Silcher memorial

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Silcher memorial

The Silcher monument is a sandstone sculpture in Tübingen .

The memorial was unveiled on May 11, 1941 in honor of the German folk song composer Philipp Friedrich Silcher (1789–1860) on Platanenallee on the Tübingen Neckar Island. It is a 5.7-meter-high sandstone - sculpture made by the Stuttgart artist Wilhelm Julius Frick was designed (1884-1964). The Tübingen Silcher Monument is one of the few original monuments from the National Socialist era that are still accessible in public spaces today.

First Silcher memorial

First Silcher monument behind the New Aula. Photo by Paul Sinner .

Maintaining the memory of Friedrich Silcher has been part of Tübingen's cultural system since the death of the composer and former music director at the Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen in 1860. In 1873 the first memorial, an obelisk with a relief bust of Silcher, was erected at the rear of the university's new auditorium . Because the extension of the New Aula was to be built at this point, it was moved in 1928 to the place of today's Silcher monument on Platanenallee.

Idea and construction

Under National Socialism , this form of tribute to Silcher was no longer considered contemporary and the obelisk was to be replaced by a larger and less abstract monument. On the occasion of the 150th birthday of the composer and music teacher , a two-day Silcher celebration was held in Tübingen on June 24th and 25th, 1939, the highlight of which was the laying of the foundation stone for the monument. Hans Rauschnabel , the Tübingen district leader of the NSDAP and deputy chairman of the Swabian Singers' Association , was the main initiator of the event. The foundation stone of the monument was laid on June 25, 1939 as part of the Silcher celebration. However, due to the war, the memorial was not completed until two years later and was not officially inaugurated at the time.

The aim was to build a Thingstätte in honor of German singing . The monument was designed as part of a larger facility on the Tübingen Neckar Island as a meeting place for artistic performances. In addition to the Silcher memorial, several stages and platforms as well as a sandstone wall were created from sandstone , which form a ring around the central square on the plane tree avenue.

In the run-up to the celebration in March 1939, a competition for the artistic design and implementation of the Silcher monument was announced among the members of the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts . 40 designs were received and the sculptor Wilhelm Julius Frick from Stuttgart won with actually third place (called "2nd place"). The cost of the monument was ℛℳ 32,000 . The memorial was supposed to be completed in October 1940, but it took until May 11, 1941, before the monument, consisting of 13 stone blocks, arrived from Stuttgart .

description

Putto and a couple saying goodbye German soldier
Putto and a couple saying goodbye
German soldier

The Silcher monument consists of a base, a fountain basin and a group of figures and has a total height of 5.7 m. All three elements are sculptures made of red core sandstone. The design style corresponds to the realism required by the state under National Socialism .

A larger than life statue of the composer is located on the pedestal, with an inscription referring to the dedication of the monument to Friedrich Silcher. Silcher is shown sitting and writing in a booklet in the composition process. Three scenes from his two most famous soldier songs grow from his back : “ Who wants to be among the soldiers? "And" The good comrade ". On the right half of the back is a German soldier with a steel helmet who has to reload his rifle in the middle of a battle and can therefore no longer shake hands with his falling comrade. In the center of the back there is a kissing couple who say goodbye before the man goes to war . A putto , a naked boy who has shouldered a rifle, grows out of the composer's left armpit .

In its art historical interpretation, the Silcher monument expresses the appropriation of Silcher's music by the ideologies of National Socialism. The artificial folk songs and soldier songs were written at the time of Vormärz and represented the patriotism of German Biedermeier . The ideological charge of these motifs with ethnic and militaristic elements in National Socialism is called appropriation .

Reception of the Silcher monument in the region

Since the Silcher memorial in Tübingen was not removed after the end of the war despite a corresponding law by the Allies and clearly bears the stylistic features of the National Socialist understanding of art, it was repeatedly the subject of political disputes.

On January 5, 2020, it was rededicated by citizens of the city of Tübingen and artists from the Zurich theater collective Neue Uringlichkeit as a “memorial against the appropriation of the arts by racist and nationalist forces”.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Friedrich Silcher. In: TÜpedia. October 25, 2019, accessed January 7, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Annette Taigel: In honor of the master of the tones. The history of the monuments for Friedrich Silcher in Tübingen . In: Georg Günther, Reiner Nägele Metzler (ed.): Music in Baden-Württemberg, Vol. 4. Music, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg 1997, ISBN 978-3-476-01578-5 , pp. 203-207 .
  3. ↑ Alexander Loistl: The Silcher care in Tübingen between 1933 and 1945 . In: Benigna Schönhagen: Gone and Forgotten: National Socialism in Tübingen . Kulturamt Tübingen, Tübingen 1991, ISBN 978-3-910090-02-6 , pp. 171–178.
  4. ↑ The Tübingen Silcher days on 24 and 25 June . In: "Tübinger Chronik" 133, June 16, 1939.
  5. ↑ Hans Rauschnabel: Friedrich Silchers importance for the German male singing and for the German song . In: "Tübinger Chronik", special supplement to the Tübingen Silcher celebrations on June 24th and 25th, June 24th 1939.
  6. ↑ Annette Taigel: The Silcher monuments of 1874 and 1941 in Tübingen. A study of Friedrich Silcher's reception . Master thesis. Tubingen 1990.
  7. ^ Gustav Adolf Rieth: The assassination. The Silcher monument and why it is still there . In: "Tübinger Blätter", 1972, pp. 65–71.
  8. ↑ Schwäbisches Tagblatt: Rejuvenation for a controversial monument. April 28, 2018, accessed January 7, 2020 .
  9. ↑ Armin Knauer: Theater group declares Silcher figure to be a memorial. In: Reutlinger Generalanzeiger. January 6, 2020, accessed January 7, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Miri Watson: Silcher monument: rededicate instead of demolish. In: Schwäbisches Tagblatt. January 6, 2020, accessed January 7, 2020 .

Web links

Commons : Silcherdenkmal Tübingen  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 48 ° 31 ′ 4.7 ″  N , 9 ° 3 ′ 7 ″  E