Marienbrunnen (Saarlouis)

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St. Ludwig (Saarlouis), Marienbrunnen in front of the church, bronze, stone, diameter: 9.00 m, height: 2.40 m
St. Ludwig (Saarlouis), detail of the Marienbrunnen
St. Ludwig (Saarlouis), detail of the Marienbrunnen

The Saarlouiser Marienbrunnen is a Marian monument on the Great Market in Saarlouis in front of the Catholic parish church of St. Ludwig .

History and design

On the occasion of Pope Pius XII. at 8. September 1953 with the encyclical Fulgens corona proclaimed Marian year decided the Saarlouis City Council on February 5, 1954, the establishment of the Marie fountain in the horizontal center of the Grand Place in front of the Ludwig church. It commemorates the centenary of the solemn proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854 by Pope Pius IX. as well as that of Pius XII. in 1950 proclaimed the dogma of the bodily acceptance of Mary into heaven .

Under the direction of city planning officer Peter Focht (1907–1987), Cecilie Satzl-Hoffmann and Hanns Satzl designed the entire complex. Nikolaus Simon (1897–1970) carried out the stone carving. The figure of the Virgin was created by Hans Bogler (1910–1994). In the middle of the round water basin rises a fountain column, which is closed by a capital-like subdivided limestone cylinder base with an inscription. The inscription on the upper section of the cylinder reads " Queen of Peace , please for us" and refers to the experience of the two world wars of the 20th century as well as the subsequent nuclear threat during the Cold War .

Pope Benedict XV under the impression of the horrors of the First World War , had temporarily inserted the invocation of Mary as Queen of Peace into the Lauretanian litany on November 16, 1915 and finally on May 5, 1917. In addition, the invocation of Mary as Queen of Peace can be seen in the context of the papal encyclical Auspicia quaedam of May 1, 1948. Pius XII. had called in this circular for the month of May to prayer for world peace. As the armed conflict over Palestine escalated, the pontiff urged the faithful to pray for peace for the solution of the Palestine problem. This should be consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary .

Another reference of the fountain inscription to magisterial statements is that of Pope Pius XII. At the end of the Marian year 1954, the encyclical Ad caeli reginam introduced the feast of the Queen of Mary .

The lower cylinder section of the fountain column is adorned with the Marian monogram . The repeat-like ornament with its arches and crosses also takes up the two main motifs of the Saarland national coat of arms of the time (bridge arches and cross). The Latin inscription on the cylinder is related to the English greeting ( Lk 1.28  EU ) and reads: " Ave Maria "; below: "Anno Domini 1955" ("Hail, Maria"; below: "In the year of the Lord 1955"). At the bottom of the inscription capital, water flows out of five bronze openings in order to pour over two offset, bronze well bowls in the style of Roman wells into the large well basin made of light limestone. The water-donating openings can be interpreted in connection with the five wounds of Christ or the pericope of the prophet Ezekiel of the flood of water that flows out from under the temple ( Eze 47: 1-12  EU ). In addition, the five number of water openings also has a Marian reference to the five petals of the Rosa mystica , a Marian title in the Lauretanian litany .

The larger than life bronze figure of the Virgin and Mother of God rises above the capital-like cylinder, facing the square. Mary, dressed in a wrinkle-free robe and cloak, holds the cross-crowned globe in her right hand, and on her left arm the baby Jesus , who blesses the viewer with his right hand and with his left hand points to his Sacred Heart .

With its pacifist impetus, the Marienbrunnen makes historical-antithetical reference to the war-glorifying, neo-pagan former monument from 1928 with the title "Warrior's Entry into Valhalla " on the axis in front of the commandant's office, which was moved to Kaiser-Friedrich-Ring in 1936. The Marienbrunnen is shown as an individual monument in the Saarland monuments list.

The Marienbrunnen is one of a number of Marian monuments in Saarland that were created on the occasion of the Marian year, such as the Marian columns in Bous , Schwalbach , Wadern (Bellscheid), wayside shrine , Neunkirchen and St. Ingbert or the Marian complex of the Ensdorfer Hasenberg, the Construction of the "Marienturm" of the parish church of the Holy Trinity in Fraulautern , the Marian station altar in the center of Beckingen and the Marian window cycle in the monastery church of the Heiligenborn monastery in Bous. The Saarland Post also issued a series of stamps depicting the Virgin Mary on the occasion of the Marian Year. In addition, the deeply religious Catholic Johannes Hoffmann was a Prime Minister in office who felt the promotion of the Christian faith to overcome the consequences of the anti-humanist Nazi dictatorship and as a protective shield against communist currents as an urgent political task. Thus the proclamation of the Marian dogma and the Marian year in Saarland fell on extremely fertile ground. Through the veneration of Mary, the religious denomination in the historically strongly Catholic country on the Saar was to be strengthened and a certain "National Saarland identity" developed in the Saarland population.

