Brauweiler Abbey
Encyclopedia
Brauweiler
Brauweiler is a part of Pulheim, west of Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany.The former Benedictine abbey, Brauweiler Abbey, founded 1024, is used today by the Rhein Department for the Care of Historic Monuments....
, now in Pulheim
Pulheim
Pulheim is a city in the Rhein-Erft-Kreis, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.Since the 1920s, a large substation of the RWE has been sited at Pulheim...
near Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
, North Rhine-Westphalia
North Rhine-Westphalia
North Rhine-Westphalia is the most populous state of Germany, with four of the country's ten largest cities. The state was formed in 1946 as a merger of the northern Rhineland and Westphalia, both formerly part of Prussia. Its capital is Düsseldorf. The state is currently run by a coalition of the...
, in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
.
It was founded and endowed in 1024 by Pfalzgraf Ezzo, count palatine
Count palatine
Count palatine is a high noble title, used to render several comital styles, in some cases also shortened to Palatine, which can have other meanings as well.-Comes palatinus:...
of Lotharingia
Lotharingia
Lotharingia was a region in northwest Europe, comprising the Low Countries, the western Rhineland, the lands today on the border between France and Germany, and what is now western Switzerland. It was born of the tripartite division in 855, of the kingdom of Middle Francia, itself formed of the...
of the Ezzonian dynasty
Ezzonen
The Ezzonids were a dynasty of Lotharingian stock dating back as far as the ninth century. They attained prominence only in the eleventh century, through marriage with the Ottonian dynasty of Holy Roman Emperors. Named after Ezzo, Count Palatine of Lotharingia from 1015 to 1034, they dominated the...
and his wife Matilda of Saxony, a daughter of Emperor Otto II
Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor
Otto II , called the Red, was the third ruler of the Saxon or Ottonian dynasty, the son of Otto the Great and Adelaide of Italy.-Early years and co-ruler with Otto I:...
and Theophano
Theophanu
Theophanu , also spelled Theophania, Theophana or Theophano, was born in Constantinople, and was the wife of Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor.-Family:...
. Ezzo and Matilda were buried here, as were their two eldest sons Liudolf, Count Palatine of Lotharingia
Liudolf of Lotharingia
Liudolf of Lotharingia, also Ludolf , was Count of Zutphen and Waldenburg.He was born in Saxony about 1000, the eldest son of Ezzo, Count Palatine of Lotharingia, and his wife Matilde of Germany, daughter of the Emperor Otto I...
(d. 1031) and Otto II, Duke of Swabia
Otto II, Duke of Swabia
Otto II was Count Palatine of Lotharingia , then Duke of Swabia , and all the while Count in Deutz and Auelgau . He was the son of Ezzo and Matilda , and a member of the Ezzonian dynasty...
(d. 1047).
From 1065 until his death in 1091, Wolfhelm of Brauweiler
Wolfhelm of Brauweiler
Wolfhelm of Brauweiler was the Benedictine abbot of Brauweiler Abbey, near Cologne, Germany.He was attacked by Manegold of Lautenbach, in his Liber Contra Wolfelmum...
, later Saint Wolfhelm, was abbot here. His relics were enshrined in the abbey church, and miracles were reported at his tomb, but all traces of them were lost centuries ago.
The present abbey church, now the parish church of Saint Nicholas
Saint Nicholas
Saint Nicholas , also called Nikolaos of Myra, was a historic 4th-century saint and Greek Bishop of Myra . Because of the many miracles attributed to his intercession, he is also known as Nikolaos the Wonderworker...
and Saint Medardus
Medardus
Saint Medardus was the Bishop of Vermandois who removed the seat of the diocese to Noyon....
, is the third building on the site, built between 1136 and 1220 or later. The abbey was dissolved in the secularisation
German Mediatisation
The German Mediatisation was the series of mediatisations and secularisations that occurred in Germany between 1795 and 1814, during the latter part of the era of the French Revolution and then the Napoleonic Era....
of 1803. The premises were subsequently used, under a Napoleonic law, as a hostel for beggars, and from 1815 under the Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
n regime as a workhouse
Workhouse
In England and Wales a workhouse, colloquially known as a spike, was a place where those unable to support themselves were offered accommodation and employment...
.
From 1933 to 1945 the buildings were used for the internment, torture, and murder of political and social "undesirables" by the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
and the civil authorities of the Nazi government. Prisoners included Konrad Adenauer
Konrad Adenauer
Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer was a German statesman. He was the chancellor of the West Germany from 1949 to 1963. He is widely recognised as a person who led his country from the ruins of World War II to a powerful and prosperous nation that had forged close relations with old enemies France,...
, the former mayor of Cologne and first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
. From 1945 to 1949, it was an open camp for displaced persons administered first by the British Army and then by UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration).
The abbey buildings are now used by the Rheinisches Amt für Denkmalpflege ("Rhenish Department for the Care of Historic Monuments").