Heroes Monument of the Red Army

The Red Army Heroes' Monument on Schwarzenbergplatz (2013)

Water feature (2019)

The Red Army Heroes' Monument (also Russian Monument , Liberation Monument, Victory Monument, but also Erbsendenkmal) on Schwarzenbergplatz in Vienna was erected in 1945 to commemorate around 17,000 Red Army soldiers who died in the Battle of Vienna .

history

Architecture and still image

The soldier statue on the top of the monument (2013)

As early as February 1945, the Red Army made the decision to erect a victory memorial for the battle for Vienna, which was then still to come. To this end, a small architectural competition was held, which Major G. G. Jakowlew won with a pencil sketch.

Also before the Red Army had reached Austria, the sculptor Lieutenant Michail Awakowitsch Intesarjan formed several models for the soldier who stood on the top of the central, 20-meter-high column, holding a flag and a gold-plated shield with the coat of arms of the Soviet Union. Since no clay was available for this work, which was carried out during the campaign , leftover bread was modeled around a bottle.

The statue on a high column is framed by a semicircular colonnade 8 meters high and 26 columns; At either end of the colonnade there is a group of two fighters. The carved text comes from the Russian poet Sergei Michalkow , and two Stalin quotes can be seen on the base of the column .

At the colonnade you can read in Russian:

Eternal glory for the heroes of the Red Army who fell in the fight against the German-fascist land robbers - for the freedom and independence of the peoples of Europe.

A tilted metal cube was erected in front of the central column with the statue on which can be read in German and Russian:

Memorial in honor of the soldiers of the Soviet Army who fell for the liberation of Austria from fascism.

Intesaryan and Jakowlew are named as designers of the monument. The typography and text on the cube do not match those on the monument; the cube could have been added later.

The overall coordination was with Major Ing. M. S. Schönfeld (also: Schejnfeld). Allegedly, Schönfeld was so impressed by the Deutschmeister monument on Deutschmeisterplatz on Vienna's Ringstrasse (against the backdrop of the Roßau barracks ) that he took it as a model for the monument.

Location and construction

The Red Army considered several locations for the memorial, including in the Prater , it was erected in the 3rd district at the southern end of Schwarzenbergplatz between the Hochstrahlbrunnen and the forecourt of Palais Schwarzenberg . The House of Industry , in which the Allied Council met from autumn 1945 , is within sight of the monument (see also: Occupied Post-War Austria ).

Austrian workers and German prisoners of war were used for the construction work. Around 15 tons of bronze were processed in the manufacture of the statue of the Red Army soldier, which was cast in a foundry on Erdberger Lände . 300 square meters of Engelsberg marble were brought in for the column , and around 2500 cubic meters of earth were moved. In the course of this work, the high-jet fountain was also repaired.

The southern part of Schwarzenbergplatz was called Stalinplatz from April 12, 1946 to July 18, 1956.

The Red Army was concerned with the erection of the monument to the Fallen, but it also wanted to showcase its capabilities. Before the monument was unveiled, those responsible were concerned that the cloth covering the monument would not fall down as planned. Major Schönfeld therefore inspected the covering from a turntable ladder of the Vienna fire brigade to be on the safe side in order to avoid unpleasant incidents.

Disclosure, custody

Among the speakers at the unveiling of the Victory Monument on August 19, 1945, which was also broadcast live on radio, were Austrian State Chancellor Karl Renner , State Secretary (= Minister) Engineer Leopold Figl and Ernst Fischer (thus representatives of all three of the provisional Parties forming the state government) as well as the mayor of Vienna, General a. D. Theodor Koerner . These politicians had to walk a tightrope: they were supposed to show Austria's gratitude to the Soviet Union for liberation from National Socialism, but they weren't allowed to overdo it. The Renner Provisional Government was initially mistaken for a Russian puppet government by the Western Allies and was therefore not yet recognized by Great Britain, France and the United States. This assessment of the Western Allies could not be encouraged.

On the day of its unveiling, the monument was handed over to the Vienna city administration, which undertook to maintain, restore and guard it.

The SU-100 at its current location in the Army History Museum (2010)

The town hall correspondence published by the city administration reported on November 6, 1947:

“Honoring the fallen Soviet soldiers by the City of Vienna on the anniversary of the October Revolution.
On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the October Revolution in Russia, official celebrations by the city of Vienna took place today in front of the liberation monument on Stalinplatz and by the Russian soldiers' graves in the central cemetery , in which numerous representatives of the Vienna city government took part. "

Austria's obligation to preserve this and similar monuments was laid down in Article 19 of the State Treaty with the four occupying powers in 1955 . The Red Army soldiers who were buried near the memorial were later exhumed and buried in Vienna's central cemetery. The SU-100 tank destroyer , which is also displayed here, was given to the Army History Museum in the arsenal . The Liberation Monument was fundamentally restored in 2009.

reception

Locals also called the memorial monument to the unknown looter , pea monument or pea prince . The names beginning with the word peas can probably be traced back to an aid campaign called pea donation or maize donation , during which 1000 tons of peas were distributed to the starving population on May 1, 1945 by order of Stalin. The term Russian monument is still used today , although the Red Army consisted of soldiers of all nationalities from the Soviet Union.

Special events

Assassination plan

In 1947, two 19-year-old men and a 25-year-old woman were tried who were trying to join a werewolf group of the Nazi underground and, according to a state police officer, were planning a bomb attack on the hero monument with illegally hoarded explosives.

After the suspects were convicted, the Social Democratic Interior Minister Oskar Helmer supported a petition for clemency. Allegedly, the communist state police chief Heinrich Dürmayer exaggerated the case in order to look good with the Soviet occupiers. He was removed from office by the Minister of the Interior.

Faber murder case

On April 15, 1958, a woman's corpse, Ilona Faber, was found behind the colonnade . A suspect was tried and acquitted because the jury was tied. The case was the subject of intense media coverage at the time.

Attempted bomb attack

On August 18, 1962, a bag with an explosive device was found on the base of the liberation memorial that could be defused. Documents found in the bag and other bombs found in Austria pointed to Italy , where several suspects could actually be investigated. The main suspect was sentenced to nine years and four months in prison; he died shortly afterwards. The sentences of the other convicts were greatly reduced in appeal negotiations.

literature

Matthias Marschik and Georg Spitaler (eds.): The Vienna Russian Monument. Architecture, history, conflicts. Turia + Kant publishing house, 2005, ISBN 3-85132-428-5