Schneidemühl II - Main station and demolished church

In the last two weeks I have uploaded some new models to the Warehouse. Almost all of these buildings are located in Schneidemühl, today Piła, in Poland. The first one is the Piła Main Station complex, known as Piła Główna in Polish.

The Hauptbahnhof Schneidemühl complex was built between 1851 until the 1876, when the city was part of the Province Posen in the Kingdom of Prussia. By those years, the complex, which included a train depot 430 m. eastwards, became an important part of the Prussian Eastern Railway that connected Berlin with Königsberg, and in the following years new lines were built connecting Piła with Posen, Neustettin, Flatow, Bromberg, Danzig, Frankfurt on the Oder and Wałcz (Gr. Deutsch Krone).

Picture from schneidemuehl.net.

The station was extended westwards in the 1920s, by those years the building lost its initial ornaments and took its current shape. The building survived WW2 unscathed.

Regarding the train depot from 1874, it fel into disuse in the 1990s. The main part of the depot, i.e. the roundhouse, is waiting for a restoration. You can find more information and pictures in this website (not mine).

The next model is the Johanniskirche, which didn't have enough luck to survive to these days.

Picture from schneidemuehl.net.Note that the house next to it is still standing.

The Protestant Church of St. John (św. Jana in Polish) was built between 1909 and 1911 in a Neogothic style by German architect Friedrich Oskar Hoßfeld as home to a United Prutestant congregation.

Picture from dawna.pila.pl.

As you can see above, the church resulted with moderate damage (the roof and spire burned down), but could have been easily restored. However and as usual, the Communist government decided to blow up the building, as it did so in the 1950s. Three other churches suffered a similar fate.

As happens usually with other buildings that do not exist anymore, the geometry work was the easy part. However, looking for other churches with similar caracteristics and some reference pictures was enough to get such a beautiful result. I hope this model to serve as a basis for a future reconstruction in Piła, one day. Enjoy.

Schneidemühl

Few days ago, I uploaded the Heiligen-Familie-Kirche, a Catholic church in the now-Polish city of Schneidemühl (Pl. Piła). This church is probably the most important landmark in the city, for it is one of the few buildings that survived the war, and a recognizable structure in the town.

The city of Schneidemühl/Piła (sawmill and saw in German and Polish respectively) was on its early history a settlement of German people coming from the west (mainly Brandenburg and Pomerania). The area become Polish on 1368, and Schneidemühl got its city rights in the early 16th century. The town suffered two fires in the following century, along with an outbreak of the Plague in the mid-18th century.

Schneidemühl became officially part of Prussia (Province of Westpreußen) after the first Partition of Poland in 1772. Nine years later, the town was again devastated by fire. In the Napoleonic Wars, Schneidemühl was ceded to the Duchy of Warsaw after the Prussian defeat at Jena. However, the city was granted to Prussia in the Congress of Vienna in 1815. This time, the town belonged to the Grand Duchy of Posen, territory ruled by the King of Prussia in personal union. During this period, the city experienced a big development process. However, the town suffered another fire in 1834. Ironically, Schneidemühl was revisited by another catastrophe, this time a flooding, in the late 19th century.

But the worst was to come. In the final stages of WW2, Adolf Hitler declared Schneidemühl a Festung. The city was assaulted by a joint Polish-Soviet army, and after the attack, over 80% of the city was in ruins. The communist government didn't care about the buildings that could be salvaged. Schneidemühl was then converted into the model Communist city, an architectural mess full of Plattenbäuten, where a true jewel on the Küddow river once stood.

There are few remarkable buildings that survived the war.

• The Heligen-Familie-Kirche, originally a wooden church from the late-14th century, was rebuilt in brick in 1726, and again in its current neo-baroque form in 1910-12.
• The Moltkeschule.
• The Hauptbahnhof, built between 1853-76, extended in the 1920s.
• The Regierungsgebäude and Reichsbank building, both on Danziger Platz.
• The Stanislauskirche in Bromberger Vorstadt.
• The Postamt, which has retained part of its prewar facade.

Notable structures that were lost in the war include:

• The Rathaus (city hall) on the Neuer Markt
• The Evangelische Stadtkirche on the Neuer Markt.
• The Polnisches Kirche (also known as the Alte Katholische Kirche), the oldest church in the city. First a wooden church from the 14th century, it was rebuilt in 1619-28 and 1742, when it got its final shape. The church burnt out in 1945 and its remains were demolished in the 1970s.

My plan is to rebuild some of these buildings in 3D. By now, you can see pictures and information about Schneidemühl/Piła in these two interesting websites (not mine): schneidemuehl.net (German) and dawna.pila.pl (Polish), by the same author. While its kind of difficult to find pictures of this city, I hope to upload more Piła-related models soon. See you!

Königsberg Castle

Place of coronation of two Prussian Kings (Frederick I as King in Prussia and Wilhelm I, future German Emperor), by 1861 the Königsberg Castle was more than the walls and towers of the once Teutonic fortress. When Wilhelm I was coronated, the castle had incorporated the old defensive walls dating back from the Teutonic period (15th century), the Brick Gothic church (Schlosskirche) from 1594, the "Blood Court" (Blutgericht), a wine cellar built in the late 14th century, and some recent structures from the 18th and 19th centuries.

Konigsberg Castle: Brick gothic church and tower (middle), Blutgericht (right)

The Haberturm was the oldest tower (built ca. 1255) of the castle. It was the northeastern tower of the Schloss and a distinctive part of it, being visible from the other bank of the Schlossteich (Castle pond).

The castle contained also the Prussian Collection, with exhibits from the Prussian State Library and many art works.

All of this burnt down after the savage attack carried out by RAF in August 1944 - more than 800 airplanes bombed the city centre. Minor bombings by the Soviet air force, and later the Battle of Königsberg further damaged the castle. After the war, the Altstadt was no more than some destroyed buildings, the Königsberger Schloss and the shell of the Cathedral.

Königsberger Dom (Cathedral) as seen from the ruined Castle, 1949.

Despite all, the Castle walls remained standing. The end definetely came in 1968, when USSR leader Leonid Brezhnev decided to delete any sign of German past. The Schloss survived the first blast, - as a last showing of defiance to the Reds - that only torn down the brick gothic tower. A second explosion erased from Earth the remaining parts of this jewel (called "a symbol of Prussian fascism" by the Soviets, as other palaces like the Stadtschlösser in Berlin and Potsdam. The same they said, the same they did).

I have tried to make it the most accurate as possible, using a ground plan of the castle. The geometry work was the easy part - texturizing it was the difficult one. Although I could find many photos of the east, south and western parts, and three photocromes (Südseite, Ostseite and courtyard), I did not found pre-war photos of the northern side, for them I reviewed pictures displaying the ruined building.

Hope you like it.