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St. Hedwig's Cathedral
St. Hedwig's Cathedral () is the Catholic cathedral of the Archdiocese of Berlin on Bebelplatz in the historic centre of Berlin. Dedicated to Hedwig of Silesia, it was erected from 1747 to 1773 by order of Frederick the Great according to plans by Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff in Baroque style. Damaged during the Allied bombing in World War II, the cathedral's interior was restored from 1952 to 1963 in post-war modernist style as part of the rebuilding of the Forum Fridericianum on Bebelplatz. The listed building was closed for renovation work from 2018 and reopened on November 24, 2024 with a modern interior design. History and architecture St. Hedwig's Church was built in the 18th century following a request from local parishioners to King Frederick II. He donated the land on which the church was built. The church was dedicated to the patron of Silesia and Brandenburg, Saint Hedwig of Andechs. It was the first Catholic church built in Prussia after the Reformatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mitte
Mitte () is the first and most central borough of Berlin. The borough consists of six sub-entities: Mitte proper, Gesundbrunnen, Hansaviertel, Moabit, Tiergarten and Wedding. It is one of the two boroughs (the other being Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg) which were formerly divided between East Berlin and West Berlin. Mitte encompasses Berlin's historic core and includes some of the most important tourist sites of Berlin like the Reichstag and Berlin Hauptbahnhof, Checkpoint Charlie, Museum Island, the TV tower, Brandenburg Gate, Unter den Linden, Potsdamer Platz, Alexanderplatz, the latter six of which were in former East Berlin. Geography Mitte ( German for "middle", "centre") is located in the central part of Berlin along the Spree River. It borders on Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf in the west, Reinickendorf in the north, Pankow in the east, Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg in the southeast, and Tempelhof-Schöneberg in the southwest. In the middle of the Spree lies Museum Is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prussia
Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, expanding its size with the Prussian Army. Prussia, with its capital at Königsberg and then, when it became the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701, History of Berlin, Berlin, decisively shaped the history of Germany. Prussia formed the German Empire when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by 1932 Prussian coup d'état, an emergency decree transferring powers of the Prussian government to German Chancellor Franz von Papen in 1932 and ''de jure'' by Abolition of Prussia, an Allied decree in 1947. The name ''Prussia'' derives from the Old Prussians who were conquered by the Teutonic Knightsan organized Catholic medieval Military order (religious society), military order of Pru ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bombing Of Berlin In World War II
Berlin, the capital of Germany, was subject to 363 air raids during the Second World War. It was bombed by the RAF Bomber Command between 1940 and 1945, the United States Army Air Forces' Eighth Air Force between 1943 and 1945, and the French Air Force in 1940 and between 1944 and 1945 as part of the Allied campaign of strategic bombing of Germany. It was also attacked by aircraft of the Red Air Force in 1941 and particularly in 1945, as Soviet forces closed on the city. British bombers dropped 45,517 of bombs, while American aircraft dropped 22,090.3 . As the bombings continued, more and more people fled the city. By May 1945, 1.7million people (40% of the population) had fled. Prelude When the Second World War began in 1939, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a request to the major belligerents to confine their air raids to military targets. The French and the British agreed to abide by the request "upon the understanding that these same rules of warfare will be sc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crypt
A crypt (from Greek κρύπτη (kryptē) ''wikt:crypta#Latin, crypta'' "Burial vault (tomb), vault") is a stone chamber beneath the floor of a church or other building. It typically contains coffins, Sarcophagus, sarcophagi, or Relic, religious relics. Originally, crypts were typically found below the main apse of a church, such as at the Abbey of Saint-Germain en Auxerre, but were later located beneath chancel, naves and transepts as well. Occasionally churches were raised high to accommodate a crypt at the ground level, such as St. Michael's Church, Hildesheim, St Michael's Church in Hildesheim, Germany. Etymology The word "crypt" developed as an alternative form of the Latin "vault" as it was carried over into Late Latin, and came to refer to the ritual rooms found underneath church buildings. It also served as a Bank vault, vault for storing important and/or sacred items. The word "crypta", however, is also the female form of ''crypto'' "hidden". The earliest known origin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dachau Concentration Camp
Dachau (, ; , ; ) was one of the first concentration camps built by Nazi Germany and the longest-running one, opening on 22 March 1933. The camp was initially intended to intern Hitler's political opponents, which consisted of communists, social democrats, and other dissidents. It is located on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory northeast of the medieval town of Dachau, about northwest of Munich in the state of Bavaria, in southern Germany. After its opening by Heinrich Himmler, its purpose was enlarged to include forced labor, and eventually, the imprisonment of Jews, Romani, Germans, and Austrians that the Nazi Party regarded as criminals, and, finally, foreign nationals from countries that Germany occupied or invaded. The Dachau camp system grew to include nearly 100 sub-camps, which were mostly work camps or , and were located throughout southern Germany and Austria. The main camp was liberated by U.S. forces on 29 April 1945. Prisoners lived in constant f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Concentration Camp
