Saarbrücken town hall cycle

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Old Town Hall Saarbrücken (2011)

The Saarbrücken town hall cycle is a cycle of paintings by the painter Anton von Werner from 1880 . It depicts events and people from the Battle of Spichern and the Franco-Prussian War and was originally located in a hall-like extension of the former town hall of Saarbrücken , today's Old Town Hall in Old Saarbrücken . Today the paintings are privately owned and not open to the public.

prehistory

As France on July 19, 1870 the North German Confederation the war declared exceeded the same day, French troops, the Prussian border and took Saarbrücken on 28 July under attack. On August 2nd, they entered the city. The arrival of Prussian troops caused the French to retreat to the Spicherer Heights . There they were attacked by the Prussians on August 6th in the Battle of Spichern .

The Prussian troops arriving at the St. Johanner Bahnhof, today's Saarbrücker Hauptbahnhof , were actively supported by the citizens of the Saar cities. In the midst of the fighting, the Saarbrücken maid Katharine Weißgerber took care of the wounded soldiers of both nations, for which she was later awarded the Cross of Merit for Women and Virgins by the Prussian King Wilhelm . After the military hospital and the barracks in Saarbrücken were overcrowded with wounded, they were taken care of in the city hospital, which was run by doctors Dr. Hermann Jordan and Dr. Carl Schmidtborn was headed. In contemporary descriptions of the battle, the storming of the Spicherer Heights under the leadership of General Bruno von François was very often portrayed as a heroic deed and the general's death as a heroic deed beyond its strategic importance .

On August 8th, King Wilhelm and his entourage visited the city. The arrival was different from what was later to be shown in the painting: The Saarbrücken and St. Johann city councilors wanted to receive the king, who was arriving from Homburg via St. Ingbert , on August 7, 1870 at the St. Johann ban border, but Wilhelm I was delayed about a day. A regular reception with dignitaries and flag decorations did not take place because the late arrival of the king was not officially announced. His brother, Prince Carl , Grand Duke Karl Alexander of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach , Prince Luitpold of Bavaria , Hereditary Grand Duke Friedrich Franz of Mecklenburg-Schwerin , Count Bismarck , Helmuth Karl Bernhard von Moltke and Minister of War Albrecht von Roon and an entourage of appeared with King Wilhelm 900 accompanying persons. Even Friedrich Quien, with whom the king was supposed to stay, was not present when Wilhelm arrived and had to be represented by his son-in-law, the banker Gustav Schlachter. King Wilhelm's companions were accommodated with dignitaries from Saarbrücken. It was only after rumors that the crowd gathered for the king's arrival in the late afternoon.

History of the cycle

First plans

On October 11, 1870, two months after the Battle of Spichern, the director of the Saarbrücken grammar school, Wilhelm Hollenberg, who had previously taught for many years at the Joachimthalschen grammar school and therefore probably had contacts in Berlin, wrote a letter to the Prussian minister of education, Heinrich von Mühler and suggested that the recent history of his school building, which had served as a hospital during the battle and was damaged, be honored with a patriotic cycle of pictures. The minister recognized the state's interest in this idea and expanded it to include a patriotic cycle of pictures to the city of Saarbrücken out of gratitude for support in the Battle of Spichern and in the war of 1870/1871 at the expense of the Prussian cultural fund. He chose the station in the Saarbrücken neighboring town of St. Johann (now Saarbrücken Hauptbahnhof ), which was heavily damaged in the war , and the responsible Prussian trade minister, Heinrich Friedrich von Itzenplitz, gave his consent. The minister of culture envisaged the departure of King Wilhelm and his generals from the train station to the cheers of the local population as a motif.

Mühler turned to the painter Anton von Werner for the artistic execution. In a ministerial decree of December 10, 1870, he urged him to maintain “historical fidelity”, “because with a historical painting from the present it is more than in other cases of historical fidelity, especially with regard to the people who participated in the event, need ”. Werner was living in Karlsruhe at the time and wanted to travel to Saarbrücken immediately. However, in January 1871 he followed a call from the Prussian Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm to his headquarters in Versailles . Werner only found out on site that he should paint the imperial proclamation . Fulfilling the extensive commission was his main occupation until the painting The Proclamation of the German Empire (January 18, 1871) was completed in 1877.

