Deserters Monument (Cologne)

Cologne deserter monument on Appellhofplatz , corner of Burgmauer / Neven-Du-Mont-Straße

The inscription

The deserter monument in Cologne-Altstadt-Nord on Appellhofplatz pays tribute to deserters and opponents of the war from the time of National Socialism in the form of a pergola by the Swiss designer Ruedi Baur . It was officially opened to the public on September 1, 2009.

The memorial is at the same distance from three historically relevant buildings: the former armory (today a building of the Cologne City Museum ), the EL-DE house , in which the Gestapo once operated its torture chamber (today the NS Documentation Center ) and the building of the former Cologne criminal justice, where at least 123 people were sentenced to death during National Socialism . The erection of the monument was preceded by a corresponding application to the City Council of Cologne in 2006; the research was carried out using the Freiburg military archive, the files of the divisional courts and the so-called death sentence card index. It could be determined that 104 Cologne soldiers deserted, mostly permanently as so-called " desertion ", sometimes only temporarily (" unauthorized removal "). In almost all cases they were soldiers of the lower ranks.

In order to read the inscription on the monument, you have to look up; it appears to have its text written in the sky without a solid background in colorful aluminum letters on an area of eight by four meters.

The memorial reads: “Tribute to the soldiers who refused to shoot to the soldiers who refused to shoot to the soldiers who refused to shoot to the people who refused to kill the people who refused to kill the people who refused to shoot refused to torture the people who refused to torture the people who refused to denounce the people who refused to denounce the people who refused to brutalize the people who refused to brutalize the people who refused to discriminate the people who were themselves refused to discriminate the people who refused to laugh at the people who refused to discriminate showed solidarity and moral courage when the majority remained silent and followed ... "

Originally, it was considered to erect a memorial at the Dünnwald firing range, where deserters were executed during the war. However, because of its location far outside the city center, this plan was abandoned.