Fraternity monument
The fraternity monument in the south of Eisenach on the Göpelskuppe is the war memorial for the 87 fraternity members who died in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 . It was erected in 1902 as a national monument of the German fraternity to commemorate the foundation of the German Empire .
history
construction
After the establishment of the German Empire in 1871 and the implementation of the small German solution to the unification of Germany was for parts of the frat boys the vision of Jena, in particular for the Burschenschaft union associations, Urburschenschaft filled 1815th
The building of the fraternity monument is based on the original idea of erecting an "honorary monument" for the brothers who fell in 1870/71 . But it was not until 1889 and 1890 that the idea took on a more tangible form, when Eisenach was chosen as the destination for the monument and a committee was given the task of working out proposals. In 1894 an executive committee was founded in Berlin, to which members from seven fraternities were delegated. The meaningful idea of the monument has now been expanded to the effect that it should be created for all men who had contributed to the unification of Germany.
The foundation stone was laid on June 8, 1897 on the Wartenberg . For this location, government architect Oskar Zeiß had developed a plan for a mighty tower that ended in an imperial crown . Rudolf Flex gave the commemorative speech. At Whitsun of the following year, the seat of the executive committee was relocated to Eisenach, and the committee was transformed into the "Fraternity Monuments Association in Eisenach", chaired by Wedemann Medical Council . Instead of a "simple" tower, a monumental building should now be built. With the death of the national hero , Prince Otto von Bismarck , on July 30, 1898, all well-known cities in the empire immediately began to erect Bismarck monuments , here Eisenach was not allowed to be inferior and only the exposed Wartenberg - opposite the Wartburg - was considered worthy enough felt and erected the Eisenach Bismarck Tower there. The plans for the fraternity monument were therefore postponed again. In this precarious situation for the city, the heirs of the brickworks manufacturer and geologist Johann Georg Bornemann , who died in Eisenach, helped by letting the fraternity on the Göpelskuppe free of charge an area of 1,925 hectares , and they also made the area required for the access road available free of charge during the city of Eisenach approved 4,000 marks for the construction of the road .
The 33 m high monument was designed according to the plans of the architect Wilhelm Kreis from Blasewitz near Dresden and was inaugurated on May 22, 1902 after two years of construction. About 2,000 people are said to have participated in the pageant from the city up to the monument. The keys were handed over by the architect Kreis to the German Burschenschaft, on whose behalf E. Lucks, the representative of the Marchia Bonn Burschenschaft, handed it over to the Burschenschaftsdenkmalverein. The inauguration ceremony turned out to be a general German fraternity festival, in which fraternities from technical universities and Austrian fraternities also took part.
The total cost of erecting the monument was around 250,000 marks (1871) .
Decay and restoration
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The memorial survived the Second World War undamaged. For the new rulers, however, it was a sign of feudalism and " reaction ". As a result, the fraternity monument was willfully damaged, windows and statues destroyed. The ceiling painting in particular suffered serious damage from the lack of ventilation after the window openings had been bricked up. In addition to the plans for a demolition, there was later also the idea of building a public observatory in the memorial. After the turning point and peaceful revolution in the GDR and the German reunification , the fraternity monument and the associated hotel "Berghof" were returned to the German fraternity . This had the building fabric secured and the building renovated. It can be viewed again today. On March 24, 2007, after a year-long reconstruction, the ceiling painting , originally created by the painter Otto Gussmann and restored by the painter and graphic artist Gert Weber , was officially inaugurated with festive events.
At the end of October 2019, the memorial fell victim to vandalism . Exterior walls and a memorial plaque were smeared with paint, a window was thrown in, and paint was sprayed inside the building.
Characteristic of the monument
The monument consists of shell limestone and represents a round temple that rises on a wide terrace. This terrace is square with curves on three sides. A staircase with mighty ramps leads to its platform in front on the right and on the left. A wide staircase with 22 steps leads from the platform to the portal of the temple hall. The round temple itself rests on three levels; The dedication can be read above the portal. Nine columns are connected by the walls of a monumental hall pierced by tall, narrow windows. At the top, the columns are held together by an architrave , on which the motto of the German fraternities honor, freedom, fatherland can be read in giant letters . The architrave is crowned by the ornate main cornice, from which three steps lead to the tambour. Six huge corbels with the heads of the Cheruscan prince Arminius , Charlemagne , Luther , Albrecht Dürer , Goethe and Beethoven rise from this . Then follows the helmet with nine eagles, which are topped with a Germanic crown. Strong stone posts connected by cap stones close off the back of the monument in a semicircle. Above the portal is the dedication of the monument, namely the inscription
Furnishing
inner space
You enter the hall through the heavy steamed-up gate. In the hall are the statues of the German Emperor Wilhelm I (by the sculptor Selmar Werner ), the Grand Duke Karl August von Sachsen-Weimar (by the sculptor Hermann Hosaeus ), Bismarcks , Moltkes (both by the sculptor August Hudler ) and Albrecht von Roons (by Sculptor Selmar Werner).