The first drawings for the installation of murals in the St. Johann station building date from the year 1872. With the storming of the Spicherer Heights and the arrival of King Wilhelm I in Saarbrücken, they already established the themes of the main pictures. However, the city of Saarbrücken had initially announced that it would be more in line with their ideas if the greeting of Wilhelm I as emperor had been presented by a delegation from Rhenish cities at the station in St. Johann on March 16, 1871.

Planning for the town hall

Rear view from Nanteser Platz with today's parking lot, the former location of the council chamber
Anton von Werner's design for the wall decoration with the "Victoria" painting

After the painting in the train station had not been installed and the temporarily favored location in the new building of the trade school had not been realized, on March 13, 1874, the Berlin ministry asked the Saarbrücken city administration whether one should be installed near Saarbrücken the war events related work of art is possible.

In order to secure the promised monumental paintings for the city itself, the city council immediately decided to demolish a residential building immediately adjacent to the Saarbrücken town hall on Saarbrücken Schlossplatz and to build a new conference room in its place and decorate it with the pictures. After this Saarbrücken plan had been approved in Berlin, the city of Saarbrücken had a new council chamber built as planned by its municipal master builder Benzel. The hall was on the first floor of the extension and was 86 m 2 in size.

In 1875, Werner presented the Prussian Ministry of Culture with small inked drafts for the paintings and for the design of the new Saarbrücken council chamber. For the interior design, Werner won the renowned Berlin architects Heinrich Joseph Kayser and Karl von Großheim , who in the Kayser & von Großheim team of architects were mainly active in building upper-class villas in the neo-Renaissance style. The office also included the architects Julius Graebner and Albert Gessner .

After an appraisal by the Prussian State Art Commission, Werner received his designs back in October 1875 from the Prussian Minister of Education, Adalbert Falk . He was commissioned to make two larger colored drawings. The cost of execution should not exceed 65,000 marks. Werner traveled to Saarbrücken in 1876 and 1878 to speak to eyewitnesses on site, to explore the site and to make a large number of sketches. Numerous residents from Saarbrücken and St. Johann were sketched by Werner.

The painting cycle

"Storming the Spicherer Heights" (black and white reproduction)
Color sketch for "Arrival of King Wilhelm I in Saarbrücken" with the depiction of Katharine Weißgerber ( German Historical Museum ) deleted in the final version

In 1877 Werner presented the draft for the entire cycle as color sketches. In the overall context, Werner Saarbrücker wanted to present homeland history as part of German national history, to praise the bravery of the German soldier and to celebrate the unification of the German tribes. The cycle of murals with the main pictures depicts the storm on the Red Mountain led by Bruno von François , the arrival of King Wilhelm on August 9, 1870 in Saarbrücken (which, as shown, did not take place historically) and the " Victoria " as an allegory the unification of the German tribes. The first two main images are large portraits of Helmuth von Moltke , Otto von Bismarck , Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm and Prince Friedrich Karl .

Before Werner's plans could be implemented, numerous changes to Werner's designs had to be made at the urging of the State Art Commission. The commission missed a more serious character in the painting drafts "which demanded the depiction of these patriotic subjects and historical personalities, especially in such a historically significant place".

Werner had interspersed the two main pictures, consciously turning away from the idealistic monumental painting of Wilhelm von Kaulbach, motifs close to the people with a strong local color, which were immediately recognizable for the citizens of Saarbrücken and St. Johann at the time. In particular, the image of the arrival of the Prussian king had turned Werner into a genre image despite its monumental dimensions . Werner obviously intended to capture a picture of the mood of the entire population of the two Saar cities, from the maids to the city honors, united in the euphoric jubilation at the arrival of the Prussian king. The portrayed have individual features.

The scene with the arrival of King Wilhelm, which did not take place in this form, takes place at the Old Bridge on the St. Johann side. Sandbags and barrels still bear witness to the fighting that had taken place shortly before. The castle church can be seen in the background . The house with a flag-adorned round tower on the other side of the Saar behind the carriage is the king's accommodation. In the middle distance of the picture, the king rises in his carriage offering salutations and is welcomed by Mayor Johann Carl Schmidtborn . Next to the king is his wing adjutant, Lieutenant Colonel Armand von Lucadou .

