Prisoner of War Memorial (Bremen)
The prisoner of war memorial by Herbert Kubica in the Bremer Wallanlagen was dedicated in 1934 to soldiers who died in captivity during the First World War . Since 1951 an extension of the inscription also commemorates the prisoners of war of the Second World War .
history
Immediately after 1933, the year when power was transferred to the National Socialists, several memorials to the fallen were created in Bremen, including the memorial for those from Bremen who died in World War I and that for the free corps fighters who fell in the battle for Bremen . The Bremen local group of the Reich Association of former prisoners of war e. V. in the German War Warrior Association Kyffhäuser had announced a competition for a memorial in memory of the soldiers who died in captivity during the First World War, which was won with a design submitted by the Bremen sculptor Herbert Kubica and the architect Rudolf Richter . On October 14, 1934, the monument erected at the foot of the Altmannhöhe (between the Kunsthalle and Weser) was inaugurated and taken into state custody. On November 4, 1951, it was supplemented by an inscription that commemorated the German prisoners of war (around 10,000 prisoners were still in Soviet camps until 1955).
The monument is part of the "Wallanlagen" ensemble, which has been a listed building since 1973.
The sculpture
Between two mighty, horizontal stone slabs, two bare, crouching, larger-than-life youths, chiseled from two blocks, are wedged in and thus illustrate in a very direct and impressive way the oppression and the experience of violence in captivity. Form and content, the attitude motives and the partial incompleteness remember the "slaves" from the Tomb of Pope Julius II by Michelangelo , in turn, the Laocoon had been suggested - both works also images desperate rebellion.
Inscriptions
Front: “153284 German soldiers from the front died in captivity for their fatherland 1914–1920” - “World War 1939–1945. In memory of the difficult fate of our prisoners of war all over the world ”.
Back: “A struggle harder and more bitter than any other was the imprisonment. Elsa Brändström "
literature
- Mielsch: Denkmäler, Freiplastiken, Brunnen , 1980, p. 42f., 57, fig. 82
- Kammerer-Grothaus, Heike: Art and Works of Art in the Wallanlagen , in: Between Lust and Wandeln , Bremen 2002, pp. 210–235, here: 219f.
Web links
- k: art in public space bremen
- Monument database of the State Office for Monument Preservation. Go to part no. 00001193, T010
proof
- ↑ Monument List City of Bremen, p. 18f ( Memento of the original dated November 23, 2015 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. (PDF). Retrieved October 13, 2015.
- ↑ Mielsch, p. 42
Coordinates: 53 ° 4 ′ 16.1 ″ N , 8 ° 48 ′ 50.1 ″ E