately, on our first trip, we utterly failed to make any inroads into the main chapel of worship, after a bit of filthy improvisation (via a ladder we found in the bushes) and squeezing through asbestos-ridden cable runs - astutely predicting the North German summer (this year it fell on the late afternoon of July 18), we crammed 4 large-ish people into an old Audi TT (whee) and went sightseeing.
Pretty cool, the place, particularly the main chapel, where the fascinating ritual of putting things in baskets and lifting them to heaven, then letting them down again, was practiced every Wednesday evening. The monks of the order would occasionally play pranks on unsuspecting colleagues, surreptiously tying the lifting chains to their belts, and hoisting them up. This was stopped after the tragedy of 1957. It's not spoken of. Do not mention it. Ever.
(No, seriously, it's Lohberg, formerly a coal mine, it's been photographed to death and back, and now it's closed and they are ripping it down. More at kosmograd dot net.)