Adolph von Menzel, King Wilhelm I left for the army on July 31, 1870
Anton von Werner in conversation with Adolph von Menzel, Berlin around 1895

In comparison with Adolph von Menzel's painting " Departure of King Wilhelm I for the Army on July 31, 1870 ", which is related in theme and composition to Werner's painting, Werner's picture breaks down into numerous individual scenes and looks like an event frozen in the moment. Menzel's painting, on the other hand, looks like it has been cast from one piece and captures the atmosphere of the situation.

The Landeskunstkommission criticized the figures of the Saarbrücken baker, the blacksmith and the basket-carrying Katharine Weißgerber in the Werner color sketch , who were evidently not shown enthusiastically enough and distracted too much from the content of the picture. Accordingly, the portrayal of Katharine Weißgerber is missing in the final version. Furthermore, instead of a boy with baskets in his hand, a boy with a saber and flag can be seen in the foreground.

In the picture with the storming of the Spicherer Heights, Werner followed the contemporary descriptions of the battle with the heroism of General Bruno von François . In this picture, too, the artist had to make changes that dramatized the events in a theatrical way and more emphasized the willingness to make sacrifices and determination to win of the German soldiers. In the final version, a soldier is inserted in the foreground who, fatally hit by a bullet, pulls up his right arm and is caught by a soldier falling backwards. This representation represents an anticipation of the very similarly portrayed death of the general shortly after the storming of the mountain, so that now heroic deed and heroic death are combined in a single picture.

The "Victoria" painting shows two muscular warriors who are supposed to personify the northern and southern German tribes. You seal the alliance with a strong handshake. A dying soldier seems to want to bless the fraternal handshake. While the warrior on the left grabs the flag, the other raises his hand in an oath. A medieval squire stands as an allegory for the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation . Historically, it builds a bridge to the second German Empire , which was founded without the participation of Austria and German-speaking Switzerland . With the allusion to a mythical unity of the Teutons in the distant past, the shameful memory of the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 and the subsequent period of small states and the revolution of 1848 is to be erased once and for all.

The goddess of victory, Victoria, hovers over the handshake of the warriors as a figure of light. She is holding a branch of laurel in her left hand, and in her raised right is the new German imperial crown, which is based on the medieval imperial crown, but which was never used as a crown jewel.

Werner placed the picture of the storming of the Spicherer Heights directly opposite the hall entrance, the picture of King Wilhelm's arrival was hung opposite the window. This also explains the different widths of the images. The “Victoria” painting found its place between the entrance doors. By placing the portraits in dummy niches, Werner achieved an architectural structure. The dummy niches were covered with figures of virtue in the style of Michelangelo with insignia of power and twisted laurel. Cartridges with motto were attached to the head-high plinth paneling:

  • Crown Prince Friedrich: "Fearless and persistent" (both as a reference to his commitment as leader of the 3rd Army, as well as to the tasks awaiting him as the future Emperor of the German Empire)
  • Prince Friedrich Karl: "I dare, God walt" (as a reference to his successes as Commander in Chief of the 2nd Army, which brought him promotion to Field Marshal General on October 28, 1870 )
  • Moltke: "First weigh, then dare" (as a reference to his tactical war planning)
  • Bismarck: "No empire without an emperor" (as a reference to Bismarck's role as the "smith of the empire")

Further equipment of the hall

The hall was splendidly paneled with oak in the neo-renaissance style, the ceiling was plastered and painted, the floor was provided with parquet.

On the first door of the hall there were medallions with portraits of Generals August Karl von Goeben ( Commanding General in the Battle of Spichern), Constantin von Alvensleben (Commanding General of the III Army Corps ), Georg von Kameke (Commander of the 14th Division in the battle bei Spichern), Bruno von François (commander of the Lower Rhine Fusilier Regiment No. 39 and the Hanoverian Infantry Regiment No. 74 in battle), Colonel von Reuter of the 12th Regiment (died of his war wound in Saarbrücken) and the Lieutenant Colonel Hildebrand from the 3rd Artillery Regiment (fallen while storming the Spicherer Heights).

