Heinrich Heine Monument (Düsseldorf)

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A total of five monuments to Heinrich Heine in Düsseldorf have been erected over the years. A first attempt was made in 1887, but it did not materialize in the course of a "monument dispute" . In 1932 "Der Aufstrebende Jüngling" by Georg Kolbe was created , most recently in 2012 the "Buch Heine" by Bert Gerresheim .

Heine himself assumed that he would be honored with a memorial after his death in Düsseldorf. In a letter to his brother Max on August 29, 1837, he wrote: “I will probably increase the number of those noblest and greatest men in Germany who go to the grave with broken hearts and torn coats. A monument will then be erected for me in Düsseldorf. "

Heinrich Heine monuments initiated or erected in Düsseldorf

"Loreley" by Ernst Herter 1887

A first attempt to erect a Heinrich Heine monument in Düsseldorf was undertaken in 1887 by a committee for the erection of a Heine monument , which Empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary , who adored the poet particularly deeply, also joined with a commitment of 50,000 marks. An exhibition of designs by the sculptor Ernst Herter took place in the Düsseldorf Kunsthalle . Further donations from the citizenry had already been collected when, after a public debate in the German Reich and Austria, which was partly characterized by anti-Semitic and nationalist contributions, the Empress and other supporters withdrew from the project in 1888 and it failed a little later.

Furthermore, the cities of Mainz and Frankfurt am Main tried to get the monument. It was finally realized in New York in 1899 . The implemented design by Herter shows the legendary figure of the Loreley mentioned in Heine's poem Die Lore-Ley .

After the failure of the Heinrich Heine monument in Düsseldorf, Empress Elisabeth had her own Heine monument erected by Louis Hasselriis in her Mediterranean residence Achilleion on Corfu in 1892 . After detours, it found its current location in the Botanical Garden in Toulon in 1939 (see Heinrich Heine Monument (Toulon) ).

"The aspiring young man" by Georg Kolbe 1932

"The aspiring youth" in the Düsseldorf courtyard

In 1926 the writers Herbert Eulenberg and Hanns Heinz Ewers called for the erection of a Heinrich Heine statue. In 1929 the demand was followed by a “Preparatory Committee”, a “Local Committee” supported by Mayor Robert Lehr and an “Honorary Committee”. The second attempt to erect a Heine monument, initiated in this way, took concrete form in 1931. In that year the city of Düsseldorf announced a competition, which the sculptor Georg Kolbe won in 1932 with the bronze sculpture The Aspiring Young Man . Arno Breker and Johannes Knubel received further prizes for their designs.

However, due to Nazi influence, Heinrich Heine was not allowed to be honored by the object. Without a corresponding dedication, it was therefore initially installed in a vestibule of the art museum in the courtyard .

In 1949 the statue was placed on a stone plinth in the originally planned location opposite the main entrance of today's NRW Forum in the courtyard of honor. It was not until 2002 that the inscription “Dedicated to Heinrich Heine” was put on the base .

Heine memorial with "Harmonie" by Aristide Maillol 1953

Heine memorial by Ivo Beucker with the sculpture "Harmonie" by Aristide Maillol

In 1953, a Heine memorial was created on the Napoleonsberg in the Hofgarten , which was paid for by the Kunstverein for the Rhineland and Westphalia . A staircase was framed by a natural stone wall and a natural stone pedestal with inscriptions and a medallion. On it is the sculpture "Harmonie", a girl's torso, by the French sculptor Aristide Maillol .

“Squatting youth with a book” by Arno Breker 1980

In 1979, Herman Lohausen founded a Heinrich Heine Monument Society for the erection of a Heinrich Heine monument by Arno Breker . She initially wanted to have his 1932 design carried out, but in 1980 Breker created a model of a seated young man with a book in his hand. This sculpture was enlarged and cast in bronze .

