Monument to the Oldenburg Dragoon Regiment No. 19
The monument of the Oldenburg Dragoon Regiment No. 19, inaugurated in 1921, is located at Cloppenburger Straße 3 in Oldenburg - Osternburg . It is dedicated to the fallen and deceased members of the regiment of the wars of 1866 , 1870/71 and 1914–1918 . The informally as dragoons - Monument This work should not be confused with the memorial for the fallen dragoons and Easter burgers of the Franco-German War, which was inaugurated around 1875 or 1883 and was originally located on Bremer Straße / confluence with Ulmenstraße, but in April 1962 allegedly for traffic reasons Wunderburgpark was moved.
Plant and inauguration
The monument comes from the architect Otto Katzmann, who in the 1920s a. a. designed the Friedrich-August-Platz settlement and some single-family houses on the Festungsgraben. It consists of an outer clinker building in the shape of a chapel and inside of a sandstone urn on a sandstone saddle and nine panels of favor. The total height is approx. 7 m, the inscription reads:
The memory of the heroes / the Oldbg. Dragoon Rgts. No. 19, / those in the campaigns / 1866, 1870-71 and 1914-18, / for the fatherland / left their lives / dedicated / by their comrades / and relatives.
The memorial was inaugurated on Sunday April 24, 1921. It is located on the site of the regiment's former officers' mess, which was taken over in 1919 by the Evangelical Church Community in Osternburg after the unit was dissolved and in which the parish hall ( Jochen Klepper House) is now located. Even back then, the monument was located in the middle of a planting of older oaks that practically completely cover it today. The daily press interpreted the system as follows:
The main idea ... can be interpreted in the fact that a sacred space should be created, which should give the relatives, the regimental comrades and people with a deeper feeling the opportunity to hold a quiet dialogue with the dead, shut off from the hustle and bustle of the street.
At the inauguration ceremony, which took place in the garden of the former casino, several thousand people were present, according to the "news". Among them were also numerous former members of the regiment, such as Grand Duke Nikolaus von Oldenburg , General of the Cavalry von Unger, Lieutenant General Karl von Alten, Major General Willy von Alten, Rittmeister Count Oriola, General von Preynitzer, Colonels Freiherr von dem Bussche, von Berge and Herrendorf and Lieutenant Colonel Adolph von der Wense.
From Paderborn , under the leadership of the Rittmeister von Frydag, a division of 35 NCOs and crews of the 5th Squadron of the Cavalry Regiment No. 15 , in which mainly former members of the 19 Dragoons served. Some of the riders had appeared in their old light blue dragoon uniforms . The Reichswehr provided a band to provide musical accompaniment to the celebration . The parade, in which war clubs also took part, gathered in front of the restaurant "Zum Fürsten Bismarck" on the dam and evidently moved from there to the Trinity Church .
The field service was held by Pastor Schütte. The actual celebration took place at the monument itself. The prologue was given by the actor at the Oldenburg State Theater Liudikoff. Pastor Dede, grandfather of the writer Klaus Dede, gave the consecration speech . It was indirectly reproduced in excerpts from "Nachrichten":
A feeling of melancholy and pride was felt at the sight of the monument which formed the keystone in the history of the proud regiment, which was the eyeball of the sovereign and the ornament of the place, that his name was honored in the history of three wars have. There are many memorials that represent a coffin. This is not how it should be with this monument. It should speak to us and to posterity with the history it contains, with the names that are written on it, with the place where it stands and with the spirit that speaks from it. Speakers then spread about the past, about the goals of our people, about devotion and self-sacrifice, about Germanism and loyalty that spoke from the memorial. In this spirit it should be looked at, guarded and cherished. What is striking in this context is the absence of the aforementioned sovereign and former head of the regiment, Grand Duke Friedrich August von Oldenburg , who was forced to abdicate on November 11, 1918 during the November Revolution .
After another speech by Rittmeister von Frydag, Colonel von der Marwitz presented the memorial to the Dragoon Club, followed by the laying of wreaths. The celebration ended with a joint lunch for a good 460 people in the Krampe inn, where 30 young women from Osternburg volunteered to serve. The press specifically emphasized the logistical performance of the company and the kitchen; apparently due to the generally poor supply situation.
The monument as a place of remembrance
Since the Dragoons as a cavalry unit in Oldenburg, unlike the infantry and artillery, had no institutional successor and, on the other hand, their feeling of togetherness was strong, the 19er Dragoons Association cultivated an intensive culture of remembrance that was only interrupted by the Second World War and the years immediately following the war . From 1954 to the end of the 1960s, regiment meetings took place annually, which always ended with wreaths laid at the memorial and in which from the end of the 1950s a delegation of the 314 tank battalion from Bümmerstede officially took part.
Due to the age structure of the club, no more public celebrations were held from the beginning of the 1970s. Only on the day of national mourning are wreaths laid on the memorial until the present day. Due to the extinction of the generation experienced during the First World War, the memorial did not pass from the functional memory of Easter Castle to the memory memory and is now practically forgotten.
See also
literature
- City of Oldenburg - City Archives (ed.): Oldenburg 1914-1918. A source volume on the everyday, social, military and mental history of the city of Oldenburg in the First World War , Oldenburg (Isensee) 2014. ISBN 978-3-7308-1080-4
- Dietrich Hagen: Oldenburg stone harvest. Studies on the use of natural stone and documentation of the stone monuments, fountains and sculptures in the city of Oldenburg , Oldenburg (Isensee) 1993. ISBN 3-89442-150-9
- Inauguration of the monument to the Dragoon Regt. No. 19 , in: Nachrichten für Stadt und Land , No. 110 of April 25, 1921, p. 5.
- Stadtmagistrat Oldenburg iO / Theodor Goerlitz (ed.): Die Landeshauptstadt Oldenburg , Berlin 1927 (series Deutschlands Städtebau of the German architecture and industry publishing house )
Individual evidence
- ^ News for town and country of April 25, 1921.
- ^ News for town and country of April 25, 1921.
Coordinates: 53 ° 7 '52.3 " N , 8 ° 13' 19.9" E