The portraits of deserving citizens of the city of Saarbrücken and the neighboring city of St. Johann found their place on the second door of the hall: Mayor Johann Carl Schmidtborn , alderman Friedrich Braun, Ida Schmidt (Saarbrücken) and Ida Röchling (St. Johann) as bearers of the Order of Louis and the doctors Hermann Jordan and Carl Schmidtborn.

Black marble plaques were set above the doors, on which King Wilhelm's proclamation "To my people" of July 31, 1870 and on the right the first imperial proclamation "To the German people" from Versailles of December 18, 1871 could be read in gold . The coats of arms of Nassau-Saarbrücken and the two cities of Saarbrücken and St. Johann were depicted in the stained glass of the windows .

The center of the coffered ceiling of the hall was occupied by a monumental imperial eagle , which was surrounded by a waving banner that contained a quote from the poet Joseph Victor von Scheffel :

“Awakened by lightning and combat threat

And loyal German hero death,

Looked victorious here the Kaiseraar

The bloody dawn of the empire. "

The four corners of the ceiling showed the coats of arms of the Kingdom of Prussia , the Prussian Rhine Province and the sister cities of Saarbrücken and St. Johann . On either side of the imperial eagle, two chandeliers hung down from golden rosettes, and sayings filled the free space. In the frieze under the main cornice of the ceiling, plaques with the names of the main battles of the Franco-German War were placed between laurel wreaths.

Inauguration and further history

The hall was inaugurated on August 8, 1880, the ten-year anniversary of the Battle of Spichern, by the high president of the Prussian Rhine province , Moritz von Bardeleben , in the presence of high representatives of the civil and military authorities, and the pictures were presented to the public by Anton von Werner himself . The annex was used as a representative meeting and ballroom and developed into a popular destination for tourists who visited the Spichern battlefield. After the unification of the Saar cities to form the city of Saarbrücken in 1909, the town hall lost its function to the St. Johann town hall .

After the incorporation of the Saar region into the German Reich , the Spichern Museum was opened in June 1936 in the council chamber and an adjoining room, which was supposed to represent the role of the Saar region as a bulwark against France in accordance with National Socialist ideology . With the cycle as the focus, further paintings, drawings, photos, plans, military equipment and various memorabilia related to the battle were exhibited. The Association of Officers of the former 8th Rhenish Infantry Regiment No. 70 contributed three bronze busts and three large and five smaller oil paintings, including the two paintings " Attack on St. Privat " and " Attack on St. Quentin " by Carl Röchling . In addition, 103 original drawings by Röchling for "Saarbrücker Kriegschronik" by Albert Ruppersberg , which were published in 1895 on the 25th anniversary of the Battle of Spichern, came from private collections .

The museum only existed for a few years since it was first evacuated at the beginning of World War II in 1939 and then finally evacuated in 1942. The old town hall and its annex were destroyed in the heavy bombing raid on Saarbrücken on October 5, 1944 . The paintings in the cycle could be saved; the whereabouts of the doors and the picture medallions are unknown.

From 1947 the old town hall was rebuilt without the addition. The paintings remained rolled up in the attic of the St. Johann town hall in the decades that followed. In the early years of the Saarland Museum, the painting cycle came into focus at times when it came to realigning the museum collection. Rudolf Bornschein , director of the museum since 1955, was one of the first German museum directors to make purchases from artists who had been branded as " degenerate " by the Nazis , and expanded the museum's holdings beyond the art that is important for the region to include classic works Modern . When Bornschein bought the paintings “Blue Horse” from Franz Marc and “Moorlandschaft” from Karl Schmidt-Rottluff in 1956 , the former NSDAP functionary and then state parliament president Heinrich Schneider ( DPS ) polemicized in an article in the newspaper “Deutsche Saar”: “The available funds should be used to raise cultural assets from the Saarland that may be stored in a desolate condition in the Saarland Museum's magazines, such as the paintings by Anton v. Werner, to restore and exhibit [...] ” . At the request of the DPS parliamentary group, which had the majority there and also provided the mayor with Fritz Schuster , the Saarbrücken city council decided to restore the painting cycle at a price of 900,000 francs .

