Rudolph Brandes Obelisk
The Rudolph Brandes Obelisk is a memorial to the pharmacist and natural scientist Rudolph Brandes in Bad Salzuflen . The obelisk is registered with the number 172 as an architectural monument in the list of monuments of the city of Bad Salzuflen .
Origin and history
Rudolph Brandes died on December 3, 1842 at the age of only 47. The following year, the general assembly of the “Pharmacists' Association in Northern Germany”, which he co-founded and which he had chaired over twenty years old as “Chief Director” (Chairman), took place on August 1st in Blankenburg. In honor of the deceased, the gathering was not only called the “Brandes Assembly”, but also decided to support the construction of a memorial. And so it was said in a “Call to the honored members and honorary members of the association” published shortly afterwards: “His friends and admirers want to erect a memorial to Brandes crypt in Salzuffeln, as well as in the Lippe region and the surrounding area. That the association should take part in this is the wish of the friends who have come together for the execution of this monument, and our help may also be given to this noble work. "
In the period that followed, a committee was formed to erect such a monument, which consisted of the Brandes friends Heinrich Hasse , the founder of the Salzufler baths Carl Piderit from Detmold and Georg Overbeck from Lemgo . The appeal for donations was quite successful, because in the next few years the committee received considerable sums from all over Germany, so that in the end even more than necessary was collected.
At the same time, thought was given to the design of the monument. The sculptor Ernst von Bandel , the creator of the Hermann monument , suggested a bust cast in ore on a base. Brandes' friends did not like the proposed model and would have been too expensive to make. Finally, an agreement was reached on a simple obelisk , which was completed in the course of 1848 and erected on a small hill on the avenue to Schötmar , near the cemetery, which was laid out only a few years earlier and where Rudolph Brandes' final resting place was - and is still located today.
The obelisk had been planned by Ludwig Gödecke, the Salzufler saline supplier, and a Detmold stonemason, after the committee had obtained approval for its installation. A contemporary source described the structure as follows: “The monument, a pyramid of sandstone resting on a granite cube, is 23 feet 7 inches high from the floor, with the three steps leading to it, to the top, the cube 3 F. 1 Z. wide, the lowest sandstone resting on it below 2 F. 10 Z., the top 1 F. 10 Z. The granite cube, an ancient fossil from the foot of the Teutoburg Forest, blasted off and chiseled off the one and a half fuder Left in Detmold, like the yellow sandstones, is beautifully worked. An iron plate with the two words of Rudolph Brandes is sunk into its front, the letters Gothic, raised and gold-plated. "
In the autumn of 1848 the committee was able to invite to the unveiling of the monument followed by a festive dinner. In the “Fürstlich Lippischen government and advertisement sheet” of October 7th it said: “The monument, which the founder of the pharmacists' association, Rudolph Brandes, is erected in Salzuflen in the Principality of Lippe, is close to completion and should be on Wednesday 18th October this morning to be solemnly inaugurated at 11 a.m. The undersigned Comité therefore honors itself, all friends and admirers of Rud. To inform Brandes of this and to invite them to take part in the ceremony. In particular, his colleagues from near and far, who would like to dedicate another day of remembrance to the unforgettable friends and colleagues, are invited to this festival and kindly requested to notify the co-signed medical assessor Overbeck zu Lemgo in writing of their arrival in order to give them a place the celebration and the banquet. "
The feast day itself began in cloudy weather at the Brandes'schen Apotheke opposite the town hall. From there the pageant, consisting of the vigilante group, "song boards" from Salzuflen, Schötmar and Lemgo, friends, relatives and, last but not least, members of the committee went to the memorial on the avenue. There, three speeches, interrupted by songs, formed the core of the celebrations. Heinrich Hasse was the first to speak, who gave a comprehensive outline of the life of the close friend to be honored, which he put under his motto "hora ruit" ("time rushes", and therefore it must be used as effectively as possible). Then Georg Overbeck described the scientist, chemist and pharmacist Rudolph Brandes and praised him as the founder of the pharmacists' association. The closing words were reserved for Carl Piderit, who officially handed the monument over to the city of “Uflen”, represented by Mayor Friedrich Capellen, to protect it from “injustice and destruction”. After that, a banquet took place in the hall of the town hall, at which several toasts were made. However, because of the revolutionary events that also took place in Lippe, toasts with political content were prohibited from the outset.
The street leading past the monument, initially just called Allee, was renamed Rudolf (!) - Brandes-Allee in 1926. The corresponding street signs were only corrected in June 1992 and have since been labeled Rudolph-Brandes-Allee.
The above-mentioned “iron plate” with Brandes' signature was probably dismantled before 1930. Instead, the four-line inscription "Andenken / an / Rudolph Brandes / 1848" has been placed above the "cube". The added year only refers to the year the monument was erected.
In 1942, city officials laid a wreath on the memorial on the 100th anniversary of Rudolph Brandes' death. In view of the 150th anniversary of his birthday on October 19, 1945, a memorial plaque was to be attached to the obelisk, but it could not be made because of the war.
A new chapter in the history of the monument was opened in the late 1970s. After the decision was made to expand the avenue into the so-called route A, the environment and the location of the monument changed completely. The street lost its character as an avenue, the cemetery was reduced by a strip of land, and houses 2, 4 and 6 were demolished. The obelisk also had to give way and was re-erected on the opposite side of the street (confluence with Riestestrasse). During the relocation in December 1979, as the Lippische Landes-Zeitung reported in its January 4, 1980 edition, the copper box with Rudolph Brandes' writings, which had been walled into the base during construction in 1848, was also opened. In May 1995 the monument finally became a monument in the double sense of the word when it was entered in the list of monuments of the city of Bad Salzuflen.
literature
- Adolph Dresel: Rudolph Brandes. A description of the feast of the inauguration of the monument erected on October 18, 1848, together with the speeches given on this occasion. Detmold 1849. ( LLB Detmold )
- Stefan Wiesekopsieker: A 150 year old monument - The Rudolph Brandes Obelisk in Bad Salzuflen in: "Heimatland Lippe" - magazine of the Lippischen Heimatbund and the Landesverband Lippe, No. 9/1998, Detmold, p. 255ff; accessed on May 3, 2020.
- Stefan Wiesekopsieker: The Rudolph Brandes Obelisk - an early memorial for the name giver of our school. In: Rudolph-Brandes-Gymnasium. Yearbook 2001–2003. Bad Salzuflen 2003, pp. 3-6.
- Hartmut Zimmermann: Simon Rudolph Brandes (1795-1842). An important pharmacist of the 19th century. Stuttgart 1985 (sources and studies on the history of pharmacy 26).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hartmut Zimmermann: Simon Rudolph Brandes (1795-1842). P. 179
- ^ Adolph Dresel: Rudolph Brandes. A description of the festival celebrated on October 18, 1848 ... pp. 13-14
- ↑ cf. Dresel, pp. 15-30
- ↑ cf. Dresel, p. 32
- ↑ cf. Dresel, p. 27
Web links
Coordinates: 52 ° 4 ′ 49.6 ″ N , 8 ° 45 ′ 4.4 ″ E