Between these statues, there are four panels on the wall of the hall with the names of the 87 German fraternity members who died in 1870/71. Sacrificial flames rise from altars adorned with the heads of dying warriors below the tablets. The names of the forerunners, co-founders and defenders of the fraternity can be read above the statues and panels: Johann Gottlieb Fichte , Ernst Moritz Arndt , Friedrich Ludwig Jahn , Heinrich Arminius Riemann , Karl Horn , Karl Hermann Scheidler , Lorenz Oken , Jakob Friedrich Fries , Heinrich Luden .
The tall narrow windows are made of colored antique and opal glass. A pair of eagles are enthroned above you on a golden ornament. The dome of the hall shows the painting of Ragnarök , the twilight of the gods, the battle of the Germanic gods of the Aesir against the powers of darkness, created by the Dresden Art Nouveau painter Otto Gussmann . The unity of the fine arts, architecture, sculpture and painting, meets the visitor in this hall harmoniously.
In the interior of the hall there is an extensive dedication above the entrance. In the column to the right of the entrance to the hall, a staircase leads up to the six balconies that lie between the heads in the upper part of the monument and from which one has a wonderful view of Eisenach, the Wartburg and the Thuringian Forest .
Cenotaph for the fallen fraternity members
The Burschentag 1930 decided on the construction of a memorial for the fallen friars of the First World War. After a competition won by the architect Friedrich Haußer of the Hilaritas Stuttgart fraternity, the memorial was erected below the fraternity monument in 1932 and inaugurated in 1933. The relief of a young man carrying a sword, lettering and coat of arms of the fraternity were destroyed by a decision of the Allied Control Council in 1946. After several years of renovation by the Eisenach Monument Preservation Association - financed by donations from the fraternity - the honorary memorial for the fallen was inaugurated on April 16, 2011. It is now the “Central Memorial of the German Burschenschaft” for the German victims of the First and Second World Wars. As a reminder of the destruction, the youth relief that was cut off in 1946 was not restored. During the renovation, a plate with a symbolic grave in a recess was rediscovered and left that way.
See also
literature
- Centralblatt der Bauverwaltung dated February 10, 1900, p. 66 f.
- Monument Preservation Association Eisenach e. V. (Ed.): 100 years of the fraternity monument. 2002.
- Fritz Abshoff: Germany's fame and pride. Berlin 1903, p. 83 f.
- Otto Kuntzemüller: The monuments of Kaiser Wilhelm the great. Bremen undated (1903), p. 375 ff.
- Harald Lönnecker : The fraternity monument in Eisenach. In: Deutsche Burschenschaft (Hrsg.): Handbook of the German Burschenschaft. Traunstein 2005, pp. 26–34.
Web links
- Burschenschaftsdenkmal - Pictures and background information on the Burschenschaftsdenkmal and its history.
- Monument Preservation Association - background information on the preservation of the fraternity monument.
- Collection of postcards with the fraternity monument
Individual evidence
- ^ Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume II: Artists. Winter, Heidelberg 2018, ISBN 978-3-8253-6813-5 , p. 199.
- ↑ The curriculum vitae and work of Otto Gussmann ( memento of July 25, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 7.54 MB), accessed on April 13, 2016
- ↑ Burschenschaftsdenkmal> Die Geschichte> Gert Weber ( Memento from August 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on April 13, 2016
- ↑ Burschenschaftsdenkmal damaged , press release of the State Police Inspectorate Gotha, accessed on eisenachonline.de on November 1, 2019
- ↑ http://www.rheinischerring.de/rhr-chronik.pdf
- ↑ "The fallen or Langemarck memorial of the German Burschenschaft", text on the website of the chairman of the German Burschenschaft , accessed on April 16, 2015
- ↑ Rita Specht: Find a new culture of remembrance for soldiers. German fraternity inaugurates central place of mourning . Thuringian newspaper , April 18, 2011
Coordinates: 50 ° 57 '59.9 " N , 10 ° 20' 6.3" E