Northeast corner of the Anklam market square – St. Nicholas Church, circa 1930

Anklam’s new centre

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes

Anklam became the target of air raids during the Second World War because it was home to the Arado aircraft factory. On 9 October 1943, bombers from the 8th US Air Force attacked the Hanseatic city for the first time. In doing so, the copper shielding of the St. Nicholas church tower was severely damaged and the windows were destroyed by pressure waves coming from the blasts. In April 1945, land warfare reached Anklam. When the Red Army took over the city on the 9th of April, it was shelled by German troops withdrawing over the river Peene. Artillery fire, aerial bombardment and arson sparked an extensive fire with devastating consequences. The St. Nicholas church spire collapsed into the nave and took down the vaults. Except for the surrounding walls, the octagonal pillars, the arcades, the southern chapel extensions, and a few furnishings the church was completely destroyed.

East side of the Anklam market square, circa 1900

East side of the market square after the bombing on 9 October 1943

Anklam – St. Nicholas Church after the end of the war, 1945

From 1945 to the 1990s, the St. Nicholas Church stood out as a ruin within Anklam’s city centre. Since 1995, the church has been an integral part of widespread plans for urban restoration and renewal. These included the dismantling of the block buildings from the 1970s and subsequently the addition of new buildings in the local historical style on the western and eastern sides of the market square. Through these projects, the future of the St. Nicholas Church also became a topic of local urban planning. In the meantime, local citizen associations had called for its preservation and promoted it. The building was secured, and a church roof truss was erected so that it could be used as an exhibition space. In the future, the spire will also be rebuilt to its original height of 103 metres and the Otto Lilienthal Museum will move into the new IKAREUM, an attractive location at the centre of the Hanseatic and Lilienthal city of Anklam.

Two planning drafts by Anklam architect Kurt Buchholz in 1962, for the reconstruction and ecclesiastical conversion of the St. Nicholas church ruins, source: LKAP Landeskirchliches Archiv Greifswald – Außenstelle Propstei Pasewalk

In the 1990s, St. Nicholas Church was included in the “National valuable cultural assets” funding program. To secure the valuable property, an emergency roof is erected over the nave and choir. In 2010, the church receives a new roof constructed according to the criteria of historical monument preservation.
The roof is raised on the St. Nicholas Church, 2010

Demolition of the row buildings at the market square

New buildings on the west and east side of the market square, source: BIG Städtebau
(from: Vielfalt im Städtebau, Statusbericht 2018, BMI)

Diplomarbeit „Wiedererweckung der Nikolaikirche und Ihrer Umgebung als Neuer Mitte in Anklam“ — Throughout its history as a ruin, St. Nicholas Church has been the occasional subject of student’s projects about its reconstruction, conversion and overall role as an urban development project in a city like Anklam. In 2000, Markus Mucke of Weimar’s Bauhaus University presented a highly regarded thesis on the "revival of the St. Nicholas Church and its surroundings as the new centre in Anklam". In 2013, Jürgen Rölle from the Biberbach University of Applied Sciences dealt with the cultural conversion of the St. Nicholas Church in his final thesis in architecture.

Project Ikareum — The Ikareum project was launched in 2007, inspired by the many and long-standing discussions about the reconstruction and use of the St. Nicholas Church.Model of the first idea for an Ikareum: Lilienthal Museum and community centre in the St. Nicholas Church