German Unity Memorial (Mainz)

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Side view with the cities mentioned

The memorial of German unity , also known as “Germany Divided” , and after its inauguration and before reunification, “Memorial of the German East” , was opened on June 16, 1961 on the Mainzer Fischtor-Platz on the occasion of the anniversary of the popular uprising in the former GDR of June 17, 1953 with the inscription " Germany is indivisible " passed its destination. It contains the names of formerly German cities east of Oder and Neisse , which were under Polish administration at the time, and of cities in what was then the German Democratic Republic .

monument

Emergence

The CDU - faction in the Mainz city council requested on 22 January 1959, the creation of a "reminder notice to the German East" and wanted to respond to the Soviet position, West Berlin into an independent free city to explain.

As a result, in July 1960, Albert Karl Spelthahn, who was employed as an architect and building officer in the Mainz building department, presented his design of a three-way stone block, which was to symbolize the division of Germany into three parts. The building committee approved the memorial, but it was not implemented. Only when the local chapter of the trustees indivisible Germany a year later took up the plan again and for that, provided that the order for the production of the monument was issued on the evening of June 16, 1961 could mark the anniversary of the popular uprising in the GDR the inauguration, with a speech by Mayor Franz Stein . This was accompanied by numerous other campaigns such as street collections to finance the memorial, an exhibition with artistic works by students on the division of Germany and a photo exhibition on the construction of Berlin. After the celebration, several thousand people from Mainz, expellees and refugees from the Soviet zone marched in silence to Deutschhausplatz , where a warning fire was burning, nourished by a thousand torches. A group of young people from East Germany carried a model of the Brandenburg Gate on the train .

In the Mainzer Zeitung it said:

“... the city of Mainz set a new example with the memorial of the German East. “Germany is indivisible” is the inscription on the stone. “Unity and freedom for the people and the fatherland!” Is the name of the admonition that goes out from him. - Until the German division ceases to exist. ... "

Appearance

View towards the cathedral . Recognizable inscription: DEUT / SCH / LAND

The 3.44-meter-high, rectangular, triple-split cuboid with the inscription “Germany is indivisible” was made by Paul Sauer based on a design by Albert Karl Spelthahn and was intended to underline the will for German unity.

“The monument, characterized by objectivity and simplicity, wants to symbolize the tragedy of Germany that was divided by the consequences of the Second World War. The design, which comes from the building officer Albert Karl Spelthahn from the building authority of the city of Mainz, deliberately dispenses with a figurative interpretation of this topic and prefers modern style elements. A rectangular block made of concrete rises up on the nine by six meter monument complex, which is laid out with slabs of slate. Characteristic of this is the tripartite division, which is supposed to document the cession of the East German territories and the division of West and Central Germany. The surfaces of the memorial are wrapped around halfway up by a tape bearing the words “Germany is indivisible”. On one narrow side, the names of East and Central German cities are carved, which are representative of the individual landscapes and provinces there. "

It should be noted that the terms East and Central Germany meant the following, unlike today: East Germany was used to describe the areas east of the Oder and Neisse , i.e. areas in today's Poland and Russia . With central Germany today were five new federal states called.

In order to protect the monument from vandalism through graffiti , a surface protection was applied, at the latest in 1997.

Mentioned cities

On the narrow side, German cities in the east are listed, including those that belong to Poland or Russia today (see: Eastern territories of the German Reich and German Reich within the borders of December 31, 1937 ).

GERMAN / SCH / LAND // IS UN / PART / BAR

Königsberg , Allenstein , Marienburg , Tilsit , Danzig , Marienwerder , Elbing , Lötzen , Insterburg , Trakehnen , Waldenburg , Schneidemühl , Stettin , Stolp , Landsberg / W , Kolberg , Glatz , Breslau , Ratibor , Küstrin , Beuthen , Glogau , Gleiwitz , Neisse , Opole , Hirschberg , Liegnitz , Sagan , Tannenberg , Görlitz , Köslin , Rügenwalde ,

Oak leaves

Dresden , Jena , Leipzig , Guben , Chemnitz , Dessau , Stralsund , Wittenberg , Schwerin , Halle , Potsdam , Weimar , Rostock , Frankfurt (Oder) , Eisenach , Eisleben , Erfurt , Magdeburg

Criticism of the memorial after reunification

After 45 years of separation was on October 3, 1990 , the unity of Germany completed. This was linked to the final recognition of the Oder-Neisse border under international law . The reconciliation between Poland and Germany created an important prerequisite for a new peace order in Europe.

