Sports monument Berlin-Grünau
The sports monument Berlin-Grünau was designed by Bodo Ebhardt and inaugurated on June 12, 1898 for German water sports in what is now the Berlin district of Grünau . Its pyramid-shaped base consisted of boulders, many of which were brought here through appeals for donations to German associations and installed. In 1973 the GDR government had the monument torn down, with the stones with the inscriptions of the clubs being deposited in various places. After the fall of the Wall , those interested in history found some parts and brought them to the Grünau Water Sports Museum, which has now been established .
history
Emergence
Numerous water sports clubs had settled in Grünau in the last decades of the 19th century. The Berlin address book names the following clubs in 1922: "Berlin Regattaverein", "Berlin Sailing Club", "Rowing Team of the Academic Gymnastics Club", "Academic Rowing Club Berlin", "Berlin Rowing Club 'Spreehort'", "Berlin Rowing Club 'Sport Borussia'" , "Rowing Society 'Viktoria'", water sports department of the German Landsmannschaft. These all had their properties at the Langen See . The idea came from the clubs to honor the concentration of these clubs with a common sports monument. The sculptor Bodo Ebhardt designed a memorial on her behalf, on which a sandstone temple should rise up to a height of about five meters above a pyramid-shaped layered pedestal . All German sports clubs were called upon to donate natural stones from their hometown with the inscriptions of the club's name and the place. More than 300 clubs answered the call. Most of the stones came from rowing clubs in Prussia. In addition to sports clubs from Berlin , clubs from the immediate vicinity (e.g. Charlottenburg , Grünau , Köpenick , Reinickendorf , Rixdorf , Spandau , Tegel ) also supplied their signed stones. Stones were also found from more distant places such as Metz and Memel . Geological investigations of the parts of the monument that were found again at the end of the 20th century provide information about the exact origin of the stones.
The foundation stone for the memorial was laid on June 19, 1897 as part of the three-day General German Sports Festival ( Centenar Sports Festival with competitions in horse, water and land sports ) for Wilhelm I , and June 19, 1897 became the water sports festival .
The inauguration ceremony took place on June 12, 1898, the second day of the Grünauer Regatta. Kaiser Wilhelm II arrived on his yacht “Alexandria” and particularly praised the location at the 1000 meter mark on the regatta course . Towards the Dahme , the sports monument was designed as a Kaiser Wilhelm monument . It had a dedication plaque with the inscription:
- WILHELM
- THE GREAT
- THE GERMAN SPORT
The place in front of the memorial was officially named Platz am Sportdenkmal . The popularity as an excursion destination rose rapidly, so that a "restaurant at the sports monument" opened next to it.
The memorial survived World War II , but the top two lines of the inscription were carved out in the 1950s.
demolition
In preparation for the World Festival in the spring of 1973, the organizers had the memorial torn down, probably also because names of cities from all of Germany and former cities that were now in Poland did not match the self-confidence of the GDR.
After the fall of the Wall , seven boulders were found again and four were recovered by a diving operation in 1991. Three of them are located in the Grünau Water Sports Museum .
In 1997, Udo Gentzen, a former museum director from Dömitz, wrote a paper about the monument. The monument stood where the regatta road merges into the sports promenade. Located in the immediate vicinity of the 1000 meter mark of the regatta course, in its place there is now a park with an installed board “Platz des Deutschen Sportdenkmals”.
Planning for a new water sports monument
In 1999 Manfred von Richthofen set up a working group (AG) on the sports monument with the aim of rebuilding the monument. Members of the working group are historians, architects and sports enthusiasts who are still working on strategies for a new landmark.
Parallel to the work of the AG, plans for a new monument at the old location were already being drawn up in the district's building department. The new memorial was supposed to take up the idea of an all-German representation, but be composed of signs from many German water sports clubs; some commitments have already been made. In 2008, the Presidium of the German Olympic Sports Confederation dealt with the topic at its 17th meeting. The Berlin House of Representatives also made a recommendation for a resolution to build a sports monument in Berlin-Grünau (Drs. 16/3332) and then drew up a development plan. A citizens' initiative “Future in Grünau”, founded in 2011, is committed to extensive improvements in the district and in autumn 2012, for example, carried out a public clean-up of the sports monument area. She states on her homepage that the area was probably "planned away by the city planning authorities". Nothing visible happened until 2016.
literature
- Udo Gentzen: The sports monument of Berlin-Grünau, yesterday, today and tomorrow? 1997
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ At the Long Lake . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1922, part 4, Grünau, p. 1685.
- ↑ Steffi Bey: District complains about the surrender of remains of monuments. Reconstruction plans . In: Der Tagesspiegel , March 3, 2000; Retrieved September 4, 2013
- ^ DOSB , accessed on September 4, 2013
- ↑ Plenary minutes of the 69th session of the Berlin House of Representatives ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF), accessed on September 4, 2013
- ↑ Citizens' initiative "Future in Grünau". ( Memento of May 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Retrieved September 4, 2013
Coordinates: 52 ° 24 ′ 39 ″ N , 13 ° 36 ′ 3 ″ E