Hermannsdenkmal
The Hermannsdenkmal is a colossal statue near the district of Hiddesen in the area of the city of Detmold in North Rhine-Westphalia in the southern Teutoburg Forest . It was built between 1838 and 1875 according to designs by Ernst von Bandel and inaugurated on August 16, 1875.
The monument is intended to commemorate the Cheruscan prince Arminius , in particular the so-called battle in the Teutoburg Forest , in which Germanic tribes under his leadership inflicted a decisive defeat on the three Roman legions XVII , XVIII and XIX under Publius Quinctilius Varus in the year 9.
With a figure height of 26.57 meters and a total height of 53.46 meters, it is the tallest statue in Germany and was the tallest statue in the western world from 1875 until the Statue of Liberty was built in 1886 .
Historical background
The building is to be seen against the background of the German-political situation of the 19th century, in which the term “ German-French hereditary enmity ” was coined by centuries-old conflicts. Due to the defeats against the French under Napoleon Bonaparte and the political fragmentation of Germany, the intellectual elite increasingly began to seek a national identity in the Germanic past. With the contemporary evaluation of Arminius as one of the first unifier of the "German" (actually "Germanic") tribes, this figure offered itself, especially since the Arminius figure was known in the German-speaking area since the rediscovery of Roman historians through humanism in the 16th century.
National monuments in the 19th century
The erection of national monuments such as the Walhalla (initiated in 1807, beginning with Hermann) near Regensburg or from 1877 the Niederwald monument representing Germania near Rüdesheim am Rhein , which were mostly of the classical style, but took up national romantic themes, is also a result of this Identity search .
Other plans and designs
Mainly due to the success of Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock's Hermannsdramen, there were already various plans in the 18th century to create monuments for Arminius. After the end of the wars of liberation against Napoleonic rule, these became more popular again. As early as 1813 and 1814, for example, Karl Friedrich Schinkel went public with a draft monument. Shortly before construction began on the Hermann Monument in 1839, he and Christian Daniel Rauch submitted a competing design, which, however, was rejected by most of the Hermann Monument Associations.
Location
The Hermann Monument stands in the Big giant ring called ring wall on the heavily wooded, 386-meter high Grotenburg .
According to research at the time, the builder Ernst von Bandel still assumed that the Varus Battle had taken place in the Teutoburg Forest. The choice on the Grotenburg was made for practical and aesthetic considerations. The prince of Lippe wanted to make the building site available only on the condition that the monument was erected on top of the mountain, as it would be visible from afar from there over Lippe . In the meantime, most archaeological experts classify the Kalkriese region near Bramsche in Lower Saxony as the most likely site of the battle.
Building history
Construction began in 1838. Even before construction began, but also as a result of the construction, associations were set up all over Germany that successfully raised funds for the monument. So reports about Heinrich Heine in 1843 and 1844: "... set a monument to Detmold; I subscribed myself . "
In 1846 the base of the monument was completed. In the reaction phase after the revolution of 1848, construction was suspended until 1863. During this time there was no financial or political interest in continuing the construction. This state of affairs is reflected in the last stanza of Joseph Victor von Scheffel's As the Romans Got Cheeky (1849). The monument project only became popular again with the visit of the Prussian king in June 1869 to the building site and subsequently with the establishment of the German Empire after the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871). The Reichstag approved 10,000 thalers for further construction, Wilhelm I donated the same amount. The largest amount of 37,500 Thalers came from private sources through donations from the population; Franz Joseph I gave another 1,082 thalers , other German royal houses transferred 13,500 thalers and 1,500 thalers arrived from abroad. The total cost was 90,000 thalers. Ernst von Bandel had waived an artist fee from the start. This means that the monument only cost half as much as the Bavaria .
The creation of the monument cannot be separated from its builder, the sculptor Ernst von Bandel . He dedicated himself to the monument project all his life and tried to find further financial support for its completion, especially during the period of construction interruption. While the work was being carried out, Bandel lived temporarily in a log house built below the monument, the Bandel hut , which can still be visited. Bandel was still able to experience the inauguration in 1875; he died in 1876.
