National monument sculpture park German unity

Golden Bridge (1996)

WE ARE THE PEOPLE

The German Unity Sculpture Park - Monument to Unity and Freedom is an open-air exhibition of works of art made of steel, glass and wood, which commemorates the overcoming of Germany's division from 1945 to 1990. It is located at the former Eußenhausen – Meiningen border crossing between Bavaria and Thuringia .

meaning

Jimmy Fell , visual artist and civil engineer in Niederlauer and Berlin , initiated and designed the sculpture park on the former inner-German border in Bavaria and Thuringia , at the former border crossing between Eußenhausen and Meiningen . Largely realized by himself, he links the Barbarossa legend with the European integration of democratic Germany. The bridge over the national border is intended to bridge “inner rifts”.

The monument for unity and freedom has already been completed - while it is still to be built in Berlin as a monument for freedom and unity . The monument for unity is the sculpture “Golden Bridge”, the monument for freedom the sculpture “WE ARE THE PEOPLE”.

The Thuringia Nature Conservation Foundation took over the 8.2 hectare site on the Schanz from the federal government. After a lease agreement was signed in 2010 , it was made available to the Schmalkalden-Meiningen district for free use.

bridge

Donations of money from the population on both sides of the former border, the free cooperation of regional companies and timber donations from surrounding communities made the first and largest work of the sculpture park, the "Golden Bridge" in the former death strip possible . All cladding and painting work was carried out by vocational students from Bad Neustadt an der Saale , Mellrichstadt , Rohr monastery (Thuringia) , Walldorf and Schmalkalden . Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl was the patron of the project, which was funded by the Federal Ministry of the Interior .

Once intended by the artist Fell for a slow decay of the bridge in the course of the constant rapprochement between east and west, the bridge will be restored by Jimmy Fell in 2018 and given a new, more durable gold paint.

Sculptures

Shot while trying to escape

Federal eagle

Don't forget us (2)

• Barbarossa (2000) - 6 m high steel and glass construction by Jimmy Fell. Builders were the district administrators of the districts Rhön-grave field and Schmalkalden-Meiningen
• Boy with flag - squire Barbarossa with black, red and gold flag, changed national anthem , three e-submissions to the German Bundestag , friendship bracelet from Richard the Lionheart and souvenirs from the 2006 World Cup from Herbert Fell
• Bundesadler (1999) - 2.5 m high steel by Herbert Fell, see eagle in fire
• Golden Bridge (1996) - 16 × 7 × 8 m large timber frame construction over the border between Thuringia and Bavaria
• Field of flags , Germany on the way to Europe - painted by eight classes from the Rhön-Gymnasium Bad Neustadt and the Rhön-Gymnasium in Kaltensundheim under the direction of Matthias Eichele.
• Shot on the run (2002) - Stahl by Herbert Fell
• Expulsion (2002) - Stahl by Herbert Fell, a reminder of the Vergeziefer campaign
• Home quote from Heinz Berggruen : You can drive a person out of the home, but not the home from the person - burned out of two 50 × 70 cm large steel plates 4.5 m high by Herbert Fell
• Sword of freedom and peace , forged from old plowshares (reversal of swords to plowshares )
• Whisper ( November 9, 2004) - wooden sculpture of a couple from a trunk of chestnuts by Jörg Bäßler
• WE ARE THE PEOPLE (2009) - Patron Chancellor Angela Merkel ; inaugurated by Rudolf Seiters on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall

A steel " round table " is planned based on the suggestion of the Meiningen artists Udo Eisenacher and Waldemar Franz Rösch.

Eagle in fire

An imperial eagle with a wingspan of 10 m was built from waste wood, set up on a large pyre and set on fire on November 9, 1999 at dusk. When it was burned after an hour , the iron federal eagle appeared from the embers like a phoenix from the ashes .

Red Holocaust

To commemorate the millions of victims of communist tyranny and arbitrariness, Jimmy Fell threw up a still small pile of stones with a red flag in the spring of 2011. Every stone represents a person who has been killed or perished. Devastated after a few weeks, the site has since been restored.

Sculptures in Niederlauer

• Blaues Tor 1 - West-Tor: Four original parts of the Berlin Wall , aligned with the sun at the summer solstice, set up like Stonehenge . Berlin was the last functioning city ​​wall . If you remove every second wall element, a stone circle is created . The sculpture was conceived in 1986. In the background, probably the largest iron-made Shiva sculpture in Europe
• Blue Gate 2 - "wayside shrine": Maria in the blue gate (5 × 5 m). Symbol for the universe and the symbiosis of old and new
• Catcher of the sun: 8 m high sculpture on the origin of the soccer game (on the soccer field in Niederlauer)

location

The park is located on the Schanz in the eastern Rhön , near Henneberg on the now downgraded Bundesstraße 19 (today L 3019 (Thuringia) and St 2445 (Bavaria)) between Eußenhausen and Henneberg.

References and comments

1. ↑ On October 3, 1990, the headline of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung : "Germany wins unity in freedom"
2. ^ Sculpture Park German Unity - The Golden Bridge
3. ↑ insuedthueringen.de/ Goldene-Bruecke should shine gold again.
4. ↑ OpenStreetMap

Web links

Commons : Sculpture Park German Unity  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Sculpture park

Coordinates: 50 ° 29 ′ 2 ″  N , 10 ° 20 ′ 21 ″  E