The sculpture was rejected by the head of the cultural affairs department, Bernd Dieckmann, because it was too idealizing and conventional: "Heine as an idealized figure on a pedestal, that would be today, 125 years after his death, just a memorial 125 years late, no longer [...] . Our time demands more than a conventional memorial, especially when it comes to Heine [...]. ”Theo Lücker suspects that there were primarily political reasons for the city of Düsseldorf, namely not to rehabilitate the Nazi propagandist and Hitlerite. Wanting to participate favorably.

The Heinrich Heine Memorial Society then gave the statue to the city of Norderney as a gift. It was set up on December 6, 1983 in front of the Kurtheater Norderney .

"Gespaltener Heine" by Bert Gerresheim 1981

The Heinrich Heine monument on the Schwanenmarkt.

The Heinrich Heine Monument at the southern end of the Schwanenmarkt park is a donation from the Munich banker and art patron Stefan Kaminsky to the city of Düsseldorf. It shows Heinrich Heine in the form of his severed death mask . It was designed by Bert Gerresheim in 1978 and completed in 1981 as a patinated bronze sculpture by Raimund Kittl . The handover to the city took place on the 125th anniversary of Heinrich Heine's death with great sympathy from the population.

Gerresheim's work was initially very controversial because of its unconventional presentation. After the sculpture was unveiled, a protest banner was attached. The work was referred to as a “junkyard”, “scandal” and “Lazarus face with his exaggerated Jewish nose”. According to Dietrich Schubert , the sculpture is supposed to show Heinrich Heine's turmoil, which he complained about in his travel pictures “The Baths of Lucca” (1829).

"Sensing Heine" after Hugo Lederer 1994

"Sinnender Heine" in front of the University and State Library in Düsseldorf

The Heinrich Heine University erected a Heine monument in 1994, which goes back to a Heine monument in Hamburg that was dismantled by the National Socialists in 1933 . The Senate of the Hanseatic City commissioned Hugo Lederer to do this in 1911 . It was erected in 1926, dismantled in 1933, and in 1943 it was scrapped and melted down along with thousands of other bronze items for armaments production. In 1982, a memorial for Heinrich Heine based on the former sculpture was created in Hamburg, see Heinrich-Heine-Denkmal (Hamburg) .

Hugo Lederer's workshop model had stood the test of time and was in the possession of the Düsseldorf lawyer Friedrich Maase . After him a bronze sculpture was made again. It was inaugurated on June 16, 1994 on the university campus in front of the Düsseldorf University and State Library building.

Heinrich Heine bust for the Walhalla by Bert Gerresheim 2010

The Düsseldorf Friends of Heinrich Heine, led by the entrepreneur Karl-Heinz Theisen , initiated Heine's admission to the Walhalla in Donaustauf, Bavaria . The poet himself ridiculed the memorial, erected in 1842, as a “marble skull”. In July 2010, a marble sculpture made after Heine's death mask by the sculptor Bert Gerresheim was installed there.

“Buch Heine” by Bert Gerresheim 2012

"Buch Heine" on the campus of Heinrich Heine University

A fifth Heine monument was erected in Düsseldorf in October 2012, also on the Heinrich Heine University campus, in front of the Roy Lichtenstein Hall. It was a gift from the Düsseldorf real estate agent Lutz Aengevelt and, after his introduction, was intended to replace the statue in front of the university library. It was also created by Bert Gerresheim.

The approximately four meter high bronze sculpture stands on a concrete base that can be walked on. It represents an opened book, with a portrait of Heine's youth and age on the book cover and a cut-out profile of Heine on a sheet of paper. Another sheet bears quotations from Heine's work. The book stands on scissors, a symbolic reference to the censorship from which the writer suffered. Behind the book is a fool clamp that on Marchese Christophoro di Gumpelino Romeo and Juliet "me, I happiness Woe fool!" Quote in Heine's work III Travel Pictures - The Baths of Lucca and with this figure on the Platen affair points .