Appearance
The substructure
The monument is a combination of architectural and figural monuments. The substructure of the Hermann monument has a round floor plan, is 26.89 m high and consists of roughly hewn Osning sandstone . Ten pillars (more precisely pillar templates) and ten niches are set back on the 2.20 m high base. The shafts of the pillars are hexagonal in shape. The services of the capitals form pointed arches to the next pillar and round arches to the next but one pillar (style mix Gothic and Romanesque ). Above the capitals there is the rib-like visitor circuit. Above it is a round dome as a typical moment of the representation of the ruler and on a further small base the figure of Hermann. Stones from the Grotenburg were also used to build the base, so that the prehistoric refugee castle complex was largely destroyed by the monument building.
The figure
The figure has a height of 26.57 m. It consists of an iron pipe construction, the surface of copper plates. It weighs 42.80 t including the base on which it is attached. You can see a larger than life figure with antique armor and a winged helmet . The right arm is stretched up and holds a sword that measures 7 m and weighs about 550 kg and was donated by the Krupp . The sword arm is stretched towards the west; Depending on your point of view, this is interpreted as an offensive or defensive warning towards France . The left arm is leaning on a waist-high shield. An eagle ( Aquila ) and a bundle of lictors ( Fasces ) lie under the left, slightly bent leg . The information about Hermann's clothing may have been taken from Bandel from the works of Tacitus . It is noticeable that no tribal symbols or the like were attached to the statue.
Inscriptions
The sword bears the inscription:
MY: STRENGTH: GERMANY: POWER
The sign says:
Sayings were only inserted in the niches of the monument after the founding of the empire in 1870/71. They combine the Franco-German hereditary enmity with Germanic-Roman history. The now almost forgotten overline was also used, which shows the doubling of the overlined letter (for the sake of readability, inserted here by an addition in square brackets):
who victoriously overcame French power and deceit ,
who long lost sons home to the German Reich,
Armin, the savior he is the same.
inscription
inscription
inscription
facts and figures
Weights of the individual elements
- Still image: 42,800 kg
- Shield: 1,150 kg
- Sword: 550 kg
Dimensions
- Height of the monument: 53.46 m
- Size of the substructure: 19.86 m
- Size of the dome: 7.03 m
- Height of the figure: 26.57 m
- Length of the sword: 7.00 m
- Height of the sign: 10.00 m
Monument landscape on the Grotenburg
In the vicinity of the Hermann monument there is also a Bismarck stone erected in 1895 and a memorial stone for the establishment of the German YMCA national association in 1882 on the Grotenburg . A commemorative plaque is also attached to the place where Kaiser Wilhelm I sat at the inauguration ceremony in 1875. In 1950 the East Westphalia-Lippischer Friedensring placed a plaque with the inscription "German men and women unanimously commit to the unification of the peoples through peace on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Hermann Monument" on a boulder next to the monument.
Memorial stone for the foundation of the German YMCA national association in 1882
Board of the East Westphalian-Lippe Peace Ring
Reception history
.JPG)
The aesthetics of the Hermann Monument can be classified in the light of the historical events during the construction period from 1838 to 1875. The monument reflects both national and democratic as well as nationalist approaches. At the ceremony for the laying of the foundation stone in 1841, for example, the keynote speakers said that Arminius had "erased the difference between masters and slaves, between citizens and strangers" and also cleared up the "other peoples of the earth". Here the monument is not only to be understood as a call for the unification of the German people (not the German princes!), But also as a symbol of freedom for all peoples. However, in the course of the history of reception, this national-liberal line of reception lost its importance in relation to more aggressive tones. Also interesting is the narrowing of the originally Greater German intention of the Hermann Monument Movement to an explicitly small German , which was expressed above all in the inauguration ceremony.
Hermann vs. Vercingetorix
Since the “rediscovery” of Arminius at the beginning of the 19th century as the “founder of the German nation” in German literature was in the context of the wars of liberation against Napoleonic rule, the monument always had an anti-French attitude, a. in the niche sayings and the turning of the figure to the west (see above). That is why the Hermann monument can also be seen in connection with the Vercingetorix monuments in France. Plans for a Hermann monument were discussed in the French press even before the foundation stone was laid in 1838. It is said that the "rediscovery" of Vercingetorix in France, which took place around the same period, began as a reaction to the mythification of Arminius in Germany after 1813 and 1814. Napoleon III Founded the first Vercingetorix monument in 1865, which is similar in form and content to Arminius. For a long time, however, Vercingetorix was not adopted as a national hero in France like Arminius.
