Stalingrad Madonna
The Stalingrad Madonna is a picture by the German hospital doctor Kurt Reuber (1906–1944), which was created for Christmas 1942 in Stalingrad (now Volgograd ). It came during the Battle of Stalingrad with the last transport aircraft from the boiler .
To commemorate the victims of the battle and a reminder for peace, the picture has been in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin since 1983 .
description
The Protestant pastor and hospital - senior physician Kurt Reuber created a charcoal drawing, which shows a seated female figure. Similar to a protective cloak Madonna , she hides a child under her cloak, who looks at her lovingly and gives him protection and security. The depiction bears the inscription "1942 Christmas in the cauldron - Stalingrad Fortress - light, life, love".
“The picture is like this: child and mother's head tilted towards each other, enclosed by a large cloth, security and enclosure of mother and child. The Johannine words came to me: light, life, love. What else can I say about that? If you consider our situation, in the darkness, death and hate - and our longing for light, life, love, which is so infinitely great in each of us! "
history
The 105 × 80 cm picture was drawn on the back of a Russian map in a shelter .
From a Soviet prisoner-of-war camp 1,000 kilometers northeast of Stalingrad near Jelabuga (now in Tatarstan ) Reuber wrote to his wife on Advent 1943:
“Look in the child as the firstborn of a new humanity, born in pain, outshining all darkness and sadness. Let it be a symbol of victorious, future-happy life that we want to love all the more ardently and genuinely after all our death experience, a life that is only worth living when it is radiantly pure and warm with love. "
“The picture casts a spell over people, both Christians and non-Christians. (...) The peace and security that emanates from this picture is in tension with the desperate circumstances of its creation in the Stalingrad pocket in 1942. [Kurt Reuber has this work] "presented" to his fellow sufferers in a Christmas Eve devotion, as a sermon of the Gospel. The report of an eyewitness indicates that this picture turned the narrow bunker into a chapel. "
Together with Reuber's self-portrait and around 150 other portraits, a seriously wounded officer took the picture with him into one of the last Ju 52 transport aircraft that still flew out of the boiler. These then came to Reuber's family, who kept it in the rectory of Wichmannshausen (today Sontra , Northern Hesse). At the suggestion of Federal President Karl Carstens , the family presented the drawing of the Stalingrad Madonna to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin on August 26, 1983.
Second version: Prisoner Madonna
“A year later, at Christmas 1943, he painted a second Madonna in the Jelabuga prisoner-of-war camp, which appeared in the camp newspaper. The picture was later named »Prisoner Madonna«, the break is clear: Maria looks much more desolate and shows Reuber's desperation. "
This time, too, Reuber's wife was able to hand over the picture weeks later.
“At the very end, in front of nowhere, under the spell of death - what a revaluation of values has taken place in us! We want to use this waiting time as a family, at work, among the people. In the middle of our Advent death path, the joyous light of Christmas shines as the birth festival of a new time in which - however hard it may be - we want to prove ourselves worthy of the new life that has been given. "
At the same time she received the news that her husband had died in the camp on January 20, 1944 after a serious illness ( typhus ).
Reproductions
In numerous churches in Germany, Austria , England and Russia , reproductions of this picture are exhibited in various artistic techniques as a warning against war .
Germany
- Berlin , Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church (original)
- Bochum , Heimkehrerdankeskirche -Crypt: embroidered as a wall hanging
- Denkendorf (Upper Bavaria) , free-standing stone cross with an engraved stylized Madonna as a symbol of peace
- Diestedde , forecourt of the cemetery chapel: statue
- Dornburg / Westerwald, youth center Dornburg, photo copy
- Fulda , St. Andreas Church in Fulda-Neuenberg : carved as a relief
- Hanover , private property
- Hermeskeil , on a meadow next to the parish church of St. Martin: statue made of sandstone (erected by Pastor Mohr, Stalingrad participant)
- Hoheneiche , municipality of Wehretal, parish of Eschwege, church, branch of the Wichmannshausen parish office (Kurt Reuber, from 1933), replica in original size
- Princely Park Inzigkofen , Meinrad Chapel
- Kassel , Church of the Resurrection, baptism, confirmation and marriage church by Kurt Reuber (copy)
- Kirchberg Monastery , monastery church. There is a center of the Michael Brotherhood of which Reber was a member.
