Victory Monument (Dresden)
The Victory Monument was a historical monument on the Altmarkt in Dresden , which reminded of the Franco-German War of 1870/71 and its victories. Only slightly damaged in the air raids on Dresden , it was removed in the late 1940s. From 1955, contrary to its original name, it was only referred to as the Germania Monument in public discourse in Dresden .
prehistory
On July 19, 1870, the North German Confederation received France's declaration of war . At the Franco-German War 31,000 Saxons were involved under the Saxon commanding general Crown Prince Albert. On January 28, 1871, the war ended with the French armistice and the subsequent peace treaty . The Saxon Army had 301 officers and 6,534 NCOs and men to complain of dead, missing and wounded. 99 of them were victims from the Dresden barracks. After the demobilization , victory monuments and memorial plaques were built in many places in communities and cities .
In Dresden, on February 28, 1871, the Association for Patriotic Gratitude applied to be allowed to erect a widely visible victory memorial on the central pillar of the Augustus Bridge , where a gilded crucifix had been located until the Elbe flood in 1845 : a sculpture by the sculptor Robert Henze carried on two columns . The City Council rejected this request, but allowed the model and the molded Germania to be presented on the Altmarkt for the festive entry of the Crown Prince and newly appointed Field Marshal Albert von Sachsen with his Maas Army on June 11, 1871. A competition was held for a planned victory monument, but it did not produce the desired design. In the meantime, the citizens of Dresden prevailed and voted for the Festschmuck-Germania. On August 31, 1875, the council gave Henze and the architect and Semper successor Georg Hermann Nicolai the task of designing the monument.
monument
On the 10th Sedan Day on September 1, 1880, the victory monument was inaugurated on the Altmarkt . It was intended to commemorate the victory in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/1871 and the Dresdeners who died in this war. Robert Henze , a student of Hähnel , created the monument from various stones. The figure shows the 6.20 meter high Germania and four female side figures: war science , army power, peace and merciful love, all sculptures made of Carrara marble . The figures were created in the Italian city of Florence in the workshop of Raffaello Cellai.
In July 1880 the figures were made and were transported from Florence to Dresden on three wagons. The Germania weighed 6,550 kilos and was loaded on one, the other four on two wagons, each 5350 kilos. The freight costs amounted to 3,171 marks plus customs duties of 4 marks and 17 cents.
The singer Rosa Heysing was the model for Germania. With her right hand she held an imperial flag adorned with a laurel wreath and with her left hand she leaned on the imperial shield with a German eagle. The face happily showed the new national consciousness, because with the establishment of the German Empire on January 18, 1871, the Germans were largely united. On the front between the secondary figures there were bronze plaques with the names of the 99 fallen Dresdeners. The total costs amounted to 186,500 marks and were borne by 15,000 marks from public collections and the remaining amount divided by the Güntz Foundation and the municipal reserve fund. The Dresden master builder Eduard Mueller was responsible for the lifting and installation. The monument was unveiled and inaugurated on September 1, 1880, in the presence of the Saxon King Albert and the royal family.
Whereabouts
The Victory Monument, after 1945 as a memorial on the Altmarkt , from 1955 referred to as the Germaniadenkmal , in the middle of the square remained largely unscathed during the Allied air raids in World War II. After the war, the city administration classified the monument as a military object in May 1946 and put it on List B with the remark that the minor characters should be used for other purposes. The Soviet military administration in Dresden had spoken out in favor of keeping the work of art and calling for it to be preserved. But in June 1946 the Dresden City Council had the Germania pulled from its base with pulleys. In the period that followed, the other bronze and marble remains also disappeared. A carpenter from Dresden saved the head of Germania and hid it in a gazebo in Johannstadt. In 1991 the head was given to the city museum . Two heads of the secondary characters also survived the demolition. Parts of the monument were used to reconstruct Antonio Corradini's opulence vase in the Great Garden . The Saxon Church Office ensured that the honor plates with the names of the fallen soldiers were preserved and had them installed in an open hall of honor directly at the main portal of the garrison church in the Catholic part.
literature
- City Lexicon Dresden. A – Z. Verlag der Kunst, Dresden et al. 1994, ISBN 3-364-00300-9 .
- Fritz Löffler : The old Dresden. History of his buildings . 15th edition. EA Seemann, Leipzig 2002, ISBN 3-363-00007-3 , pp. 390 .
- Dieter Miedtank, Rolf Rehe, Manfred Beyer: Disappeared monuments. Destroyed, forgotten. (= Military writings of the working group Sächsische Militärgeschichte e.V. , Issue 7.) Dresden 2005, ISBN 978-3-9809520-1-9 , pp. 8 ff. And 5 (Fig.).
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ First known public record of the now new term Germania monument from Löffler, Das alten Dresden , 1st edition, 1955.
- ↑ a b c d Dieter Miedtank, Rolf Rehe, Manfred Beyer: Disappeared monuments - Destroyed - Forgotten , p. 8ff. and 5 (fig.).
- ↑ a b Gaebler.info/2014/01/robert-henze
- ^ Löffler: The old Dresden. 2002, p. 303, p. 390, image no. 381
Coordinates: 51 ° 2 ′ 58.8 ″ N , 13 ° 44 ′ 16.3 ″ E