Bear of Berlin
The Bear has about 1280 the emblem of Berlin and to this day adorns Coat of arms of Berlin .
history
According to assumptions, the Berlin heraldic animal, the bear , can be traced back to Albrecht I "the bear", the conqueror and founder of the Mark Brandenburg . However, this theory is not able to explain the Middle High German diminutive suffix -lein / -lin, which meant the city name “little bear” (little bear). It is certain that the Berlin bear has appeared in the seal or coat of arms without interruption since 1280. The prevailing opinion in research is based on a Slavic origin for the place name, namely the Slavic word berl (swamp). The city name is pictorially translated into a "little bear". It is a classic " talking coat of arms " ( folk etymology ).
The first documented seal with bears dates from March 22, 1280. It is on a guild letter from the Berlin furriers and depicts two armored bears as shield holders, who are turned away from each other with raised paws and yet look backwards. The seal bears the inscription “Sigillum burgensium de berlin sum” (“I am the seal of the citizens of Berlin”). The raised paw is supposed to symbolize Berlin's independence. However, the Brandenburg eagle still dominates in the central position of the seal . Berlin Bear Day is celebrated annually on March 22nd in Berlin.
The rule of the Brandenburg eagle and the coexistence with it continued into the 19th century. A seal from 1338 with the inscription "S [igillum] Secretum Civitatis Berlin" ("Secret Seal of the City of Berlin") shows the Berlin bear defeated by a collar with a waving eagle shield, another from 1460 shows him with an eagle riding up. The latter seal variant is assessed as the submission of Berlin after the " Berlin unwillingness " from the years 1447/1448 by Friedrich II. Eisenzahn . This seal was used until around 1700 with the inscription "sigillum civitats antiqui berlin" ("The seal of the old city of Berlin").
When the royal seat of Berlin was founded on January 17, 1709, the bear was still depicted as a tamed bear with a collar under the rule of the Prussian and Brandenburg eagles . In 1839 the dominance of the still tamed bear over the eagles had already prevailed, and in 1875 the Berlin coat of arms already shows a wild, untamed bear with shaggy fur and without a collar.
After the merger to form Greater Berlin in 1920, the Berlin bear became the sole heraldic animal in 1935. Since then he has been shown standing upright with claws.
The bear pen
As living heraldic animals, four bears were handed over to the Märkisches Museum in Berlin-Mitte on August 17, 1939 , where they lived in a bear kennel in the nearby Köllnischer Park . The square on the Spree was chosen because of its proximity to the Fischerinsel and the Nikolaiviertel , which are considered the cradle of the twin cities of Berlin-Cölln. The bears were housed in a kennel, previously a street cleaning building by Ludwig Hoffmann , which consists of a heated brick building and offers an outlet on two sides. A moat was dug around the complex. Access to the house is possible through a side entrance, above the door of which there is a Berlin coat of arms made by the sculptor Ludwig Isenbeck . Four bears moved into the kennel for the inauguration in 1939: one bear donated by the BZ at noon , one from the Berlin Zoological Garden and two bears from Bern .
The bear families of the Berlin bear family lived here:
- the bear Urs (1939–1945) with his three wives Lotte, Jule and Vreni, whereby both Urs and all bears except Lotte perished in the war. Lotte was brought to the Berlin Zoo in 1945, she died in 1971.
- Nante (1949–1979) and Jette were the first bears when the kennel reopened on November 29, 1949 and became world famous. During this time Jette gave birth to 33 cubs. Nante died in 1981 and Jette in 1984.
- Taps (1981–1990) and Schnute (1981–2015), succeeding Nante and Jette, had their first offspring named Maxi (1986–2013), who remained in the kennel with the bear family until her death. Because of severe osteoarthritis, Schnute was finally euthanized in 2015 as the last Berlin city bear.
- Tilo (1990–2007): After Taps died in 1990, Tilo from the Bischofswerda Zoo kept Schnute and Maxi company. In 1994 Schnute gave birth to three bear cubs and Maxi two. Since the bear pen only offers space for three bears, the five bear cubs of 1994 were given away: three of them went to the Buenos Aires Zoo and two to Carbaceno in Spain . Tilo had to be put to sleep in 2007 because of a serious illness.
In recent years there has been repeated criticism of the conditions in the kennel that were judged to be inappropriate for the species . However, a move has so far been refused because the bears are no longer transportable due to their age. After Maxi's death on August 23, 2013, her mother Schnute's move was discussed again. When Schnute was put to sleep due to illness on October 11, 2015, the last bear in Berlin also died without having been brought into a sufficiently large enclosure beforehand. The kennel has been empty since then.
Illustrations and art projects
The bear is a popular object for sculptures, house reliefs, weather vanes, fountain decorations and other artistic objects.
The Berlinale awards the Golden Bear .
Images with the Berlin bear can be found on buildings all over Berlin. More than 1,200 bears have already been designed in the Buddy Bear art project .
