*Location:

   Altes Glockenturm
   Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche
   Kurfürstendamm at Rankestraße
   Berlin, Berlin, Germany
   LL: N 52.50489, E 13.33520

Site locator map
Google Maps perspective photography shows the ruined tower of the original church wrapped in scaffolding, but overhead photography shows it bare.
City locator maps and gazetteer page

*Contact:

   Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche
   Breitscheidplatz
   D-10789 Berlin
   - or -
   K-W-G-Kirchengemeinde
   Lietzenburgerstraße 39
   D-10789 Berlin
   T: (030)2 18 20 53   F: (030)2 17 60 90
   E: info/@/gedaechtniskirche-berlin DOTde

*Schedule:

   (unknown)

*Remarks:

   In the ruined bell tower of the
   original Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church;
   diatonic octave omitting 7th,
   plus sub-dominant bass & sharp 4th.
   The adjacent New Belltower has a heavy
   6-bell peal, also by Rincker.
   Before destruction of the church by
   Allied bombing on 23 Nov 1943, the old
   tower held a very heavy 5-bell peal by
   Schilling, Apolda.

*Technical data:

   Electric-automatic chime of  9 bells
   Pitch of heaviest bell (excluding sub-bourdon) is D# in the middle octave
   Transposition is not applicable
   Keyboard range:     ----  /    ----  
   The arrangement of tones and/or semitones
     is non-standard; see Remarks above.
   The whole instrument was installed in 1959
     with bells made by Rincker     
   No auxiliary mechanisms known
   Tower details not available
   Year of latest technical information source is 1979

The Website of the church (entirely in German) opens with a large photo of the upper part of the ruined tower of the original building, plus a tiny photo showing that ruin and the new belltower side by side.  (Although the latter is clickable, it does not show a larger version.)  There is a page about the tower and bells, with video and audio clips, including notes about the original peal:  "The five bells of the old Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church were then exceeded the size and weight only by those of the Cologne Cathedral, and brought them together to 32,196 kg.  They were so loud that they provoked the animals at the nearby zoo in excitement."  They were consecrated & installed in June 1895, with bass 13800 kg, total 31693 kg.

Where this work lies in the sequence of output of the Rincker bellfoundry, in this region and in the world.

Ranking among all German chimes by pitch (weight).
Ranking among all German chimes by size (number of bells).
Ranking among all German chimes by year of completion.

Index to all tower bell instruments in Germany/Nordrhein-Westfalen, including the great bell by the same founder in the 6-bell peal in the Neues Glockenturm (New Belltower) of the same church.

   This page was built from the database on 11-Apr-20
   based on textual data last updated on 2020/04/11
   and on technical data last updated on 2016/04/02