Karl Peters Monument (Hanover)

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The Karl-Peters-Monument with the warning plaque against colonialism at today's Bertha-von-Suttner-Platz, Hanover
September 2014

The Karl Peter's memorial , even Karl Peter's monument and memorial plaque against colonialism called, was originally a mid-1930s-built monument in honor of Carl Peters , which later became a memorial against colonialism was transformed. The location of the memorial stone in the public space of the southern part of Hanover , which is also listed as a monument and as part of an ensemble , is the green space at the former address Am Karl-Peters-Platz 1 D on today's Bertha-von-Suttner-Platz .

History and description

The honors for the " gentleman " Carl Peters began in Hanover two years before the colonizer's death: During the time of the German Empire and in the middle of World War I , Karl-Peters-Platz, which was laid out in 1916, was named after "Hänge-Peters". During the Weimar Republic , in 1924, the Haspelstrasse, which ran around the square and was initially named after the field name, was renamed to the street name Am Karl-Peters-Platz under the Social Democratic Lord Mayor Robert Leinert .

After the National Socialists seized power in 1933, former friends of the late Carl Peters in particular suggested a monument to be erected in honor of Peter by the city and the local branch of the Reich Colonial Association (RKB). Most of the costs were borne by the Hanover city administration ; a smaller part was carried by the RKB and the German Colonial Society (DKG).

The sculptor Ulfert Janssen finally created the Karl Peters monument as a rectangular, monolith- like block of shell limestone with the portrait of the honored and an Africa relief carved out of the stone , above which "the German imperial eagle looks for prey". In addition the inscriptions

"Carl Peters"

and

"The great Lower Saxony Carl Peters, who acquired German East Africa for us"

On the day of the “Reich Colonial Rally” organized in the city of Hanover, the National Socialists inaugurated the memorial during the “Carl Peters Memorial Ceremonies” on October 27, 1935 and held a whole series of other colonial propaganda events on the same day , such as a torchlight procession . Representatives of the Reich, state, provincial and city authorities took part in the inauguration ceremony, but also party representatives of the NSDAP , representatives of the RKB and DKG as well as various colonial warrior associations, representatives of the Wehrmacht , the Kyffhäuserbund , the SA , the SS and the Police and the HJ . The speakers included the Mayor of Hanover at the time , Arthur Quantity, and Heinrich Schnee , the last Governor of German East Africa and President of the RKB. Almost in unison they emphasized in their ceremonial speeches that “the idea of ​​colonialism is more alive than ever in the German people” and emphatically demanded the “restoration of Germany into its colonial rights”. The Reichsstatthalter Franz Ritter von Epp , who is also President of the German Colonial Warriors' Union , presented in his closing speech "Peters as a role model for a man who has devoted his life (...) to creating a larger living space for the German people ".

Later, the memorial and the self-confident demeanor of Mayor Arthur Quantity with his “ frock coat and top hat in the midst of martially dressed party greats” became the subject of the anti-Semitic inflammatory pamphlet Der Stürmer, published by the Nuremberg Gauleiter Julius Streicher . After a Hanoverian party member reported that posters of the Seidenhaus Marx owned by a Jewish family had been placed on some of the advertising columns rented by the city's advertising office, the editors replied:

“How is it still possible today for a municipal office for Jewish business to advertise? In a city where there is a Lord Mayor who inaugurates a Karl Peters monument with a cylinder on his head and an open umbrella in his hand, that is possible. "

Colonial commemorations were regularly held at the Karl Peters Monument in the following years, until this hustle and bustle ended in 1939 with the forcible conquest of the "living space in the east" with the attack on Poland, which triggered the Second World War .

In the course of the 1968 movement , a decades-long discussion began in the early 1970s with the person Carl Peters and his honors in the public space of the Lower Saxony state capital. In the mid-1980s, these discussions of the peace movement - in particular through the Peace Forum Südstadt - finally reached the Hanover public. After initially calling for the memorial to be completely removed, the Hanoverian SPD submitted an application to the Südstadt-Bult district council in September 1985 for a warning plaque to be attached to the monument, which the majority of the CDU district council members at the time rejected, as did the representatives of the FDP . Nevertheless, at the same time the demand for the renaming of Karl-Peters-Platz and a new name for the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Bertha von Suttner became louder .

The memorial with a wooden frame and well-tended plants in the green area;
Photo from May 2010

At the decision of the administrative committee of the Lower Saxony state capital, the sculptor Joachim Schubotz finally designed a plaque that covers the lower part of the front of the monument and took up the following inscription:

“This memorial was erected in 1935 by the National Socialists. It stood for the glorification of colonialism and the mastermind. But for us it is a warning - in accordance with the Charter of Human Rights - to work for equal rights for all people, peoples and races. "

At the unveiling of the " warning plaque against colonialism " on June 30, 1988, Lord Mayor Herbert Schmalstieg spoke out against renaming the square because "the views of our ancestors that would have led to the naming of the square and the erection of the monument will not be undone" could be made: "But we want to add to these wrong views from our current point of view," explained the mayor.

