Lenin Monument (Eisleben)
The Lenin Monument in Eisleben was the first monument to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin in Germany . According to a film document, it was set up in 1948.
history
The 3.20 meter high and 2.9 tons heavy bronze monument was created in 1926 by the Russian sculptor Matwei Maniser . It had been in Pushkin in the Soviet Union since 1929 , but was dismantled by German troops in 1943 and was supposed to be melted down in the Mansfeld Krughütte near Eisleben.
Allegedly, the smelters and the Soviet forced laborers hid the statue of Lenin under a pile of junk to save it from destruction; so the skilled workers should have bypassed an arrangement for welding apart. They are also said to have made incorrect calculations and declared that an oven-safe blasting was technically impracticable.
At this point in time, the "Antifascist Workers' Group of Central Germany" under the leadership of Robert Büchner intervened in the rescue in order to be able to erect the memorial at the end of the war in Eisleben in 1945 to welcome the Red Army . - The DEFA weekly newsreel Der Augenzeuge No. 104/48 (May 14, 1948; film length 21 meters), on the other hand, documents the installation of the Lenin monument in Eisleben in May 1948.
The story became a myth - in Germany as well as in the Soviet Union. It soon became part of the GDR ideology, proof of the firm friendship with the Soviet Union and of the invincibility of communism .
In 2000, however, files were found that prove that as early as 1956 the SED had doubts internally about the connections surrounding the heroic rescue. Secret minutes of extremely intensive investigations, which were commissioned by Walter Ulbricht's office , show that the result was disastrous for everyone involved. So it was decided to stick with the story and never publish the files.
The Lenin statue was brought to Berlin in 1991 and exhibited in the German Historical Museum .
literature
- Andreas Stedtler: The Lenin Files - A rescue story with a hook , Mitteldeutscher Verlag , 1st edition 2006, ISBN 3-89812-329-4
Web links
- Eisleben - The story of the former Lenindenkmal am Plan and Robert Büchner on harz-saale.de
- The heroic rescue . Text from the project "Lenin is still around", February 23, 2015
- How the Lenin Monument got into the German Historical Museum . Blog of the German Historical Museum , January 4, 2018
- Lenin becomes a star in the Berlin museum . Mitteldeutsche Zeitung of February 3, 2005
- The Lenin von Eisleben . The Tagesspiegel from March 15, 2006
- Lenin rocks . the Friday of June 5th, 2011