Mother Kinzig

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Mother Kinzig from Franz Xaver Reich
War memorial on the Kehler market square with mother Kinzig

The mother Kinzig is a cast iron figure of the sculptor Franz Xaver Reich (1815-1881) from Hüfingen , which since 1905 on the square in Kehl into a monument is integrated French German-of the war 1870-71. It represents the female counterpart to the father Rhine , a personification of the Rhine into which the Kinzig flows near Kehl.

history

The mother Kinzig decorated the first railway bridge over the Rhine between Kehl and Strasbourg , which was opened in 1861. On the 17 meter high entrance portal on the Kehler side she stood opposite a cast iron figure of Father Rhein , which was created by the Constance sculptor Hans Baur . On the entrance portal on the Strasbourg side, figures of "Mère Jll" (Mother Jll ) and "Père Rhin" stood opposite each other. The arrangement of the figures followed the royal gallery in French cathedrals. They were supposed to demonstrate the harmony between the two countries, and accordingly the bridge was also called the »Eintrachtsbrücke«.

In the course of the Franco-Prussian War , the portal on the German side was blown up on July 22, 1870, and the two statues sank in the Rhine. During excavation work in 1897, the figure of Mother Kinzig was found by chance in the Rhine. The statue of Father Rhine has been lost to this day.

In 1905, a war memorial with Mother Kinzig's sculpture in the foreground was erected on the Kehl market square in front of the former town hall of Kehl. The war memorial commemorates those who fell in the Franco-German War. The figure barely survived the meltdown in the two world wars .

In 2011, the Kehler municipal council decided to bring the mother Kinzig to the fore as part of the redesign of the Kehler market square. On May 9, 2015, new explanatory boards, illuminated from below at night, were inaugurated on the base of the war memorial by the mayor of Kehl, Toni Vetrano .

literature

  • Angelika Sadlau, Helmut Schneider, Carl Helmut Steckner: The Lange Bruck: 600 years of ways to neighbors , Kehl 1989.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Thomas Cathiau: Hans Baur in: Friedrich von Weech (Ed.): Badische Biographien , V. Theil , 1906
  2. ↑ a b http://www.bo.de/lokales/kehl/sie-ist-schoen-vertraeumt-und-sexy
  3. ↑ Angelika Sadlau, Helmut Schneider, Carl Helmut Steckner: Die Lange Bruck: 600 years of ways to neighbors, Kehl 1989, p. 29
  4. ^ Archi Strasbourg. Architecture et histoire des bâtiments et lieux
  5. ^ Kehl Marketing, Sights
  6. ↑ Light for "Mother Kinzig", in: baden-online

Coordinates: 48 ° 34 ′ 23.5 "  N , 7 ° 48 ′ 40.3"  E