Gate of the Dead

The Gate of the Dead (December 2011)

The goal of the Dead is a Kriegsehren- and memorial east of the heart of Rheinberg , near the market square, on the Lower Rhine in North Rhine-Westphalia . It is located on the old ramparts of the former city fortifications on the Rhine meadows. It stands out due to its unusual shape and size in relation to the city of Rheinberg, which has around 31,200 inhabitants.

history

After the last Rheinberg prisoner of war returned to his hometown from Russia at the beginning of 1956, the residents' demand for a memorial became great. So in July 1957 a memorial committee was founded , consisting of the higher personalities of the city, which decided on a design by the Klever architect Toni Hermanns . He wanted to create a contrast between a peaceful landscape and a threatening bronze sculpture as a symbol of the inhumanity of war. The sculptor Fritz Koenig implemented the design of the sculpture , financed by donations , so that it was inaugurated on June 17, 1964 as the “Gate of the Dead”.

description

The Gate of the Dead consists of two concrete steles about twelve meters high, which are supposed to symbolize two praying hands. Inside the monument, a square stone was walled up in the center, a kind of chest that is hollow and closed by a square piece of bronze. Inside is a roll of parchment with 650 names of victims, including those killed in the war and missing, bombs and those who had escaped, and Rheinberger people who died in concentration camps . A three-meter-wide and two-and-a-half-meter high bronze plate is attached to an accessible area between the two columns, with three crosses on the front. On the back there is the inscription “We preceded you in dark times. Think of us and see the will of him who gives and takes. "