How much the Christian People's Party of the Saarland under Prime Minister Johannes Hoffmann felt that it was the only real alternative to the atheistic ideologies of fascism and socialism / communism and wanted to create a thoroughly Christian society in the Saar state is illustrated, for example, in the speech by the Saarlouis mayor Anton Merzigers on the inauguration of the town hall next to Marienbrunnen on the Großer Markt:

“We have all experienced it ourselves, only if Christ rules in public life, only if we give God what is God, can we remain human beings and live in human dignity. That is why we (...) place the whole city under the protection of the cross. "

Representatives of the Evangelical Church in Saarland protested against the construction of the Marienbrunnen in Saarlouis. In a declaration by the Saarland district synods it says in this regard:

“We draw attention to the dangers and disastrous consequences that arise from a one-sided confessionalisation of public life and ask the state and authorities not to allow such encroachments, and with it freedom of conscience, belief and conviction and public and denominational peace and the right relationship between church and state is preserved. "

The fountain in front of St. Ludwig was opened despite all the protests at the solemn festival of the princes of the apostles Peter and Paul (June 29, 1956), the second parish patrons of the church, in a large-scale inauguration ceremony that was understood as a "powerful expression of the Catholic faith" on the Saar , inaugurated.

The Marienbrunnen can also be used in connection with the intense Marian religiosity of St. Louis IX. by France , the patron saint of the immediately neighboring Saarlouiser St. Ludwig's Church.

The 2.30 meter high statue of the Virgin Mary (800 kg) and the two metal shells of the fountain column (3.6 t) were made by the Saarlouiser bell foundry in Saarlouis-Fraulautern, that of Karl (III) Otto from the Otto bell foundry in Bremen-Hemelingen and the Saarländer Alois Riewer from Geislautern had been founded in 1953.

literature

  • Severin Delges: History of the Catholic parish St. Ludwig in Saarlouis . Saarlouis-Lisdorf 1931, extension by Heinrich Unkel in 1952, extension by a third part by Marga Blasius in 1985.
  • Oranna Elisabeth Dimmig: Saarlouis Stadt und Stern / Sarrelouis - Ville et Étoile , translation into French: Anne-Marie Werner, ed. v. Roland Henz and Jo Enzweiler Saarbrücken 2011.

Web links

Commons : Marienbrunnen (Saarlouis)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Walter Dürig: Article Lauretanische Litanei , in: Marienlexikon , ed. on behalf of the Institutum Marianum Regensburg e. V. von Remigius Bäumer and Leo Scheffczyk, Vol. 4, St. Ottilien 1992, pp. 33–42, here 41–42.
  2. ↑ Article Dresden Art in Saarland, The Memorial for the Fallen in Saarlouis , Saarlouis City Archives, Archive No. XII / 51, fol 77; Hans-Jörg Schu: The big market in Saarlouis . Saarbrücken 1986, p. 29.
  3. ↑ Jo Enzweiler (Ed.): Art in public space, Saarland, Volume 3, Saarlouis district after 1945, essays and inventory , Saarbrücken 2009, p. 273; Bastian Müller: Architecture of the post-war period in Saarland , Saarbrücken 2011 ( Preservation of monuments in Saarland 4), p. 53; Hans Jörg Schu: The Great Market in Saarlouis , Saarbrücken 1986, p. 26 and p. 29.
  4. ↑ Oranna Dimmig: Art Lexicon Saar , Kunstort Hasenberg Ensdorf / Saar, ed. from the Institute for Current Art in Saarland, Saarbrücken 2014, pp. 9–12.
  5. ↑ Hans-Jörg Schu: Chronicle of the City of Saarlouis 1679–2005, A chronological report on the development of the fortress city , Saarlouis 2010, pp. 153–154.
  6. ↑ Severin Delges: history of the Catholic Parish of St. Louis in Saarlouis . Saarlouis-Lisdorf 1931, extension by Heinrich Unkel in 1952, extension by a third part by Marga Blasius in 1985, part 3, p. 9.
  7. ↑ Abele Calufetti: Article Ludwig IX. , in: Marienlexikon, ed. on behalf of the Institutum Marianum Regensburg e. V. von Remigius Bäumer and Leo Scheffczyk, Vol. 4, St. Ottilien 1992, pp. 33–42, here 172–173.
  8. ↑ Hans Peter Buchleitner: Cultural Reconstruction in Saarland, Text and Image, Volume II, additions to the church structure in Saarbrücken and in the parishes of both Christian denominations in the Saarlouis and Merzig-Wadern districts, Saarbrücken 1959, pp. 24 and 46.
  9. ^ Gerhard Reinhold: Otto Glocken - family and company history of the bell foundry dynasty Otto . Self-published, Essen 2019, ISBN 978-3-00-063109-2 , p. 588, here in particular pp. 87 to 95, 374, 375, 570 .

Coordinates: 49 ° 18 ′ 57.8 "  N , 6 ° 45 ′ 5.4"  E