Alfons Riedel

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Hernals Allegory , 1951
Resting woman , around 1956/59

Alfons Riedel (born July 31, 1901 in Vienna ; † April 1, 1969 ) was an Austrian sculptor .

Life

Al ph ons Riedel became an apprentice to the sculptor Carl Philipp at the age of 15 . From 1918 to 1925 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna with Josef Müllner .

It was entered in Lehmann's Vienna address book for the first time in 1926, with the address 13., Künstleriedlung Gruppe V. It was about new houses on the southern edge of the Hietzing district of Speising (Riedelgasse [not named after Alfons Riedel], Griepenkerlgasse, Rußgasse). Between this settlement and what was then the southern outskirts of Vienna, only the outdoor area of ​​the Rothschild mental hospital was located until 1938 . For several years Riedel was then entered in the address book with this spelling of his first name and also as Al f ons Riedel. In 1930 the address was Künstleriedlung 17.

In 1927 he spent three months in Turkey ( Ankara and Istanbul ) with Wilhelm Frass , where he worked on a statue. Riedel was accepted into the Vienna Künstlerhaus in 1935 , and in 1936 he received the Austrian State Prize for Sculpture for the statue of Danae . In the same year his statue The Boxer was shown at the Summer Olympics in Berlin during the Nazi era, in which Austria took part.

In 1937 he took part in the first competition for a Kahlenberg memorial with the relief of the sacrifice of the mass before the battle against the Turks . (On the Kahlenberg it is thought to this day that the relief army, which liberated Vienna from the second Turkish siege in autumn 1683 , stormed from there towards the city.)

During the dictatorial corporate state, Riedel belonged to the then illegal Social Democrats , but during the Nazi era he joined the NSDAP on January 1, 1941 . In 1941, Riedel appears in Lehmann in the artists 'estate as Alphons with the address Rußweg 6, and also as Alfons with the address 2., Krieau , Staatsatelier, where Wilhelm Frass has been using one of the artists' studios since 1936. In the last year Lehmann's address book was published, 1942, Alfons Riedel only appears in the State Atelier.

From 1942 to 1945 he was deployed on the Eastern Front and after the end of the war he was a Soviet prisoner of war for half a year . At the end of 1945, the then Künstlerhaus director Karl Maria May vouched for him and issued an affidavit that Riedel had "only joined the NSDAP for economic reasons". A denazification process was apparently not take place. Riedel was also not excluded from the artist house.

After 1945 Riedel received the Ministry of Education prize, the title of professor and the Cross of Honor for Science and Art . (Although extensive lists are available on Wikipedia and in a query response from the Federal Chancellor on the web, the award date cannot be clarified electronically.)

Riedel mainly worked in the field of art in architecture. On October 24, 1961, he was elected President of the Vienna Künstlerhaus (the opposing candidate was Hermann Kosel ) and held this office until November 1965.

Riedel died in 1969. Like his teacher Carl Philipp, he was buried in the Dornbacher Friedhof in Vienna.

Message of peace

He attracted attention in 2012 when a tin capsule was found in the crypt in the Heldentor , a soldier memorial on Vienna's Heldenplatz , under the memorial of the dead soldier. The sculptor Wilhelm Frass , as the designer of the monument in 1935 when it was erected during the corporate state, hid a prayer for the unity of the German people under the sun wheel (a description for the swastika ) and after the "annexation" of Austria to the "Third Reich." “ Boasted. The existence of this capsule had been known for decades, but not its contents. It was a surprise that the capsule not only contained Frass 'text, because Riedel, then Frass' assistant, had apparently also managed to put his personal message evoking peace into the capsule before it disappeared between the monument and the base. Riedel wrote:

As a collaborator on the dead warrior, the experience of the great war as a youth in the hinterland, with all its heroism and horror, made the most lasting impression on me and, fully aware of the heroic magnitude of the German nation's struggle for its right to life, I only cherish this wish, which until now has unfortunately only been the wish of generations:
"I wish that future generations of our immortal people will no longer be forced to erect memorials for those who died in violent conflicts from nation to nation."
Alfons Riedel
sculptor
Vienna in April 1935

The two documents were handed over to the Vienna Army History Museum on July 9, 2013 , where they are exhibited as a facsimile in the Republic and Dictatorship room above a showcase with a model of the castle gate and the brass case in which the letters were hidden.