After the founding of the German Empire in 1871, both characters got a more and more aggressive note. They combined the virtues typical for each country, while the other were denied them at the same time (hero versus criminal).
It was not until 1871, after the French defeat in the Franco-German War , that the figure of Vercingetorix was also stylized as the “founder of the nation” and in contrast to Germany. While the Hermannsdenkmal embodies the victory as a triple repetition of the Germans over their enemies (9, 1813 and 1814, 1870 and 1871), Vercingetorix illustrates the defeat against the Romans (52 BC); An essential element of the French creation of meaning, however, is also the fight against an enemy that was first waged as a nation. With the defeat, however - from the point of view of many French - civilization found its way into France, while Arminius and the Teutons remained in barbarism. From the point of view of many Germans, however, the successful defense of Germanic culture created a continuity that allowed Germany to appear as a cultural nation in the 19th century , but France as a state nation .
19th century
In the Kulturkampf , the Hermannsdenkmal was a popular symbol to take action against ultra-montane Catholicism under the motto “Against Rome!” . At the 1900 anniversary of the Hermannsschlacht , anti- SPD voices predominated. So if the memorial was originally planned as a memorial for German unity, the place developed more and more into a symbol of the exclusion of supposed "enemies of the Reich". In the course of the phase up to 1918, the symbolism of the monument was increasingly occupied by the political right. In 1893 representatives of anti-Semitic parties met at the monument, and ethnic groups also discovered the “Germanic” monument for themselves.
20th and 21st centuries
During the First World War , the memorial was a popular motif to take action again against the “archenemy” France and after the Italian entry into the war against the “traitorous Romans”.
During the Weimar Republic , associations from the right-wing extremist spectrum gathered on the Grotenburg almost every month . Among them were representatives of the Völkische Movement , the DNVP , the early NSDAP and the Young German Order . However, the democratic parties such as the SPD , DDP and the center tried to counter the right-wing radical occupation of the Hermann monument and to appeal to democratic values such as unity and freedom with the history of the monument's origins. Although the monument had played a major role in the Lippe state election campaign of 1933 as an election campaign motif of the NSDAP, Propaganda Minister Goebbels refused to give the monument the status of a “national pilgrimage site” during the Nazi era.
After the Second World War , it was difficult to deal with the monument. A removal of the niche claims was discussed but ultimately rejected. Until the beginning of the 1960s, the FDP gathered at the memorial on the day of commemoration of the popular uprising in the GDR as a reminder of unity and freedom. Even the GDR - or KPD - near Bund der Deutschen advertised in the 1950s with the memorial motif to plead for the withdrawal of the western occupying powers and an agreement based on the Eastern model. Since the 1970s, the memorial has mostly only played a certain propaganda role for small right-wing extremist factions.
Today the monument is supposed to function as a "memorial for peace" in the sense of the Lippe regional association . The 125th anniversary celebration in 2000 was largely free of political undertones. If one summarizes the political symbolism of the monument, the Hermannsdenkmal offered a wide range of interpretations in its history: from the aggressively anti-French, nationalist symbol to the exclusion of German Catholics, Jews and Social Democrats to a place of peaceful appeal to the unity of Germany and freedom for all Nations.
On July 2, 2012, the LM-S lightning current measuring system was installed at the Hermannsdenkmal. The measurements are intended to advance lightning research.
The Hermannsdenkmal was cleaned for the first time in its history in September 2016 for the Open Monument Day . To this end, the monument was cleaned to a small extent on a trial basis in October of the previous year to ensure that the process did not cause any damage. A sponsor paid for the cleaning.
tourism
.JPG)
The Hermannsdenkmal, maintained by the Landesverband Lippe , is one of the most famous German sights. It is the target of several hundred thousand visitors every year. The neighboring Externsteine , which are often viewed in combination on the same day, are also well known.
The circulation area on the sandstone base of the monument can be climbed for an entrance fee. From there you can enjoy a 360 ° view. So you can look over the mountain landscape of the Teutoburg Forest / Eggegebirge nature park , but also, for example, to the Habichtswald near Kassel and the Köterberg in the south-east of Lippe near Höxter . The figure itself can be climbed inside using steel ladders, but is closed to the public. There is a legend about this that someone once fell out of a nostril and then the figure was blocked for visitors, but this is not possible because the nostrils are only a few centimeters large.
