Cross of Saarburg

"Cross of Saarburg", status 2018

Contemporary postcard with photo of the cross (metal bar on the back retouched away)

Depiction of the cross on the historical war club flag of Mühlheim an der Eis

The cross with the song by August Schmidlin

The cross of Saarburg (French Croix de Buhl ) is a field cross in Buhl-Lorraine / Bühl in Lorraine , which became a popular postcard and flag motif due to its special history in the First World War .

history

As can be seen from the base inscription, the cross was built in 1875 by the married couple Nicolaus Schiwi and Margarete Schiwi, born in Buhl / Bühl. Fillinger donated. Until the outbreak of World War I, it was just one of the many wayside crosses in Lorraine. It lies on the road from Buhl to Sarrebourg (today Route départementale n ° 96).

As part of the Battle of Lorraine , the Battle of Saarburg took place here in August 1914 . French troops had penetrated into Reich territory on this section of the front and were repulsed with heavy casualties. In the course of these fighting, on August 20, 1914, a grenade or a shrapnel hit the aforementioned cross. The wooden cross made of massive beams was completely torn away. Only the stone figure of the Savior remained upright and undamaged on the base. However, it had a slight support from a metal rod on the back, but this has been retouched in most of the images.

From the beginning the standing Christ, whose cross the war had destroyed, was viewed as a shocking memorial. Many soldiers talked about it and the monument was distributed in a wide variety of images, as postcards, prints or devotional pictures. It was called the "Saarburg Cross". Since Bavarian troops fought in the Battle of Saarburg , the motif appears again and again on the flags of Bavarian war clubs. The Bodenkirchen Warrior Association (Niederbayern) visited the cross depicted on its flag in 2014. The motif is also embroidered on the historical flag of the Warrior and Brother-in-Arms Association in the Palatinate Mühlheim an der Eis (now the Grünstadt Museum ).

The Lorraine local poet August Schmidlin wrote a song text relating to the cross during the World War, in German and French. The German version can be sung to the melody O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden ; it was also distributed on postcards.

The writer Hanna Vogt-Vilseck published a ballad on the Saarburger Kreuz, which is printed in the 2nd volume of the work Our Bavaria in the field (Munich 1915, p. 1348).

In 1918 Friedrich Ernst Koch created a play entitled The Cross of Saarburg .

The collection of the Bavarian Army Museum contains a devotional picture with a plastic representation of the figure of the Savior.

At the time of the First World War and the Weimar Republic , the Saarburg Cross was well known, today it is largely forgotten.

The cross

It is a simple field cross from the 19th century. The base and the figure of Christ are made of stone. The cross itself was made of wooden beams. In the base structure there is also a statue of the Immaculate . The monument exists to this day in the condition (without cross) as it emerged from the battle of Saarburg. The base bears the inscription:

"It was erected for the glory of God by the married couple Nicolaus Schiwi and Margarete Fillinger, Bühl in 1875. 40 days indulgence if you pray 5 Our Father, 5 Ave Maria and faith."

A memorial stone was placed next to the cross. It bears the French and German inscriptions:

«Pendant la bataille de SARREBOURG, 20 août 1914 ce CHRIST fut merveilleusement conservé alors que la croix qui le portait fut enlevée par un projectile. Je suis la résurrection et la vie. St. Jean 11, 25 »

or.

“In the battle of SAARBURG, August 20, 1914, this image of Christ was miraculously preserved while the trunk of the cross was shot away. I am the resurrection and the life. Joh. 11, 25 "

The cross and memorial stone are enclosed with a metal grille.

Gallery of historical postcards

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  Photo of the cross, with visible metal support

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  Photo of the cross, with visible metal support

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  Photo of the cross, metal support retouched away

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  General view, 1914

literature

Sculptural representation of the Saarburg Savior, in the collection of the Bavarian Army Museum

• Alena Wagnerová : The crucifix without a cross. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . December 12, 2014 . 
• Heidrun Alzheimer (ed.): War as a matter of faith: religious motifs on picture postcards from the First World War . Verlag Fränkisches Freilandmuseum, Bad Windsheim 2009, ISBN 978-3-926834-70-6 , pp. 201-207. (Detail scans) .
• Eberhard Buchner: The World War 1914/15 in the representation of the contemporary press . Volume 6. Albert Langen Verlag, Munich 1915, p. 131 (detail scan) .
• Helmut Lissmann: Liesbet Dill : A writer from the Saarland (1877-1962) . BoD - Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2009, ISBN 978-3-8370-3254-3 , p. 151 (digital scan) .
• Herman Niethammer: The history of the Württemberg Infantry Regiment No. 479 and its regular troops . 1923, p. 5. (detail scan 1) ; (Cut-out scan 2) .
• Paul Jaeger : Two questions of fate . Verlag der Christlichen Welt, 1916, p. 39 (detail scan) .

Web links

Commons : Kreuz von Saarburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Illustrated website on the cross (French)
• Collection of different postcards with the representation of the cross
• Website with current close-ups of the cross and memorial stone
• French website on the history of the cross
• Website of the comrades 'and soldiers' association Lützelburg (Bavaria), u. a. with a report from a visit to the Saarburger Kreuz, 2014

Individual evidence

1. ^ Website of the Saarburg Cross, with a picture of the Bodenkirchen flag
2. ^ Website of the German Digital Library

Coordinates: 48 ° 43 '41.2 "  N , 7 ° 4' 6.3"  E