After a restoration failed and all efforts to hand over the paintings to institutions on permanent loan had also failed . The paintings were donated to two private individuals, Klaus Gersonde (1934–2010), professor of medical technology at Saarland University , and Paul Strieder, in 1994, fifty years after the destruction of the Old Town Hall, for example at the Rastatt Military History Museum . The donation was tied to the condition that the pictures were restored and made available to the public again. Five of the total of seven paintings in the cycle have been exemplary restored. All paintings are now in the care of the Historisches Museum Saar and are stored in St. Ingbert . A planned permanent presentation of the Saarbrücken town hall cycle in the "K4 factory" in the old cotton spinning mill in St. Ingbert has not yet been implemented due to the lengthy renovation work on the building.

The pictures should now be in an exhibition entitled "Monuments of War - The Saarbrücken City Hall Cycle Anton von Werners and our picture from the Franco-German War 1870/71" at the Saar History Museum on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Spiers to be shown publicly. An originally planned cooperation with the Saarland Museum did not materialize. Since the picture has not been restored with the arrival of the king in Saarbrücken, the corresponding color sketch by Anton von Werner from the German Historical Museum should be on view instead .

Artistic reception

Postage stamp based on the "Victoria" painting
Figure group "From François with trumpeter"

The Victoria painting served as the motif of a permanent stamp series of the Reichspost with representative depictions of the German Empire .

In 1897 the Victoria painting was published in the magazine Moderne Kunst in Meisterholzschnitte (11, 1897, p. 85) together with a poem entitled Germany's Unification by Adalbert von Hanstein :

“In the thunder of battle, enveloped by the storm wind, / Who gave birth to the kingdom and unity, / South and North have sworn their loyalty with an iron word / The covenant is sworn to their loyalty 'Today she's ready to renew her oath / and to keep it forever - forever! "

In 1895, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the battle, the sculptor Wilhelm Schneider modeled two life-size statues based on the image detail showing Bruno von François and the trumpeter. The group of figures "Von François with trumpeter" was set up as a provisional plaster model in front of the mine management in St. Johann and then brought to the St. Johann Volksgarten, where it stood for many years and, exposed to the weather, deteriorated over time. At an unknown point in time, the remains were removed. The execution of a similar monument made of galvanized cast bronze failed due to the question of costs and the question of a possible participation of the city of St. Johann in the financing of the project.

The painter Moritz Götze took the Saarbrücken town hall cycle and other paintings by Anton von Werner on the Franco-German War as templates for his own paintings, which were shown in several exhibitions, for example in 2007 in the Saarland Museum in Saarbrücken and in 2009 in the Museum Junge Kunst in Frankfurt (Or) , the birthplace of Anton von Werner.

