Prussian grave near Ichtershausen
The Prussian grave near Ichtershausen is a war cemetery on the eastern edge of the town of Ichtershausen (near Arnstadt / Thuringia) with a communal grave of 700 Prussian soldiers who died in a reserve hospital in Ichtershausen during the wars of liberation in 1813/14.
Historical background
After the defeat of Prussia and Saxony in the battle of Jena and Auerstedt in 1806, Napoleon also forced the Thuringian states into the Rhine Confederation and incorporated the former Prussian city, fortress and citadel of Erfurt as his personal " domain " into the French Empire. With the dictated peace of Tilsit in 1807, Prussia was degraded to a second-rate power. After Napoleon's failed campaign against Russia in 1812, the wretched remnants of his “ Great Army ” flooded back to Central Europe. In the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813, a newly formed Napoleonic army was defeated by Prussians, Austrians and Russians. Again the French and their auxiliary troops fled west, also through Thuringia. The French fortress of Erfurt had been considerably strengthened both structurally and by the occupation since the beginning of 1813. From October 26, 1813 , it was largely enclosed in the siege of Erfurt by Prussians, Austrians and Russians (35,000 men). At first there was hardly any fighting until the French burned down the village of Daberstedt in late October and Ilversgehofen on November 5th . The siege troops responded to this on November 6th with an artillery bombardment of the Petersberg citadel . After that there was an armistice and at the beginning of January the city of Erfurt was handed over to the Prussians, but the Petersberg and Cyriaksburg citadels and their surroundings remained under French occupation until May 1814.
The Royal Prussian Reserve Hospital Ichtershausen
The town of Ichtershausen , which belongs to the Duchy of Saxony-Gotha-Altenburg and is located south of Erfurt, was also included in the extensive ring of sieges by Prussians, Austrians and Russians . Most of the besieging troops bivouacked in the open air or were huddled together in the villages, and the hygiene conditions were poor. Epidemics spread among besiegers and besieged.
On November 4th, a Royal Prussian Reserve Hospital was set up in Marienburg Castle in Ichtershausen, and later also in stately neighboring buildings . Up until the end of February 1814, a total of 1,400 Prussian soldiers - mostly from Silesia - who suffered from insidious contagious infectious diseases were treated there. 700 of them succumbed to illnesses which were probably typhus ("nerve fever") and dysentery . At the beginning of November the hospital was overcrowded with 600 men. Those who recovered had to be taken in private quarters. The epidemics spread to the community, which lost a quarter of its population with 152 deaths. The dead soldiers were buried in common graves in the “Pentecost enclosure” on the other side of the Gera .
On March 1, 1814, the hospital was closed, and for decades the population avoided the castle for fear of pathogens. In 1877 it became the core of a state prison.
Construction and history of the memorial above the Prussian grave
Shortly after the end of the wars of liberation , the burial place of the 700 soldiers was planted with poplars in order to keep this place in memory for posterity. Almost at the same time, the idea of creating a worthy monument arose. The basis for this was donations and the active cooperation of the village population. The community of Ichtershausen had a war memorial made of Seeberg sandstone with an inscription plaque by the sculptor Ramming from Neudietendorf erected above the community grave by October 1819 . Johann Georg Wendel, professor at the Royal School of Art and Architecture in Erfurt, designed the monument. The inscription on the memorial plaque, framed by oak leaves and laurel branches, was designed by the then governor Spiller von Mitterberg. King Friedrich Wilhelm III. von Prussia awarded the community and its official mayor Fabian Möller gold medals shortly afterwards in recognition of the care of the sick and the erection of the monument. In 1849 the monument was restored - financed by donations - and given a wooden cross. In 1863, for the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Leipzig, three oaks were planted next to the monument. In 1895, Ing.Max Knippenberg, owner of the Ichtershausen needle factory, donated a large iron cross that rested on the stone ashlars of the monument on a cannonball from Monarch Hill near Leipzig.
In 1896, Kaiser Wilhelm II honored the Ichtershausen Landwehr Association for its efforts to get the Prussian grave by awarding it a flag. This event was celebrated with a patriotic rally on the “Prussian churchyard”. In 1913, for the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Nations in Leipzig, a large celebration took place at the renewed memorial with the participation of many associations from all over Thuringia. In the same year, the “Diary of Ichtershausen” from 1813 was found, which also contained a chapter The hospital with a “vivid, sometimes terrible picture” of the time.
During the Soviet Zone and the GDR , the iron cross and cannonball disappeared and the memorial was largely forgotten. Some committed citizens (especially Fritz Thal and Dieter Schröpfer) prevented it from falling into disrepair on their own initiative and with their own means and even put up an illegally manufactured metal plaque. This was stolen, as was a new iron cross that was forged on a private initiative after the fall of the Wall .
On June 1, 2002, the memorial (without cross and ball) renewed by the stonemason Oliver Wenzel was ceremoniously handed over to the community.
Prussian grave around 1900
Memorial above the Prussian grave (2006)
Inscription plaque on the memorial (2006)
Commemoration at the memorial, October 27, 2013
Memorial, October 27, 2013
The Prussian grave today
The monument is located in a small grove with two stately oaks, chestnuts and ash trees, northeast of Ichtershausen across the Gera river. The memorial can be reached via the new Gera Bridge at the back of the prison or from the other side of the cemetery. The Gera-bike trail led from 2008 to 2010 at the plant past that was still easily overlooked due to lack of identification.
A plaque with the following inscription from 1819 is attached to coarse sandstone blocks: “HIER RUHEN DCC TAPFERE KÖNIGL. PRUSIAN WARRIORS. THEY COMPLETED THEIR GLORIOUS TRACK IN THE ROYAL PRUSIAN LAZARETH ALLHIER, AT THE TIME OF THE SIEGE OF ERFURT IN THE YEARS MDCCCXIII AND MDCCCXIV. TO REMEMBER FROM THE ICHTERSHAUSEN COMMUNITY. "
So far, despite several suggestions from the mayors of the place, there is neither a sign, a display board nor a route to the Prussian grave. On the fringes of a commemoration on site on October 27, 2013, the current mayor, Uwe Möller (a descendant of the monument initiator Fabian Möller), promised a remedy. Nothing has happened.
literature
- Artur Bach: The Prussian grave near Ichtershausen in the Duchy of Gotha. A souvenir sheet for the centenary on July 20, 1913 . Ichtershausen, 1913
- Thomas Lindner: Sheets on the local history of Ichtershausen 2 - 3 . Published by Ichtershausen municipal administration, 1997
- Prussian grave in old splendor. Cenotaph handed over to the community , Thüringische Landeszeitung, May 30, 2002
- Thomas Lindner: The Prussian grave in Ichtershausen . Dornheimer Heimatblätter, Volume 12, 09/2013, pp. 12–15
- Frank Palmowski: The siege of Erfurt. Their tracks from 1813 to 2013 . Sutton Verlag, Erfurt 2013. ISBN 978-3-95400-252-8
See also
Web links
Coordinates: 50 ° 52 ′ 31.1 ″ N , 10 ° 58 ′ 48.2 ″ E