Ceiling fresco in the parish church of St. Jakobus Maior von Rötenbach

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The ceiling fresco in the parish church of St. Jakobus Maior is a 1944 fresco by the church painter August Braun from Wangen in the Roman Catholic parish church of Rötenbach ( Wolfegg community , Ravensburg district ). On the right side, a heavily alienated Adolf Hitler with wire glasses is said to be shown as the enemy of the cross . Neither the painter nor the pastor at the time ever confirmed this person's identity with Hitler.

Emergence

The picture was donated by the married couple Friedrich and Anna Rösch from Boschers near Rötenbach, who commissioned the fresco in memory of their only son Georg, who died on December 26, 1942 in World War II . In 1944, August Braun spent a month in the parsonage of Rötenbach, with the then pastor Hagenmayer, to carry out the fresco commission for the donor couple. August Braun received a fee of 4,000 Reichsmarks for making the fresco .

iconography

The central focus of the fresco is a cross with a corpus enthroned on a cloud , above which God the Father and Holy Spirit are depicted in the shape of a dove . The cross is surrounded by a multitude of floating putti and angels. The pictorial program is based on the saying from the first letter of Paul of Tarsus to the church in Corinth :

“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are lost; but to us who are saved, it is God's power. "

- 1 Cor 1.18  EU

The kneeling farmer saint Notburga , the confessing bishop Joannes Baptista Sproll and Saint George with a lance and kite are seen from left to right in front of a standing small family with a small child. August Braun chose Saint George, who is closest to the cross in the picture, because his first name was the same as the fallen son of the client. Below this group follows another group of women and men. The good Beth , Elisabeth Achler, one of the last mystics of the Middle Ages, makes the beginning, next to it are a Sister of Mercy of Saint Vincent de Paul , Saint Francis and Saint Theresa of the Child Jesus in religious dress .

The apostle Paul wears the face of the artist August Braun. On the same level we find the patron saint of the parish church, Pope Silvester I , the evangelist John , Simon Peter and James the Elder , the patron saint of the church.

The enemies of the cross

The top first group on the right side of the picture consists of three men and one woman. The war profiteers are dressed in black suits, tails or evening dresses and hold champagne glasses in their hands.

Underneath the group of people wearing tailcoats , Adolf Hitler is said to be depicted in black nickel glasses and a two- finger beard, arms crossed, looking at the saint's side. Winston Churchill stands next to him with a cigar . With his back to Hitler and Churchill is a man absorbed in a newspaper in Hebrew script . Below the two you can see two younger men with flat caps .

At the bottom, in a biblical group, Judas Iscariot with the 30 pieces of silver and other people around the high priest Kajaphas are shown.

reception

The ceiling fresco was discussed in articles in the Rheinischer Merkur on July 26, 2007 and the Südwestpresse Ulm on June 27, 2007 as well as in a broadcast by the SWR on June 27, 2007 and the problem of depicting Hitler and Churchill on the side of the enemies of the cross pointed out. The church leader speaks quite apolitically of modern atheists, disinterested and indulgent people and the representation of a ball. In the brochure about the consecration of the altar on March 19, 2000 it is described that Hitler and Churchill are depicted as enemies of the cross on the right-hand side, together with military economic leaders standing apart.

In addition to this depiction, there are also other depictions of Adolf Hitler in the church painting:

  • The two chapels of the east towers of St. Peter and Paul in Weil der Stadt contain two colored glass windows, designed in 1940/41 by the artist couple Josef Karl Huber and Hildegard Huber-Sasse. Well known is the window on the south tower, which shows events from the life of Jesus. In the scene of the temptation of Jesus , the devil unmistakably bears the traits of Adolf Hitler. This window is a testimony to the church's resistance to National Socialism by the artist and then pastor August Uhl. Huber was drafted into military service because of the portrayal.
  • In a 1953 window by Albert Birkle in the choir of the Graz parish church , Hitler and Mussolini can be seen among the scourges and scoffers of Jesus Christ. The window caused a local scandal there in 1955.

literature

  • Michael Barczyk : Hitler meets Rötenbach . In: In the Oberland. Vol. 2008, issue 2 ( full text as PDF )
  • Church guide 200 years of St. Jakobus in Rötenbach
  • Consecration of the altar of St. Jakobus in Rötenbach on March 19, 2000
  • Heinz Knapp: How Adolf Hitler got to Rötenbach - or not. The ceiling painting in an Upper Swabian church arouses fantasies and gets tourism managers on their toes . Südwestdeutsche Zeitung / Stuttgarter Zeitung, No. 30 of February 6, 2009, p. 8. [1]

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ The hourly wage of an industrial worker in 1944 was 0.81 Reichsmarks. An industrial worker would have had to work for a quarter to a half year for the conditions at the time to be able to pay for the fresco.
  2. ^ Michael Barczyk: Hitler meets Rötenbach . In: In the Oberland. Born in 2008, issue 2
  3. ↑ see picture

Coordinates: 47 ° 47 ′ 41.5 "  N , 9 ° 48 ′ 25.2"  E