Dreyse monument in Sömmerda
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The Dreyse monument in Sömmerda was erected on the market square in honor of the inventor of the needle gun, Johann Nikolaus von Dreyse , and was unveiled on November 20, 1909. At the same time, the memorial, according to its base inscription, commemorated the victorious fighters of the wars of unification of 1864, 1866 and 1870/71. It is therefore also known as the Dreyse War Memorial . Only the base of the monument and the head of the figure of Dreyses are preserved.
description
The monument showed a double statue, which is relatively rare for a monument . Nikolaus von Dreyse, who is sitting on an anvil partially covered with a leather apron, explains his invention, the needle rifle, to a soldier who is standing next to him and is armed for a field march . The group stands on a relatively flat, cuboid base made of polished gray granite. The whole thing again on a substructure made of brick field stones. The double statue had a height of a little more than two meters with a total height of about four and a half meters.
The following inscription is engraved on the front of the base:
THE INVENTOR
OF THE FILLER
NEEDLE RIFLE NIKOLAUS VON DREYSE
GEB. D. 20 NOV. 1787
GEST. D. 9th DEC. 1867
THE VICTORY
FIGHTERS OF
1864 1866
1870 AND 1871
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On the back are the names of the four war dead from Sömmerda:
DIED FOR KING AND FATHERLAND ANTON SCHÖNKÄS, died near Königgrätz on July 3, 1866
KARL REICHARDT, died in the Brno hospital on September 7, 1866
KARL BÖTTCHER, died in the Ars sur Moselle hospital on October 8, 1870
ADOLF WESTHAUS, fallen at Epinay on November 30, 1870.
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history
The history of the monument goes back around ten years after the founding of the empire in 1871 . In patriotic exuberance after the military victory over France, the victims of the three wars of unification of 1864, 1866 and 1870/71 were erected monuments in numerous places, mostly referred to as victory or war memorials. In Sömmerda, too, the local warrior association started such an initiative in 1883, but it was unsuccessful because it was not possible to secure the necessary funding. Another attempt to erect a war memorial for the four fallen soldiers and around 200 soldiers in the city failed in 1894.
When such a monument was erected in the neighboring village of Leubingen in 1906, the project was resumed in Sömmerda. The commemoration of the Battle of Sedan provided the opportunity to collect initial donations for the project. Two years earlier, on March 3, 1904, an initiative to erect a Dreyse memorial had been formed in Berlin, which promptly sought contact with the staff of the former Dreyse-Werke Sömmerda. On the initiative of Mayor Enzmann, a year later, on August 25, 1907, dignitaries of the city gathered to found a monument committee, of which Enzmann was elected chairman. An old idea of combining the war memorial with a tribute to Nikolaus von Dreyse, who had made the city famous through his arms factory, was quickly taken up again. This also made it possible to turn to the wealthy von Dreyse family with a request for financial support. This provided the sum of 15,000 marks at the total cost of around 20,000 marks, the city authorities and the district committee approved 2,000 and 1,000 marks respectively, the rest was raised through numerous individual donations.
Without an open competition, the monument committee commissioned the sculptor Wilhelm Wandschneider , who was at the height of his artistic career and was well known for a number of other monuments in those years, with the creation of three different proposals, and ultimately one was chosen Double statue. A model was completed by mid-November and exhibited in the artist's Berlin studio; from December 2, the model could be viewed publicly in Sömmerda. After making small changes to the model, Wandschneider received the order on June 22nd to model the large cast model. This was already completed on September 17th in the studio for assessment and approval by the committee. The unanimous opinion was that the casting in the Lauchhammer art foundry could now be commissioned immediately, after all, November 20, the 122nd birthday of Nikolaus von Dreyses, had already been scheduled for the unveiling ceremony. Only at the last moment, on the advice of Wandschneider, was it possible to agree on the shortest possible inscriptions for the base.
revelation
The committee had informed Kaiser Wilhelm II about the impending ceremonial unveiling of the monument on November 20, 1909 through Dreyses' grandson and received the following reply:
“Cadinen, October 8th, 1909. Ew. Highly born I honor myself in the very highest order on the immediate submission of the 18th v. M. to inform you that His Majesty the Emperor and King would like to thank the Secret Commissioner Nikolaus von Dreyse for reporting the intention to erect a monument in Sömmerda for your immortalized grandfather. His Majesty have graciously taken note of the photograph of the monument, which has met with the highest applause. M. have the upcoming unveiling ceremony represented by the responsible commanding general. - The Secret Cabinet Council, Real Secret Council v. Valentini. "
Numerous guests attended the celebrations, including of course members of the von Dreyse family and sculptor wall tailors. The city was festively flagged everywhere. The celebration began with the ringing of the bells at 12:30 p.m., the clubs took up positions at the monument on the market square. The guest of honor was the announced representative of the emperor, Reinhard von Scheffer-Boyadel , commanding general of the XI. Army Corps . The actual unveiling ceremony began at 1 p.m. with musical support from the military band of the Thuringian Infantry Regiment No. 71 .