Since 1955, a Berlin bear made of clinker ceramic by the sculptor Ernst Gorsemann has stood in the Bremer Wallanlagen .
On September 3, 2003, the sculpture of a Berlin bear was unveiled at the international airport in Kabul ( Afghanistan ) on the memorial stone of the Bundeswehr unit of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). The material used was reddish sandstone from a Bavarian quarry. The bear stands there in the immediate vicinity next to a pedestal with the Turkish eagle.
Berlin milestones
In 1954, the first Berlin milestone ("milestone") was set up on the motorway between Cologne and Frankfurt am Main , and others followed.
In the quarterly newsletter of the Verein der Berliner Bärenfreunde e. V., in addition to news and anecdotes about the bears living in Berlin, reports on Berlin milestones and their history are now published. The list of these milestones is long, with particular attention being paid to "milestones" that have already been dismantled and found again.
On the site, the locations of the Berlin milestones are continuously updated, pictures, location coordinates and brief information with address details and history of the list are part of the standards of this info page. Since 2010, the Monument Protection Initiative has identified over 300 locations for Berliners, of which a little more than a dozen were known in 2010. Applications for monument protection for the Berlin milestones, which have been submitted to the state offices for monument preservation by the monument protection initiative for Berlin milestones as well as cooperating institutions such as Berliner Bärenfreunde eV, archive for highway and road history, are based on the different monument interpretations of the respective state monument protection laws treated differently.
literature
Books
- Max Arendt: The Berlin Bear: Greetings from the Reich capital to our comrades in the field (as a special print from the Lord Mayor of the Reich capital published in Berlin). Weise, Berlin 1942 ( DNB 572033303 ).
- Karl Malbranc, Walter May: The Berlin Bear: A reading book for the Berlin School . Westermann, Braunschweig / Berlin 1952–1955, 9 volumes.
- Hans Joachim Reichhardt: The Berlin bear: little story of a city symbol in a seal, coat of arms and flag . Press and Information Office of the State of Berlin, Berlin 1979 ( DNB 790606690 ).
- Bernd Unger: The Berlin Bear: a foray through past and present . Waxmann, Münster / New York / Munich / Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89325-990-2
- Sandra Siewert, Dirk Berger, Ingo Müller: Bärlinale. 300 Berlin bear from A-Z . s.wert design, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-00-014652-0
- Reinhard E. Fischer : The place names of the states of Brandenburg and Berlin. Age - Origin - Meaning , Bebra, Berlin 2005, ISBN 978-3-937233-17-8 .
Magazines
- Berlin Bear: Messages from the Association of Berliners and Friends of Berlin e. V. Association of Berliners and Friends of Berlin, Aachen (quarterly)
- Heilwig Mulot: Berlin Bear - 50 years in action for Berlin: a documentation by the Association of Berliners and Friends of Berlin e. V. Association of Berliners and Friends of Berlin, Aachen 1998.
- Angelika Geiger: Berlin Bear Stones . In: Reports on the preservation of monuments in Lower Saxony , 2/2015
Web links
baerenzwinger.berlin Official website of the current art and culture project in the Bärenzwinger
- berliner-baer.de The official Berlin bear in the kennel at Köllnischer Park
- berliner-baerenfreunde.de Website of the Berlin Bear Friends Association. V.
- Karambolage Arte February 21, 2010
- berliner-meilensteine.de Website of the Monument Protection Initiative for Berlin Milestones, Frankfurt am Main
- [1] Website of the interest group for historical-scientific research and documentation of the history of motorways and roads,
- [2] Website m1k.de with information about the locations of Berlin milestones
- [3] Milestones with the Berlin Bear on the Autobahn
Individual evidence
- ↑ Reinhard E. Fischer : The place names of the states of Brandenburg and Berlin. Age - Origin - Meaning , Berlin 2005, p. 105.
- ^ Winfried Schich : Redende seals of Brandenburg and other German cities in the 13th and 14th centuries. In: The Imagery of Corporate Seals in the Middle Ages. Art history and history in conversation. 2009, pp. 113-130, here pp. 115, 120.
- ↑ Sara Schurmann: Vice city bear Maxi is dead . Tagesspiegel from August 23, 2013.
- ↑ rbb-online.de ( Memento of the original from October 13, 2015 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Excitement about Berlin bears: Maxi is dead, Volodja is here . In: Berliner Zeitung , 23 August 2013
- ↑ Berliner Zeitung of September 30, 2009: Animal protection officer wants to abolish bear kennels. The liberation of Maxi and Schnute (accessed on October 11, 2012)
- ↑ Berlin Week of August 15, 2012: The Forgotten Bears ( Memento of the original of October 17, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on October 11, 2012)
- ↑ youtube.com
- ↑ morgenpost.de
- ↑ http://m1k.de/berlinermeilensteine.html
- ↑ ( http://www.autobahngeschichte.com )