The city ​​administration of Hanover was "relatively open" to the arguments of the Peace Forum Südstadt. She feared that she would otherwise be responsible for damage to the city's reputation in the context of the application for the Expo 2000 world exhibition and as host of the internationally recognized Hanover Fair , if she were to be closed to criticism. During the debates, individual inquiries were made as to how the Carl Peters honor would affect guests, for example from Hanover's twin town Blantyre in the Central African state of Malawi . With the majority of the red-green coalition consisting of the SPD and GAL ( Green Alternative List ), the council of the state capital Hanover therefore decided in 1989 “that citizens can dispense with the vote on street renaming if the namesake Crimes against humanity was involved ”. Accordingly, the Hanoverian administrative court justified the renaming of the square: “The naming after Carl Peters is incompatible with basic democratic values and endangers the reputation of the city. [...] The allegations against Carl Peters outweigh the residents' requests for identification . "

As a result of the inauguration of the memorial for observance of human rights and tough legal disputes over the renaming of Karl-Peters-Platz, the regulations for the administration were changed, so that since then, for example, streets can also be renamed against the will of the citizens . if

  1. the namesake contradicts current values ​​and
  2. at the same time "serious personal actions (crimes against humanity, racism , war crimes, etc.) are ascribed to this".

See also

literature

  • Joachim Zeller : “… his work and the memorial stone are controversial.” The monuments for Carl Peters in history class . In: History, Education, Politics , Heft 6, 1997, p. 366

Web links

Commons : Karl-Peters-Denkmal (Hannover)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Wolfgang Neß Südstadt , in: Monument topography Federal Republic of Germany , architectural monuments in Lower Saxony, City of Hanover , part 2, vol. 10.2, ed. by Hans-Herbert Möller , Lower Saxony State Administration Office - Institute for Monument Preservation , Friedr. Vieweg & Sohn Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Braunschweig 1985, ISBN 3-528-06208-8 , Addendum : Directory of architectural monuments acc. § 4 ( NDSchG ) (excluding architectural monuments of the archaeological monument preservation), status: July 1, 1985, City of Hanover , Lower Saxony State Administration Office - publications of the Institute for Monument Preservation , p. 7ff.
  2. ↑ top v . : Karl-Peters-Monument on Bertha-v.-Suttner-Platz , question no. 15-0004 / 2007 and answers on the e-government.hannover-stadt.de page with the answers from January 17th 2007, last accessed July 3, 2018
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h pmh (text), Jochen Lübke (photo): warning board against colonialism , in: Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung of July 1, 1988; Digitized on the geschichte-projekte-hannover.de page , last accessed on July 3, 2018
  4. ↑ a b c Helmut Zimmermann : Karl-Peters-Monument , in ders .: Hanover in your pocket. Buildings and monuments from A to Z . 2nd Edition. Feesche, Hannover 1988, ISBN 3-87223-046-8 , p. 59
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g Klaus Fesche: Tour 3: Südstadt / Kosaken , Klubb and eight comets , in Ingo Bultmann, Thomas Neumann, Jutta Schiecke (ed.): Hannover on foot. 18 district tours through past and present , VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 1989, ISBN 978-3-87975-471-7 and ISBN 3-87975-471-3 , pp. 51–63; here: p. 59f.
  6. ^ A b Helmut Zimmermann: Bertha-von-Suttner-Platz , in ders .: The street names of the state capital Hanover. Verlag Hahnsche Buchhandlung, Hannover 1992, ISBN 3-7752-6120-6 , p. 39
  7. ↑ a b o. V .: Carl Peters - is the bloody colonial hero suitable as a namesake? Two examples: / Out of habit , preview of a digitized article in the weekly newspaper Die Zeit , No. 15/1993 of April 9, 1993
  8. ↑ a b c d e f g Worksheet 10: The Carl Peters Monument in Hanover , accompanying document to the DVD German Colonialism in Africa (number 46 01082 ) by the Institute for Film and Image in Science and Education (FWU); as a PDF document [ undated ] on media.sodis.de , last accessed on July 3, 2018
  9. ↑ Klaus Mlynek : The end of the 'era' crowd , in ders., Waldemar R. Röhrbein (Ed.): History of the City of Hanover , Vol. 2: From the beginning of the 19th century to the present , Schlütersche Verlagsgesellschaft, Hanover 1994 , ISBN 3-87706-364-0 , pp. 508-511; here: p. 509f .; limited preview in Google Book search
  10. ↑ a b c Felix Schürmann, Inga-Dorothee Rost (text), Alexandra Stadelmann (et al.): Traces of colonialism in Hannover / roads / Karl Peters Square on the side geschichte-projekte-hannover.de of the History Department of the University Hanover, circa 2004, last accessed on July 3, 2018
  11. ↑ Supplement to the VHS cassette VHS 42 02799 under the title Germany becomes colonial power - Carl Peters acquires German East Africa from the FWU - school and teaching ; as a PDF document from http://imens.lahn-dill-kreis.de [undated], last accessed on July 4, 2018
  12. ↑ a b Petra Spona : Honors of people and municipal representation , in Matthias Frese , Marcus Weidner (ed.): Negotiated memories. Dealing with honors, monuments and memorial sites after 1945 (= research on regional history , volume 82), Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2018, ISBN 978-3-506-78798-9 and ISBN 3-506-78798-5 , p. 137 -158; here p. 152ff., v. a. P. 154; limited preview in Google Book search

Coordinates: 52 ° 21 ′ 32.9 "  N , 9 ° 45 ′ 37.5"  E