Works (selection)

literature

  • Ilse Krumpöck: The sculptures in the Army History Museum. Vienna 2004, p. 143 f.
  • Josef Seiter: Politics in the idyll. The plastic monuments of the First Republic. In: Das Rote Wien 1918–1934. (Catalog for the exhibition June 17 – September 5, 1993). Historical Museum of the City of Vienna, Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-85202-106-5 , pp. 74–90.

Web links

Commons : Alfons Riedel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Katharina Schmidt: First a social democrat, then a member of the NSDAP. In: Wiener Zeitung GmbH. Republic of Austria, July 24, 2012, accessed July 27, 2012 .
  2. ^ Lehmann Online. a website of the Vienna Library in the City Hall
  3. ↑ Hildegard Schmid: Steinernes Consciousness I. The public representation of state and national identity of Austria in its monuments . Ed .: Stefan Riesenfellner (=  Austria without borders ). Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 1998, ISBN 3-205-98797-7 , pp. 494 .
  4. ↑ Prater studios. Federal sculpture studios. Dossier of the Federal Ministry for Education, Art and Culture, Vienna 2010 (PDF; 102 kB)
  5. ↑ Almuth Spiegler: Who were the sculptors Frass and Riedel? Website of the daily newspaper Die Presse . Vienna, July 20, 2012.
  6. ^ Wladimir Aichelburg: Das Wiener Künstlerhaus 1861–2001. The artists' cooperative and its rivals Secession and Hagenbund. Österreichischer Kunst- und Kulturverlag, Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-85437-189-6 , p. 186.
  7. ↑ Heroes' monument: letter of homage discovered in the crypt. on Vienna-Online. July 19, 2012; Presentation of the results of the examinations in the Vienna crypt at the Federal Ministry for National Defense and Sport from July 19, 2012, accessed on July 19, 2012.
  8. ^ Two messages with contrary content on ORF-Online from July 19, 2012.
  9. ↑ "Fallen Warrior": Nazi metal capsule found in the Burgtor crypt. In: Website of the daily newspaper Der Standard , Vienna, July 19, 2012; with a photo of the Riedel embassy
  10. ↑ National Socialist jubilee from Heldendenkmal handed over to the museum on derstandard.at, accessed on July 10, 2013.
  11. ↑ For conservation reasons, the original documents cannot be exhibited, but are kept in the depot of the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, see: Findings handed over to Heeresgeschichtliches Museum on science.apa.at, accessed on July 9, 2013.
  12. ^ "Heroes' monument": found objects handed over to the museum. at: wien.orf.at , accessed on July 9, 2013.
  13. ↑ Wolfgang Czerny, Ingrid Kastel: Vienna: II. To IX. and XX. District . Dehio-Handbuch Wien, Volume 2. Ed .: Institute for Austrian Art Research of the Federal Monuments Office (=  Austrian Art Monuments ). Anton Schroll & Co, 1993, ISBN 3-7031-0680-8 , p. 223 .
  14. ↑ Great events are reflected in memorial signs. The latest achievements and tenders from the Vienna Cultural Office. In:  Neues Wiener Tagblatt , August 27, 1939, p. 10 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nwg
  15. ^ Peter Ernst, Felix Czeike: Viennese literary memorial places . 2nd Edition. J u V Edition, 1990, ISBN 3-85058-039-3 , pp. 138 .
  16. ^ Felix Czeike: Vienna: Art, culture and history of the Danube metropolis . 6th edition. DuMont Reiseverlag, 1999, ISBN 3-7701-4348-5 , p. 193 .
  17. ↑ a b Christine Klusacek, Kurt Stimmer: Meidling: from the Vienna river to the Wienerberg . Mohl, 1992, ISBN 3-900272-41-7 , pp. 226 .
  18. ^ Adalbert Stifter Institute of the State of Upper Austria: Quarterly publication, Volume 3 . Stiasny, 1954, p. 11 .
  19. ↑ Ilse Krumpöck: The images in the Army History Museum. Vienna 2004, p. 143.
personal data
SURNAME Riedel, Alfons
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Riedel, Alphons
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH July 31, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna , Austria
DATE OF DEATH April 1st 1969