Remarks

  1. ^ A. Ruppersberg: Saarbrücker War Chronicle. Pp. 239-246.
  2. ^ A. Ruppersberg: Saarbrücker War Chronicle. Chapter XLVIII, The King in Saarbrücken. Pp. 266-274.
  3. ↑ B. Holtz: Prussia's art policy in the province. Pp. 248-249.
  4. ^ Anton von Werner: Experiences and impressions 1870-1890. Berlin 1913, p. 173
  5. ↑ B. Holtz: Prussia's art policy in the province. P. 250.
  6. ^ Secret State Archives of Prussian Cultural Heritage, Rep. 92 Nl Av Werner, drawings, folder 10, sheet 16.
  7. ^ Kl. Holländer: The Spichern Museum in Saarbrücken. P. 212.
  8. ↑ B. Holtz: Prussia's art policy in the province. P. 254.
  9. ^ Anton von Werner: Experiences and impressions 1870-1890. Berlin 1913, p. 198.
  10. ↑ Saarland Museum, inventory no. NI 3641.
  11. ↑ Photos of the historical hall in the Saarbrücken city archive, photo collection, inventory no. 1644-1664.
  12. ^ Secret State Archives of Prussian Cultural Heritage, Rep. 92 Nl Av Werner, drawings, portfolio 10, sheets 16-20.
  13. ↑ Fr. Kloevekorn: Saarbrücken's past in pictures (from the first beginnings to 1914). P. 223 Figs. 253–258.
  14. ↑ Fr. Kloevekorn: Saarbrücken's past in pictures (from the first beginnings to 1914). P. 224 Figs. 259–264.
  15. ↑ M. Dittrich: German hero graves in the Reichslande. P. 48.
  16. ↑ M. Dittrich: German hero graves in the Reichslande. Pp. 47- 48.
  17. ↑ Deutsche Saar , Volume II, No. 85, October 19, 1956, p. 3.
  18. ↑ Johannes Janssen: "Out of its provincial narrowness ..." The Saarland Museum 1945–2003. In: Ralph Melcher , Christof Trepesch, Eva Wolf (eds.): A picture of culture. The history of the Saarland Museum. Gollenstein Verlag, Saarbrücken 2004, ISBN 3-935731-80-9 , pp. 219-246, here pp. 237f.
  19. ↑ Roland Mönig (Ed.): Years of Development. The Saarland Museum 1952–1965. Saarlandmuseum, Saarbrücken 2014, ISBN 978-3-932036-59-0 , pp. 52–56.
  20. ↑ Rolf Henkel: Banished to the attic. Die Zeit , No. 46, 1975, November 7, 1975, accessed September 19, 2013 .
  21. ↑ History of IBMT Fraunhofer. Retrieved April 24, 2020 .
  22. ↑ a b Cathrin Elss-Seringhaus: Cinematic war scenes from Saarbrücken. Saarbrücker Zeitung , Heimat, B 3, 18./19. April 2020.
  23. ↑ Contemporary art in old walls. City of St. Ingbert, accessed on May 11, 2019 .
  24. ↑ Fr. Kloevekorn: Saarbrücken's past in pictures (from the first beginnings to 1914). P. 220 fig. 249.
  25. ↑ Rainer Knauf, Christoph Trepesch: war memorials and war cemeteries. Forms of war memorial in the Saarbrücken area between 1870 and 1935. In: Lieselotte Kugler (Hrsg.): Grenzenlos. Worlds of life in the Franco-German region on the Saar and Moselle since 1840. Historisches Museum Saar, Saarbrücken 1998, ISBN 3-9805574-1-3 , pp. 156–182.
  26. ↑ Ralph Melcher (Ed.): Men and Deeds - Moritz Götze, Anton von Werner ... on the occasion of the exhibition from August 25 to October 7, 2007, Saarland Museum. Saarland Cultural Heritage Foundation, Saarland Museum, Saarbrücken 2007, ISBN 3-422-06750-7 .
  27. ^ Announcement of the exhibition in Frankfurt (Oder). Retrieved September 27, 2014 .

literature

  • Max Dittrich: German hero graves in the Reichsland. Wandering studies of the battlefields of 1870 in Alsace-Lorraine. Max Babenzier, Rathenow (1895), pp. 31-52. [1]
  • Albert Ruppersberg : Saarbrücker War Chronicle. Events in and near Saarbrücken and St. Johann, as well as on the Spicherer Berge 1870. 4th edition, Leipzig 1911.
  • Albert Ruppersberg: History of the former county of Saarbrücken, history of the cities of Saarbrücken and St. Johann 1815–1909, the city of Malstatt-Burbach and the united city of Saarbrücken up to 1914. Volume III, part 2, 2nd edition from 1914, Saarbrücken 1914 , Pp. 94-96.
  • Fritz Kloevekorn : Saarbrücken's past in pictures (from the first beginnings to 1914). 2nd greatly increased edition 1934 (= The Saar area's past in pictures , Volume 1), Saarbrücken 1934.
  • Dominik Bartmann : The Saarbrücken town hall cycle. In: Dominik Bartmann (Ed.): Anton von Werner. Story in pictures. Hirmer Verlag , Munich 1993, ISBN 3-7774-6140-7 , pp. 252-265.
  • Klaus Holländer: The Spichern Museum in Saarbrücken. In: Ralph Melcher , Christof Trepesch, Eva Wolf (eds.): A picture of culture. The history of the Saarland Museum. Gollenstein Verlag , Saarbrücken 2004, ISBN 3-935731-80-9 , pp. 207-218.
  • Bärbel Holtz: Prussia's art policy in the province. The Saarbrücken town hall cycle as an "important element of national artistic memory". In: Gabriele B. Clemens , Eva Kell (eds.), Preußen an der Saar. A conflicted relationship (1815-1914). (= Publication of the Commission for Saarland State History , Volume 50), Saarbrücken 2018, pp. 235–260, ISBN 978-3-939150-11-4 .

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