Heinrich Heine received further honors in Düsseldorf

The Heine-Haus , the Heinrich-Heine-Allee , the Heinrich-Heine-Universität , its Heinrich-Heine-Visiting Professorship, the Heinrich-Heine-Institut , the Heinrich-Heine-Gesellschaft and the are named after Heinrich Heine in his native Düsseldorf Heinrich Heine Prize .

See also

literature

  • Heine almanac as a protest against Düsseldorf's refusal of monuments . Koch, Nuremberg 1893 digitized
  • Simone Pohlandt: Confrontation and provocation. The Heinrich Heine monuments by Bert Gerresheim. Grupello, Düsseldorf 2016, ISBN 978-3-89978-242-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ HSA 21, No. 657. Quoted from: Joseph Anton Kruse : Heines Düsseldorf - Düsseldorfs Heine . In: Gerhard Kurz : Düsseldorf in the German intellectual history . Schwann, Düsseldorf 1984, ISBN 3-590-30244-5 , p. 345
  2. ↑ a b c Dietrich Schubert: "Face of Lazarus" as a question mark - in view of the Heinrich Heine monument from 1981 in Düsseldorf. (PDF) Mattenklott, Gert (Ed.): "Deutsche Nationaldenkmale 1790 - 1990", page: 76-99, 1993, accessed on January 16, 2015 .
  3. ↑ Rolf Purpar: art city Dusseldorf. Objects and monuments in the cityscape . Grupello Verlag, Düsseldorf 1996, ISBN 3-89978-044-2 , p. 12 (PDF)
  4. ↑ Stadtarchiv Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf: Timeline from 1930 to 1960 (with illustration) , accessed on October 1, 2012.
  5. ↑ Online portal of the state capital Düsseldorf: In the footsteps of Heinrich Heine (1) , accessed on October 1, 2012.
  6. ↑ Online portal of the state capital Düsseldorf: Heine in Düsseldorf , accessed on October 1, 2012.
  7. ↑ Dagmar Matten-Gohdes: Heine is good. A Heine reading book . Beltz and Gelberg, Weinheim 1997, p. 192 .
  8. ↑ a b c d e The Heinrich Heine Monument. A caricature of our time? In: Theo Lücker: Düsseldorf - around the Karlstadt. Verlag Goethe-Buchhandlung Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf 1990, p. 168.
  9. ^ Susanne Schwabach-Albrecht: In Heine's society . Heinrich-Heine-Gesellschaft eV Düsseldorf 1956-2006. Ed .: Joseph A. Kruse. Grupello, Düsseldorf 2006, ISBN 3-89978-054-X , p. 65.66 .
  10. ↑ a b Cast in bronze: The "Book of Heine". Heinrich Heine University magazine 2012, issue 4, pages 26–30, 2012, accessed on January 15, 2015 .
  11. ↑ Hugo Lederer's historical Heine Bozzetti. (pdf) Retrieved May 4, 2017 .
  12. ↑ Eckhard Fuhr: Heinrich Heine is now also in the Walhalla. on: welt.de , July 29, 2012, accessed November 30, 2012.
  13. ^ Markus Wittkowski: Harry Heine reinterpreted. With three tons of bronze right in the heart of the students at Heinrich Heine University: Monument by Bert Gerresheim. (No longer available online.) In: Das Tor 2014 issue 1, page 17. Düsseldorfer Jonges , January 26, 2014, archived from the original on December 22, 2015 ; Retrieved December 19, 2015 . (PDF; 4.2 MB)
  14. ^ Philipp Holstein: New Heinrich Heine Monument for Düsseldorf. on: rp-online.de , October 27, 2012, accessed on October 27, 2012.
  15. ^ Heinrich Heine: The baths of Lucca. ( Memento from January 5, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Excerpt from Heinrich Heine: Travel Pictures III - The Baths of Lucca. at: matoni.de , accessed on October 27, 2012.

Coordinates: 51 ° 13 ′ 9.8 ″  N , 6 ° 46 ′ 24 ″  E