Hikers can reach the Hermann monument from the north via the Hermannsweg and from the south via the Eggeweg .
You can drive to the parking lot at the monument: It is easy to reach via the B 1 and the B 239 and finally via smaller side streets thanks to good signs - tourist destinations and Hermannsdenkmal .
The Hermannsdenkmal is the starting point of the Hermannslauf , which takes place annually in April and runs over the Hermannsweg over a length of around 31 kilometers to the Sparrenburg in Bielefeld and in which around 7,000 runners and walkers take part. The Hermannsdenkmal is also an important advertising factor in the region. In order to improve the number of visitors, the idea arose in the spring of 1999 to dress Hermann. On July 16, 1999, with the help of a Hermannsfigur's lifting crane, the initiators put on a huge blue and white jersey made of 130 m² of fabric for the Arminia Bielefeld football club . For this action they received the entry in the Guinness Book of Records in 2001 .
The monument became a popular excursion destination at the latest with the Detmold railway connection in 1881. In the 1950s it was a popular day trip destination in West Germany, so that the annual number of visitors sometimes exceeded the million mark. After a brief upswing directly after the German reunification in 1989/90, the number of visitors has been falling since the mid-1990s. In the meantime, around 500,000 visitors are expected annually.
Since 2008 the Hermannsdenkmal belongs to the street of the monuments , a network of German monuments and places of remembrance founded on the initiative of the City History Museum Leipzig . The aim of the network is "to network the places of remembrance as former focal points of the past more closely and to make them more tangible as a whole through joint marketing measures."
Since 2009 there have been regular events on the Waldbühne at the Hermannsdenkmal, such as comedy and music events. The moonlight cinema is held annually in July and August for several weeks on the forest stage. With 999 seats, it is the largest open-air cinema in East Westphalia.
Further Hermann monuments
Less known is the “little brother” of Detmold's Hermann Monument , the “ Hermann Heights Monument ” in New-Ulm ( Minnesota ), which was built at the end of the 19th century on the initiative of German emigrants. Although it is not an exact copy of Bandel's monument, it is a similar conception consisting of a round substructure with a figure. With a height of 31 meters, the monument is considerably smaller than the Detmold monument and can also be climbed up to the gallery. Inaugurated in 1897, the monument celebrated its centenary in 1997. A delegation from Lippe also took part in the big festival. Previously, the monument, which bears the name "Hermann on the Prairie", was included in the US National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
Since 1909, a small Hermann figure has stood only around 25 km away from the large monument on the roof of an Art Nouveau house in the Catholic Paderborn on Detmolder Strasse. This smaller figure does not look to the west, but to the northeast in the direction of the original near Detmold and represents a counterpoint to its partly anti-Catholic interpretation.
A smaller version of the monument can be found in the miniature wonderland in Hamburg. It is located in the local village of Hermannsdorf .
A Hermannsdenkmal made exactly to the scale 1 to 87 was built by the model federal railway in Brakel.
literature
- Andreas Dörner: Political Myth and Symbolic Politics. Creation of meaning through symbolic forms using the example of the Hermann myth. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1995, ISBN 3-531-12697-0 (Zugl .: Essen, Univ., Diss., 1994).
- Günter Engelbert (Ed.): A Century Hermann Monument 1875–1975 (= special publications of the Natural Science and Historical Association for the Land of Lippe eV, Volume 23). Detmold 1975, DNB 751024074 .
- Roswitha Kaiser: Hermann: Monument, Care and Staging (PDF; 1.4 MB). In: Preservation of monuments in Westphalia-Lippe. 01/07. LWL, Ardey, Münster 2007, ISSN 0947-8299 , pp. 13-18.
- Stephanie Lux-Althoff (editor): 125 years of the Hermannsdenkmal. National monuments in a historical and political context. Institute for Lippe Regional Studies, Lemgo 2001, ISBN 3-9807375-1-9 .
- Burkhard Meier: The Hermannsdenkmal and Ernst von Bandel. For the 200th birthday of the builder. Translated by Lore Schäfer. Topp and Möller, Detmold 2000, ISBN 3-9806101-7-9 (German, English).
