Bismarck Monument (Cologne)

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The Bismarck monument on Augustinerplatz in Cologne was the second public Bismarck monument in the German Empire after Bad Kissingen . It was unveiled in 1879.

Bismarck monument around 1900

The list goes back to the foundation of the industrialist and royal commercial councilor Christoph Andreae (born August 12, 1819, † March 19, 1876), who was born in Mülheim . Andreae bequeathed 20,000 marks in his will for the construction of the Bismarck memorial with the condition that it should be erected within three years after the testator's death (1879). Only a few months earlier, on April 1, 1875, Otto von Bismarck was made an honorary citizen of the city of Cologne on the occasion of his 60th birthday. The donation, which has since become publicly known, was the subject of heated debate in the city council. On March 30, 1876, the city council decided to accept the donation. The debate was about the unusual honor of a living politician who was not a member of the ruling family. Baron Friedrich Heinrich von Diergardt from Bonn, who came from a Protestant industrial family , then publicly announced that he would donate another 20,000 marks, which secured the financial side of the project. In Cologne, which is dominated by Catholics, the erection of the monument during the Kulturkampf was perceived as a political provocation.

Andreae's donation for the memorial of a Protestant politician who is still alive is to be seen as an affront to the Cologne Catholic bourgeoisie, because their ancestors, who founded a textile factory in Cologne in 1687, had to leave Cologne with other Protestants in 1714. On June 18, 1714, the Andreae family received the settlement patent for Mülheim am Rhein from Johann Wilhelm von der Pfalz . Two hundred years later, the family honored the elector with a monument .

The sculptor Fritz Schaper from Berlin won the competition . The 2.83 m high bronze statue showed Bismarck in a very simple posture with a view into the distance in the interim uniform of his Halberstadt cuirassiers . With his left hand he leans on the pallasch ; his right hand reaches into the buttoned skirt.

The unveiling on April 1, 1879 was accompanied by protests at the end of the rally, which the local press denied. Not only the erection of the monument, but also the choice of how Bismarck was depicted as a soldier with a weapon during the Kulturkampf is clearly to be viewed as a provocation. In the Rhineland, the Cologne Bismarck statue was the first publicly erected Bismarck monument; the statement that is often made in connection with the Cologne monument that it is the first public Bismarck monument at all, actually applies to the Bismarck monument in Bad Kissingen .

Three scaled-down versions of the statue were produced in large numbers by the Hermann Gladenbeck & Sohn foundry , so that they can still be purchased in antiques.

The Bismarck memorial was stolen from the courtyard of the town hall in the post-war chaos (after Iris Benner), according to other accounts it was destroyed in the Second World War.

literature

  • Iris Benner: Cologne monuments. 1871–1918 Aspects of bourgeois culture between art and politics . Kölnisches Stadtmuseum, Cologne 2003, ISBN 3-927396-92-3 , ( Publications of the Kölnisches Stadtmuseum 5), (At the same time: Köln, Univ., Diss., 2002), pp. 94-101, 304.
  • Hans-Walter Hedinger: Bismarck monuments and Bismarck worship. In: Ekkehard Mai , Stephan Waetzoldt (ed.): Art administration, building and monument policy in the empire. Mann, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-7861-1321-1 , ( Art, Culture and Politics in the German Empire 1), pp. 277-314.
  • Sieglinde Seele: Lexicon of the Bismarck Monuments. Towers, statues, busts, memorial stones and other honors. An inventory in words and pictures . Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2005, ISBN 3-86568-019-4 .
  • Contribution by Joseph Theele . In: Hermann Wieger (Ed.): Handbook of Cologne . Wieger, Cologne 1925, pp. 232-233.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Denis A. Chevalley, Stefan Gerlach: Monuments in Bavaria - City of Bad Kissingen , Edition Lipp (1998), p. 140
  2. ↑ Sieglinde Seele: Lexicon of Bismarck Monuments . Michael Imhof, Petersberg 2005, 228f.

Coordinates: 50 ° 56 ′ 6 ″  N , 6 ° 57 ′ 25.1 ″  E