Beech forest bell
The Buchenwald bell is located in the bell tower of the Buchenwald memorial on the Ettersberg near Weimar . It is one of the few sound instruments that the Schilling family of bell foundries from Apolda created on behalf of the state - instead of usually on behalf of the church as usual.
Details
The 6,800 kilogram bronze bell with the tone f ° was cast in 1956 by Franz Schilling , who was responsible for the cast and sound. The Berlin designer, Waldemar Grzimek , provided the design : the surface of the bell is covered with raised barbed wire reliefs; The neck and crown are adorned by three pairs of hands, each with a closed and an open hand. It has a diameter of 194 cm and a height of 250 cm. This makes it one of the largest bells of the post-war period. The blacksmith Fritz Kühn made the steel girder to hold the bell in the tower . In 1957 it was lifted into the tower and mounted on eight feet. A clapper strikes the fixed bell casing. The Buchenwald bell rang for the first time in public on September 14, 1958 at the celebration of the inauguration of the Buchenwald National Memorial and Memorial , which was given by GDR Prime Minister Otto Grotewohl .
use
The bell is struck every year at the commemorative events for the liberation of the concentration camp by the 3rd US Army on or around April 11th.
reception
Magazine title
The Ettersberg Bell is the title of a magazine published by the international camp community Buchenwald, Dora and Kommandos .
song
In the FDJ singing movement of the GDR the song "The Bell of Buchenwald" was sung. The music varies by Wano Muradeli , text by Gerd Kern :
The Buchenwald bell
1st verse:
stone made of pain and sadness made of stones,
beech forest camp site, a narrow grass blows in the wind.
Way too late and way too early to cry.
Camera clicks, tears make you blind.
Murdered
fifty -six thousand times - and I don't even understand death.
I know and know and yet I cannot judge
what threatens
life, what threatens
life, what threatens life, what threatens life, what threatens life, what threatens life, what threatens life.
2nd verse:
The bell burns in the silence!
A moment comes back, time turns uphill.
You are now competing on the square in enormous abundance.
Boots creak, children's eyes beg,
blows go like in my face.
I can taste everything, only life, only not
life, only life, only life, only not
life, only life, only life, only not life.
literature
- Margarete Schilling : The production of the beech forest bell . 50 pages, Apolda 2003, DNB 1118538765
- Margarete Schilling: Bells - shape, sound and ornament. Dresden 1988 , ISBN 3-364-00041-7 [10] and Munich 1988, ISBN 3-406-32977-2 [11]
- Gitta Günther , Gerhard Hoffmann: Buchenwald concentration camp 1937 to 1945. Small encyclopedia. Rhinoverlag, Ilmenau 2016, ISBN 978-3-95560-897-2 .
- Volkhard Knigge , Thomas A. Seidel (ed.): Petrified commemoration. The Buchenwald memorial from 1958 . 2 volumes. Pietsch, Spröda 1997, ISBN 3-00-001065-3 .
