Bismarck Monument (Bremen)

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Bismarck monument
Equestrian statue
Rice statue - historical view

The Bismarck monument at Bremen Cathedral is a bronze equestrian monument dedicated in 1910 to the former Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who died in 1898 . The renowned Munich sculptor Adolf von Hildebrand was commissioned to do this in 1904. The monument has been a listed building since 1973 .

Bismarck and Bremen

Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898), the Prussian politician and Chancellor from 1871 to 1890, was highly revered as the “Iron Chancellor” in the conservative bourgeoisie , especially because of his role in the founding of the empire , even after he was dismissed by Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1890 was. His relationship to official Bremen politics was not always clear due to divergent interests in colonial policy and trade tariff issues. Nonetheless, in Bremen, as in other non-Prussian states, he was seen as a symbol of national unity. Hundreds of Bismarck monuments were erected, some of them during the Reich Chancellor's lifetime, but especially after his death on July 30, 1898.

History of origin

Just three weeks after Bismarck's death , a committee initiated by Mayor Alfred Dominicus Pauli and the businessman Franz Schütte met in Bremen , which called for donations: “Our city must have a monument to Prince Bismarck: as a testimony to Bremen's unchangeable admiration for the first Adviser to the first German emperor, as a permanent reminder of the unification of our fatherland and to proclaim our unshakable loyalty to the emperor and the empire. We ask our fellow citizens to help us to erect a worthy monument to Prince Bismarck in Bremen. "

Two personalities determined the further planning history: Franz Schütte, as the main sponsor, managed to raise the necessary donation capital, and when in 1904 the sum of 207,000 marks that had accumulated until then was lost due to a bankruptcy, he raised the same amount again within 48 hours from senators and merchants . Gustav Pauli , son of the mayor, director of the Kunsthalle and mentor of the artistic reform efforts in Bremen at the beginning of the 20th century, had a decisive influence on the artistic design . Here, too, as with his museum acquisition policy , he had to fend off opposition from conservative circles and their spokesman Arthur Fitger . First of all, it was about the location. A place in the ramparts was rejected, among other things to avoid accusations of a “petty imitation” of the Hamburg Bismarck memorial . The Liebfrauenkirchhof was already selected for the planned Moltke memorial . So it came down to the cathedral courtyard , especially when the sculptor Adolf von Hildebrand, who was initially called in as an appraiser, proposed an equestrian statue on the northwest corner of the cathedral, which was soon commissioned by himself. It was completed four years later and was unveiled on July 9, 1910. The six-meter-high base, designed by Carl Sattler, is faced with Untersberg limestone , while the bronze casting of the equestrian statue was carried out by Gladenbeck & Sohn in Berlin .

In 1942, the memorial was walled in on the north side of the cathedral to protect it from war damage. It was not until 1952 that it was put back up against resistance from some in the SPD, but at the instigation of Mayor Wilhelm Kaisen (SPD).

meaning

The only monument that depicts Bismarck in the form of an equestrian statue shows the Reich Chancellor on a six meter high stone plinth made of Untersberg limestone with a helmet and a slightly stylized uniform of his cuirassier regiment . The individual figurative elements are modeled powerfully and compactly in keeping with the high location. The turn of the horse's head towards the Domshof gives the group a bit of liveliness. The scroll held in the right hand is interpreted as constitutional writing. The formal stimulus for the type of monument and the choice of location was certainly the equestrian portrait of Bartolomeo Colleoni by Andrea del Verrocchio that was erected in front of San Zanipolo in Venice in 1493 . In the descriptions, the happy choice of location is emphasized again and again. Without losing the reference to the architectural structure of the cathedral tower, the monument with its base emphasizing the vertical forms a kind of hinge at the point where the corners of the cathedral courtyard and the market square meet. The monument can be perceived from many points of view in a wide variety of perspectives and changing architectural references.

literature

  • Beate Mielsch: Monuments, free sculptures, fountains in Bremen 1800–1945. Bremen 1980, ISBN 3-921749-16-6 , pp. 27-29.
  • Gustav Pauli: The monuments of Bismarck and Moltke in Bremen. In: Yearbook of the Bremen Collections , Volume 4 (1911), pp. 20 ff.

Web links

Commons : Bismarck Monument (Bremen)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Monument database of the LfD
  2. ^ Herbert Black Forest : History of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen. Volume 2, Bremen 1976, p. 331, p. 346, p. 361.
  3. Mielsch, p. 27, here also on the following
  4. Arthur Fitger: Our Bismarck Monument. In: Weser-Zeitung of June 28, 1903, also February 18 and June 12, 1904.
  5. Mielsch, p. 29

Coordinates: 53 ° 4 ′ 32.5 ″  N , 8 ° 48 ′ 30.5 ″  E