Bismarck Monument (Schwerin)
The Bismarck monument in Schwerin was unveiled in 1901 as a state monument of Mecklenburg in honor of the first German Chancellor and has not been preserved.
description
The monument shows the bronze statue of Bismarck , the left hand pressed into the side, the right slightly stretched out, holding a folded document, the founding document. The profiled base made of polished red granite only bears the inscription "BISMARCK" on the front. The total height was five meters, of which just under 2.70 meters (1½ times life size) was accounted for by the bronze statue.
history
In August 1898 a group of dignitaries came together in Schwerin with the plan to erect a Bismarck monument in memory of the founder of the empire in the city . When the plan with the aim of collecting donations was made public, several sculptors applied, among them Wilhelm Wandschneider and Hugo Berwald . In January 1900, the committee decided on one of two designs by Wandschneider without an open competition. It was the one with which the artist had won the competition in Dortmund in 1898, but which was not carried out there. The artist completed the auxiliary model on a scale of 1: 3 in April. The casting took place in the Lauchhammer foundry, which also supplied the candelabra standing next to the memorial . Wölfel & Herold in Bayreuth produced the base from Swedish red granite . The total costs including installation and unveiling ceremony amounted to around 34,500 marks .
inauguration
The monument was inaugurated on April 1, 1901. Numerous guests attended the celebrations, including of course the leading members of the Grand Ducal Family, first and foremost as Regent Duke Johann Albrecht . The speech was given by the Secret Finance Council, Reichstag deputy Otto Büsing . The monument was handed over to the city by the mayor of Schwerin, Karl Tackert , who was also the chairman of the state committee.
Whereabouts
The memorial survived the Second World War unscathed, but was moved from the market to the now so-called Bismarckplatz (previously Strempelplatz ) as early as 1939 . After 1945 there were sometimes controversial discussions in the Schwerin city council about how to deal with the city's monuments. So the Bismarck statue was removed and deposited in the municipal building yard at a point in time that has not yet been precisely determined. From there it was later transported away for scrapping. The base was still in 1954 on the youth square, which was renamed on April 30, 1950 , before it was also removed and made into tombstones by a stonemason.
Status
In total there are said to have been around 160 Bismarck statues (including the monuments with Bismarck busts) in the German Reich. The Schwerin Bismarck Monument was the official state monument in the then Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. There was no other statue in the country, but there were a number of Bismarck stones with and without relief. How complicated it was to deal with these legacies of the imperial era was shown in the 1948 discussion in Schwerin. The Norddeutsche Zeitung commented on November 2, 1948 with words that inspire reflection even after 60 years:
"(...) The SED's application at the last city council meeting to rename Bismarck-Strasse as" Straße der Einheit "and Bismarck-Platz as" Platz der Republik "was approved by secret ballot on Saturday at the city council's meeting, which was called again on Saturday rejected by 26 votes to 24. (...) With the rejection of the SED motion, the members of the LDP and CDU parliamentary groups have clearly and unequivocally expressed that it is not good if a people wants to kill its whole tradition with clubs, so to speak. You may stand by Bismarck as you like, but it can never be denied that he was one of the most prominent personalities in German history. One should take an example from other nations in this regard; Nowhere in the world do you find so much indignity towards the past of your people as especially among the Germans. It would be better to learn lessons from the history of your people than to attempt to erase them from the memories of contemporaries by force. One does no good service to one's people by simply negating one's history. Confessing to the past and learning from the mistakes of that past is what matters. Everything else is mirror fencing. "
literature
- Max Erhardt-Apolda: Bismarck in the monument at home and abroad. Thuringian Publishing House, Eisenach / Leipzig 1903, No. 97.
- Bernd Ruchhöft: Competition for a monument. In: North German Latest News. April 7, 1990.
Individual evidence
- ^ Friedrich Jansa [Hrsg.]: German visual artists in words and pictures. Published by Friedrich Jansa, Leipzig 1912, p. 627 ff.
Coordinates: 53 ° 37 '44.6 " N , 11 ° 24' 54.2" E