Even after reunification, the split stone block is intended to remind of the previously divided fatherland; With the recognition of the Oder-Neisse border, however, criticism of the monument came up over time, at the latest in the 2000s, because under the inscription "Germany is indivisible", in addition to the city names from the five new federal states, city names from today's Poland and Russia are carved on the memorial. An additional information stele was therefore attached to indicate that it is a memorial of German unity and is intended to commemorate the popular uprising in the GDR on June 17, 1953. Since this cannot be seen when looking at the memorial, but is only noted on the information column, the memorial came under criticism. While the district association of the Mainz Greens demanded that the memorial be dismantled in the local elections in 2009, the CDU local association Mainz-Altstadt considered the information column to be sufficient.

On August 18, 2010, activists of the left-wing youth Solid from Wiesbaden covered the memorial with a banner on which was written, "Abwracken Großdeutsche Träumerei!"

See also

The Stresemann memorial was previously located here from 1931 to 1935.

literature

  • “Germany is indivisible! Solemn commitment to unity, peace, freedom / The memorial hour in front of the memorial ”. In: Mainzer Anzeiger (Mainzer Stadtnachrichten), June 19, 1961, p. 4.
  • ER: A new monument. In: Das Neue Mainz, Wirtschaft, Verkehr, Kultur. Issue 8, August 1 to 31, 1961.
  • Andreas Scheidgen: June 17, 1953 in Mainz and the memorial for divided Germany on Fischtorplatz . Manuscript, no place or year.
  • Anne Kaminsky: Places of Remembrance. Memorial signs, memorials and museums on the dictatorship in the Soviet occupation zone and GDR. 1st edition. Ch. Links Verlag, 2007.
  • Wilhelm Huber: The Mainz Lexicon, 3600 keywords on the city, history, culture, personalities. Verlag Hermann Schmidt, Mainz, p. 155.

Web links

Memorial of German Unity (Mainz) as a 3D model in SketchUp's 3D warehouse

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Mainz Lexicon. P. 155.
  2. ↑ a b Mainzer Anzeiger , June 19, 1961, p. 4.
  3. ↑ a b c Anne Kaminsky: Places of Remembrance. Memorial signs, memorials and museums on the dictatorship in the Soviet occupation zone and GDR . Memorial June 17, 1953, p. 319. on Google Books
  4. ↑ Mainzer Anzeiger. June 19, 1961, p. 4.
  5. ↑ a b Left cover a unitary monument . In: Allgemeine Zeitung Mainz. August 19, 2010.
  6. ↑ ER: A new monument. In: Das Neue Mainz, Wirtschaft, Verkehr, Kultur. Issue 8, August 1 to 31, 1961, no page number
  7. ^ Graffiti protection , accessed on August 5, 2012.
  8. ↑ The monument on Fischtorplatz no longer fits in with our times. It demands the indivisibility of Germany and lays claim to today's Polish and Russian cities. We want to ensure that it is dismantled. ( Memento of December 12, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen in Mainz; Retrieved February 29, 2012.
  9. ↑ Christine Diehl: CDU Mainz-Altstadt: Stele at Fischtorplatz is sufficient ( memento from July 23, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ), accessed August 18, 2009.
  10. ↑ Review: »Abwracken Großdeutsche Träumerei!« - Unity monument in Mainz veiled ( memento from July 15, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) by linksjugend ['solid] wiesbaden, accessed August 18, 2010.

Coordinates: 49 ° 59 ′ 59.6 ″  N , 8 ° 16 ′ 42.2 ″  E