Army memorial in the Leineschloss

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The Army Memorial in the Leineschloss in Hanover was a "museum" set up in the Leineschloss during the Nazi era with ambiguous content: it was intended to give the population the impression that it was to commemorate the dead of the - German - armies. In fact, however, the collection glorified the war itself and contributed to reinterpreting the German defeat of 1918 in World War I as a “victory in the field”. Above all, however, the army memorial was in the service of propaganda for a new world war and the armament of the Wehrmacht, which was not only wanted by Adolf Hitler .

history

The forerunner of the army memorial was the World War II collection of the city of Hanover , which was initiated around Christmas in December 1914, and which then placed its exhibition "focus on the broad documentation of the [Hanoverian] everyday history of the First World War". The responsible “ Patriotic Museum” of the city in the building at Prinzenstrasse 4 (forerunner of today's Historisches Museum am Hohen Ufer ) began at the time of the Weimar Republic due to the now little interest of the population in their lost war with a return to the traditions of the old Royal Hanoverian armies. In addition, in 1928 the Royal Prussian , a total of “69 flags and standards of the regiments of the X Army Corps ” of the German Empire, were added to the collection.

While the former head of "Urban War Collection" Georg Biermann , previously the World War collection as a "basis for a German World Heritage" herbeisinnierte , grew in the Third Reich , the fabled alleged " German character " to the racial ideology and the search for the alleged Aryans . For the World War II collection, employees of the Hanover city administration were now discussing the idea of setting up additional memorials for the German folk poets, Ludwig Hölty , Hermann Löns and Wilhelm Busch , who were formerly based in Hanover, but also especially for “leaders” such as Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and the colonialist Karl Peters , who as "Hang-Peters" had been removed from his office due to "the atrocities for which he was responsible" against the " natives " of the former German colony of German East Africa . The further expansion plans of the completely overcrowded display collection, which was no longer up-to-date in this sense and yet had grown to around 7,000 objects, were attacked by the daily press - and finally the NSDAP rejected the expansion plans . In particular, the plan for a special museum in the Hindenburgvilla in Seelhorststrasse failed because of the objection "by the party that wanted to prevent the creation of a German national ' place of pilgrimage '".

It was not until 1935, the year the Germans were reintroduced into military service , at least for the male part, that the outdated World War II collection was given a new purpose in the new location: On the one hand, there was a first local relief of the still in the under the name of "Heeresgedenkstätte im Leineschloss" Prinzenstrasse- based, completely overcrowded Patriotic Museum . On the other hand, the site of the army memorial - the befitting castle of the former absolutist rulers - no longer only served to commemorate the soldiers who fell in World War I , but also to honor the new sovereign, the new, sole "Führer" - Adolf Hitler. Under his likeness in the Leineschloss, the German defeat of 1918 in the First World War should be reinterpreted as a "victory in the field ", if the glorification of the war was intended to prepare the population for the total war that was instigated a few years later . While in the Vaterländisches Museum, the soon-to-be “Lower Saxony Folklore Museum” in Prinzenstrasse , the folklore department was now more strongly emphasized, the previously desired “Hindenburg Room” was finally set up in the Leineschloss.

The army memorial was finally opened on October 11, 1935. From 1937 to 1939, wreaths were laid here as part of the National Day of Mourning initiated by the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge , which preceded the actual " hero commemoration " with large troop marches and parades on the nearby Waterlooplatz .

During the first years of the Second World War , the collection was expanded to include “ loot ”.

During the first major air raid on Hanover on July 26, 1943 at 12:05 p.m., incendiary bombs from American B17 bombers hit the Leineschloss, which burned to the ground in just ten minutes - and thus the majority of the World War II collection was destroyed.

Today the Leineschloss, which has been redesigned especially inside, is the seat of the democratically elected Lower Saxony state government . Objects from the World War II collection that have survived and were supplemented by additions in the Federal Republic of Germany can now be found in the Hanover Historical Museum , the new museum building built by the architect Dieter Oesterlen on Burgstrasse until 1966, including the Old Armory.

literature

  • NN : The Army Memorial in the Leineschloß in Hanover [museum guide], Hanover, Leineschloß: Army Memorial, 1936
  • Waldemar R. Röhrbein : Historisches Museum am Hohen Ufer 1903 - 1976. In: Hannoversche Geschichtsblätter , New Series 32 (1978), pp. 3-60, here: pp. 24ff.
  • Gerhard Schneider: The army memorial in the Leineschloss in Hanover. At the same time a contribution to the militaria collections in the museums of Hanover. In: Hannoversche Geschichtsblätter , Neue Episode 41 (1987), pp. 139–191, in particular pp. 147–164.
  • Waldemar R. Röhrbein: Army memorial. In: Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein (eds.) U. a .: City Lexicon Hanover . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2009, ISBN 978-3-89993-662-9 , p. 278.
  • Andreas Fahl: Hindenburg, hero worship and everyday war life. The World War II collection in Hanover from 1914 to the present day . In: War Collections 1914-1918 , ed. by Julia Freifrau Hiller von Gaertringen . Frankfurt a. M. 2014, pp. 243-262.

Web links

  • Julia Freifrau Hiller von Gaertringen, Aibe-Marlene Gerdes (Red.): Data set 109 with historical and current information under the title War Collections in Germany 1914-1918 of the Badische Landesbibliothek on their website kriegssammlungen.de , ed. from the working group of regional libraries in the German Library Association
  • Michael-Andreas Tänzer (responsible): Historical Museum Hanover with a photo of an exhibited grenade launcher from 1916 in the Leineschloss from the HAZ - Hauschild - Archive in the Historical Museum Hanover on the de-de page . facebook .com from October 11, 2013, last accessed on July 30, 2014

References and comments

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Waldemar R. Röhrbein: Army Memorial (see literature)
  2. ↑ a b c d Hugo Thielen : World War II collection. In: Stadtlexikon Hannover , p. 669
  3. ↑ a b c d e Julia Freifrau Hiller von Gaertringen, Aibe-Marlene Gerdes (Red.): Data record 109 (see under the section Web Links )
  4. ^ Hugo Thielen: BIERMANN, Georg. In: Dirk Böttcher, Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein, Hugo Thielen: Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2002, ISBN 3-87706-706-9 , p. 56f .; online through google books
  5. ↑ Klaus Mlynek : PETERS, Karl. In: Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon , p. 283; online through google books
  6. ^ A b Klaus Mlynek: Old and New Museums. In: Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein (ed.): History of the City of Hanover , Volume 2: From the beginning of the 19th century to the present , Hanover: Schlütersche, 1994, ISBN 3-87706-364-0 , p. 527f .; online through google books
  7. ↑ Note: Deviating from this, 1936 is named as the opening year, compare Klaus Mlynek: 1936. In: Hannover Chronik , here: p. 177f; online through google books
  8. ↑ Alexandra Kaiser: Soldiers and other victims , in Alexandra Kaiser: Von Helden und Vpfern. A history of the day of national mourning (= campus historical studies ; Vol. 56), also dissertation 2009 at the University of Tübingen, Frankfurt am Main; New York, NY: Campus-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-593-39288-2 , pp. 297-353, here: p. 342; online through google books
  9. ↑ a b N.N .: The history of the parliament building. In: Landtag work: Politics in the Leineschloss , ed. by the President of the Lower Saxony State Parliament, Lower Saxony State Parliament, Department for Press, Public Relations, Protocol, Hanover: Lower Saxony State Parliament, 2006, pp. 3–9; here: p. 7
  10. ↑ Thomas Schwark , Waldemar R. Röhrbein: Historical Museum. In: Stadtlexikon Hannover , p. 299