A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploitation or punishment. Prominent examples of historic concentration camps include the British confinement of non-combatants during the Second Boer War, the Internment of Japanese Americans, mass internment of Japanese-Americans by the US during the Second World War, the Nazi concentration camps (which later morphed into extermination camps), and the Soviet labour camps or gulag. History Definition The term ''concentration camp'' originates from the Spanish–Cuban Ten Years' War when Spanish forces detained Cuban civilians in camps in order to more easily combat guerrilla forces. Over the following decades the British during the Second Boer War and the Americans during the Philippine–American War also used concentration camps. The term "c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cathedral Chapter
According to both Catholic and Anglican canon law, a cathedral chapter is a college of clerics ( chapter) formed to advise a bishop and, in the case of a vacancy of the episcopal see in some countries, to govern the diocese during the vacancy. In the Catholic Church their creation is the purview of the Pope. They can be ''numbered'', in which case they are provided with a fixed prebend, or ''unnumbered'', in which case the bishop indicates the number of canons according to the ability of diocesan revenues to support them. These chapters are made up of canons and other officers, while in the Church of England chapters now include a number of lay appointees. In some Church of England cathedrals there are two such bodies, the lesser and greater chapters, which have different functions. The smaller body usually consists of the residentiary members and is included in the larger one. Originally, the term "chapter" referred to a section of a monastic rule that was read out daily dur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canon (priest)
Canon () is a Christian title usually used to refer to a member of certain bodies in subject to an ecclesiastical rule. Originally, a canon was a cleric living with others in a clergy house or, later, in one of the houses within the precinct of or close to a cathedral or other major church and conducting his life according to the customary discipline or rules of the church. This way of life grew common (and is first documented) in the 8th century AD. In the 11th century, some churches required clergy thus living together to adopt the rule first proposed by Saint Augustine that they renounce private wealth. Those who embraced this change were known as Augustinians or Canons Regular, whilst those who did not were known as secular canons. Secular canons Latin Church In the Latin Church, canons are the members of a chapter, that is a body of senior clergy overseeing either a cathedral (a cathedral chapter) or a collegiate church. Depending on the title of the church, several lan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bernhard Lichtenberg
Bernhard Lichtenberg (; 3 December 1875 – 5 November 1943) was a German Catholic priest known for his outspoken opposition to the Nazi regime’s persecution of Jews and other marginalized groups during the Holocaust. He became a notable symbol of religious liberty for his public condemnation of the Nazi government’s policies, including from the pulpit of St. Hedwig’s Cathedral in Berlin. Despite widespread fear and suppression, Lichtenberg openly called for justice and the humane treatment of Jewish citizens, underscoring the moral responsibilities of religious leaders under totalitarian regimes. Lichtenberg was arrested and imprisoned for his activism and later died in Gestapo custody while being transported to Dachau concentration camp. His death further cemented his reputation as a martyr for religious freedom and human rights. Raul Hilberg wrote: "Thus a solitary figure had made his singular gesture. In the buzz of rumormongers and sensation seekers, Bernhard Li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kristallnacht
( ) or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from the Hitler Youth and German civilians throughout Nazi Germany on 9–10 November 1938. The German authorities looked on without intervening.German Mobs' Vengeance on Jews", ''The Daily Telegraph'', 11 November 1938, cited in The euphemistic name comes from the shards of broken glass that littered the streets after the windows of Jewish-owned stores, buildings, and synagogues were smashed. The pretext for the attacks was the assassination, on 9 November 1938, of the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old German-born Polish Jew living in Paris. Jewish homes, hospitals and schools were ransacked as attackers demolished buildings with sledgehammers. Rioters destroyed over 1,400 synagogues and prayer rooms throughout Germany, Austria, and the Su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Archbishop Of Gniezno
This is a list of archbishops of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Gniezno, Archdiocese of Gniezno, who are simultaneously primate (bishop), primates of Poland since 1418."Archdiocese of Gniezno" ''Catholic-Hierarchy.org''. David M. Cheney. Retrieved February 29, 2016"Metropolitan Archdiocese of Gniezno" ''GCatholic.org''. Gabriel Chow. Retrieved February 29, 2016 They also served as ''Interrex (Poland), interrex'' in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. *From 1821 until 1946 in personal union with the Archdiocese of Poznań. *From 1946 until 1992 in personal union with the Archdiocese of Warsaw. List of arc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bishop Of Warmia
This is a list of Bishops and Prince-Bishops of the Diocese of Warmia (, , ), which was elevated to the Archdiocese of Warmia in 1992. The Bishopric was founded in 1243 as the Bishopric of Ermland, one of four bishoprics of Teutonic Prussia. In 1356 it became an Imperial Prince-Bishopric under Emperor Charles IV, and from 1512 until 1930 it was an exempt diocese. From 1947 to 1972 the episcopal see was left vacant following the expulsion of the German population and the Bishop of Ermland from Prussia. The cathedral capitular canons elected capitular vicars for the time sede vacante, recognised by the Holy See. In 1972 the Holy See installed a new Polish diocese, which in 1992 was elevated to an archdiocese. Bishops of Ermland / Warmia *1249–1250 Heinrich von Strateich, elected, never actually took office *1250–1274 Anselm of Meissen, first actual bishop to be active in Ermland, from 1253 suffragan of the Archdiocese of Riga *1278–1300 Heinrich Fleming (Henryk ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