- Bad Kohlgrub , war memorial chapel in the spa garden: reproduction by Hans Seitfudem (1992)
- Königswinter , memorial hall on the war cemetery in Königswinter-Ittenbach
- Külsheim , In the street chapel, clay relief
- Meersburg , small barred chapel "Zum Frieden" on the edge of the promenade "Am Rosenhag" before the confluence with Töbelestrasse: copy in the form of a tapestry by the Russian artist Elena Kikopule
- Munich , Medical Academy of the Bundeswehr , original copy, received in 1997 as a gift from the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church
- Mengshausen , Evangelical Church, wooden relief
- Niedergailbach , Marienkapelle: carved as a statue
- Oberroth (municipality of Schwabhausen, district of Dachau ), forest chapel: copy of the image
- Pronsfeld (Verbandsgemeinde Prüm), Old Church: relief in red sandstone
- Rottweil , district of Hausen, chapel at the Bollerhofwald, half-relief by Maria Klaiber-Kasper
- Schöneberg (Hunsrück) : a painting in the church entitled Madonna of Stalingrad
- Schwalmstadt Church in Loshausen (Hesse) relief in bronze by the sculptor Lutz Lesch
- Wellendorf , parish church St. Barbara : relief in silver etching technique
- Wiesbaden , St. Marien Church Wiesbaden-Biebrich , copy of the image
- Wichmannshausen , church, former pastor of Kurt Reuber , copy of the image
- Wismar , Holy Spirit Church , sculpture made of Elbe sandstone
- Wittgensdorf , private property
- Wuppertal , Kolping House Barmen
England
- Coventry Cathedral in Coventry , The Millennium Chapel : Picture, original copy, received in 1990 as a gift from the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church
Austria
- Baden near Vienna , St. Stephen's Church: carved as a relief
- Felling, cadastral parish of Hardegg , parish church : embroidered
- Fronsburg ( Weitersfeld ), Bründlkapelle : carved as a relief
- Langau , church: carved as a relief
Russia
- Museum Stalingrad, today Volgograd
- Volgograd , Catholic Church of St. Nikolaus von Myra in Volgograd, original copy, received in 1995 as a gift from the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church
Other uses
- The image is also used in the coat of arms of the Bundeswehr Medical Regiment 2 in Rennerod / Koblenz. The Bundeswehr also sells a print version with vertical lines of text (left) “Christmas in a Kessel”; (right) “Licht Leben Liebe” and the year 1942 above.
- A copy was set up in November 2014 at the Aeronauticum in Nordholz as part of a memorial service for war victims.
- A copper work of the Stalingrad Madonna is on the tombstone of OSR Johannes Willnauer (1920–1985) at the cemetery in Steyr, Upper Austria. In Stalingrad he was a medic at the unit to which Kurt Reuber also belonged. After the war he became a priest, religion teacher at the HTL in Steyr and president of the Kolping family Steyr. The work was made by the Steyr master goldsmith Barbara Postlbauer-Rus.
See also
literature
- Martin Kruse (ed.): The Stalingrad Madonna. The work of Kurt Reuber as a document of reconciliation . 1st completely revised edition. Lutherisches Verlagshaus, Hannover 2012. ISBN 978-3-7859-1076-4 .
- The Christmas Madonna von Pronsfeld , since 1957 she has also been "at home" in Pronsfeld (online version)
- One last “O you happy…”, Kurt Reuber's “Stalingrad Madonna” became a symbol of reconciliation: in 1942 she comforted the soldiers, Evangelische Zeitung, 23 December 2012, p. 6.
- Heinz-Georg Hartmann: The Stalingrad Madonna in Berlin (Quatember 1983)
Web links
- Museum Stalingrad, today Volgograd - with illustrations of the work and photo by Kurt Reuber
- Medal of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge
- The German Poetry Library Poem in honor of Kurt Reuber
Individual evidence
- ↑ Memorial plaque in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church
- ↑ Information board in the "Chapel for Peace" in Meersburg with a copy of the Stalingrad Madonna
- ↑ The Madonna of Stalingrad - Drawn by War, on mirror-online with a reproduction of the "Prisoner Madonna" from 1943
- ↑ Reproduction of the "Prisoner Madonna"
- ↑ The Madonna of Stalingrad - Drawn by War, on mirror-online
- ↑ Jörg Raab: The dead oblige the living - a special anniversary. In: Voice & Way, 4/2010, p. 29.
- ^ Online project Fallen Memorials: Copy of the Stalingrad Madonna in Meersburg, accessed on December 20, 2012
- ↑ Stalingrad Chapel in Oberroth, Dachau district
- ↑ The Christmas Madonna von Pronsfeld
- ↑ Article in Paulinus (weekly newspaper)
- ↑ The relief on the church in Loshausen reminds of the former vicar in Loshausen (October 1930 to April 1931).
- ^ Website of the sculptor Lutz Lesch.
- ↑ Stalingrad Madonna in Wichmannshausen
- ↑ Cenotaph in the Kolping House Barmen
- ↑ Храм Св. Николая в Волгограде: описание, история, фото, точный адрес. Retrieved May 24, 2020 (Russian).