- Dirk Mellies: "We fight under Hermann's mark until all our enemies are pale". The political reception of the Hermann Monument 1914–1933. In: Hermann Niebuhr and Andreas Ruppert (editor): War - Revolution - Republic. Detmold 1914–1933: Documentation of an urban history project. Aisthesis-Verlag, Bielefeld 2006, ISBN 3-89528-606-0 , pp. 335-373.
- Thomas Nipperdey : National Idea and National Monument in Germany in the 19th Century. In: Historical magazine . 206: 529-585 (1968).
- Georg Nockemann: Hermannsdenkmal (= Lippe sights . Issue 3). 2nd Edition. Wagener, Lemgo 1984, ISBN 3-921428-09-6 .
- Imke Ritzmann: Aspects of the history of ideas of the Hermann monument near Detmold. In: Lippische Mitteilungen . 75 (2006), pp. 193-229.
- Hans Schmidt: The Hermann Monument in the mirror of the world. Building history, contributions, visitors, interpretations. 1838, 1875, 1975. Herman Bösmann, Detmold 1975, DNB 760233209 .
- Charlotte Tacke: Monument in the social space. National symbols in Germany and France in the 19th century (= critical studies on historical science . Volume 108). Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1995, ISBN 3-525-35771-0 (Zugl .: Firenze, Europ. Univ. Inst., Diss., 1993; digitized in the Google book search).
- Michael cell: The Hermannsdenkmal (= Lippe cultural landscapes . Issue 25). Detmold 2014.
Web links
- Hermannsdenkmal
- Historical postcards from the Hermannsdenkmal
- Information on the award-winning film "The Hermann Battle" , made 1993–1995 around the monument (German, English, French)
- The Hermann Monument in the image archive of the LWL media center for Westphalia
Individual evidence
-
^ Association for the Hermanns Monument (ed.): The Hermanns Monument. To the residents of the Principality of Lippe. Detmold, March 24, 1838 (PDF; 937 kB), urn : nbn: de: bsz: 14-db-id3222532090 .
Association for the Hermanns Monument (ed.): News about the Hermanns Monument. Detmold, November 18, 1838 (PDF; 1.5 MB), urn : nbn: de: bsz: 14-db-id3222546633 . - ^ Heinrich Heine: Germany. A winter fairy tale . Caput XI.
- ↑ When the Romans got cheeky , Flying Leaves No. 229 (1849)
- ↑ Anne Roerkohl: The Hermannsdenkmal (= Westphalia in the picture, series: Kulturdenkmale in Westfalen. Issue 5). Regional Association of Westphalia-Lippe, Münster 1992.
- ↑ Eckhard Speetzen: Osning sandstone and Gault sandstone (Lower Cretaceous) from the Teutoburg Forest and the Egge Mountains and their use as natural building blocks. In: Geology and Paleontology in Westphalia . 77 (2010), p. 5 ( PDF; 1.8 MB ).
- ↑ a b Hermannsdenkmal / Detmold. In: lipperland.de, accessed on September 1, 2015.
- ^ Tacitus , Annales II, 88.
- ↑ Blitze am Hermann - Project: The installation at the Hermannsdenkmal. Phoenix Contact GmbH & Co. KG website, accessed on September 1, 2015.
- ↑ a b c Cold shower for Hermann. In: Westfälische Nachrichten . Westphalia, September 6, 2016.
- ↑ Film report within the " Sendung mit der Maus " ( broadcast with the mouse ). May 6, 2012.
- ^ Lippisches Landesmuseum Detmold. Retrieved July 30, 2013 .
- ↑ a b c Ultimo: Kraut Chronicles: Rock the Tanzhalle! - From old Texas chronicles: How emigrated Westphalia found their happiness in the Wild West ... or death. Carsten Krystofiak, No. 26 / 14-2 / 15, December 15, 2014 - January 18, 2015, p. 8 f.
- ↑ Ralf Mischer: Consecration for Hermann. Professor Dietmar Klenke gets to the bottom of the cult of the Cheruscan prince. In: New Westphalian . December 17, 2009, accessed September 1, 2015.
- ↑ Hermann Monument. Miniatur Wunderland Hamburg, accessed on September 1, 2015.
- ↑ Model making in Brakel: A Hermann from the 3D printer. In: Lippische Landeszeitung, accessed on September 8, 2018.
.png){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=link}
Coordinates: 51 ° 54 ′ 42 " N , 8 ° 50 ′ 22" E