Whereabouts
The memorial survived the Second World War without prejudice to the metal donation made by the German people since 1940 for armaments . Shortly after the end of the war in 1945, the local anti-fascist committee demanded that the monument be removed. The basis for the decision that now follows was Directive No. 30 of the Allied Control Council , published on May 31, 1946, on dealing with fascist and militarist monuments, collections, etc. Although it expressly excluded all monuments erected before August 1, 1914, appealed the proponents of the removal and destruction of the Dreyse Monument on the directive. On January 10, 1947, the mayor finally received the order to destroy it from the Soviet city commandant:
“By order of the Control Council No. 30, the Dreyse military memorial, Marktplatz, is to be destroyed. It must be destroyed and melted down as quickly as possible in the Rheinmetall 3d furnace, Rheinmetall-Borsig. "
The group of figures was then dismantled and initially stored covered on the Rheinmetall-Borsig factory premises. There was no capacity for immediate meltdown. A history-conscious employee also tried to prevent it from being melted down, but the figures were dismantled into parts and buried in a disused gravel pit on the factory premises. During construction work in 1985, workers found the two heads. After the community history of Sömmerda was informed the next morning , only Dreyses's head was found, which is now in the city's museum, the soldier's head has disappeared to this day under unknown circumstances.
The base of the monument was moved to the garden of what was then the middle school in 1947. Without changing the design, i.e. with the inscriptions, the base was used years later as a substructure for a Thälman monument . In 1990 Sömmerdaer Heimatfreunde suggested the reconstruction or rebuilding of the Dreyse monument. It failed due to public interest and funding. To mark the centenary of the consecration of the monument on November 20, 2009, descendants of the von Dreyse family were present to commemorate the monument and its main character, Nikolaus von Dreyse. Especially for this purpose, the base with its inscriptions - the Thälmann memorial no longer existed for a long time - was restored and temporarily placed on the market square. A new public location for this remnant of the former historical monument was also planned, but has not yet been realized. The base has been resting between old building materials in the storage area of the municipal building yard since 2017.
Replicas
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There are small replicas of the Dreyse monument . Probably in connection with the unveiling of the monument in 1909, a 37 cm high bronze cast of the small model without a base was made, which was given to the von Dreyse family with a dedication: Zum / Ehrenden Gedächtnis. / Johann / Nikolaus von Dreyse / inventor of the / needle gun / * 20 Nov. 1787 † 9 Dec. 1867. This otherwise unsigned copy was transferred to the museum in 2009, along with other documents and exhibits from the estate of the city's family.
According to a newspaper article in the Sömmerdaer Zeitung of November 16, 1912, further reductions in bronze cast based on a model specially made by the sculptor Wandschneider were given as gifts for officers from the infantry corps of the Spandau Infantry Shooting School for officers leaving the service. An exact number cannot be given. The Sömmerdaer Heimat- und Geschichtsverein e.V. was able to obtain a copy without a base and signed with the artist's name. V. Acquired from the art trade in 1997. Another has been shown to have been sold in the US antique trade in 2011/12. One copy has been on loan in the wall tailor exhibition in the Burgmuseum Plau am See since 2018 .
literature
- O. Hesse: Festschrift for the unveiling ceremony of the Dreyse war memorial in Sömmerda on November 20, 1909
- Fest-Zeitung for the unveiling ceremony of the Dreyse war memorial on Saturday, November 20, 1909
- The Dreysedenkmal in Sömmerda. In: Contributions to local history, issue 14 (published by the Sömmerdaer Heimat- und Geschichtsverein e.V.)
- City history informative: What happened 100 years ago. In: Sömmerdaer Stadtnachrichten (Official Gazette of the City of Sömmerda), No. 46 of November 18, 2009, p. 10 ff.
- City history informative: Honor and memory of Sömmerdaer Nicolaus von Dreyse. In: Sömmerdaer Stadtnachrichten (Official Gazette of the City of Sömmerda), No. 48 of December 2, 2009, p. 10
Web links
Coordinates: 51 ° 9 '42.5 " N , 11 ° 7' 2.6" E