Mourning parents

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Figure group Mourning Parents (1914–1932) by Käthe Kollwitz at the German military cemetery in Vladslo , West Flanders , Belgium

Mourning parents is the name of a two-part group of figures created by the German painter, graphic artist and sculptor Käthe Kollwitz , which is dedicated to her youngest son, 18-year-old Peter Kollwitz , who died in World War I in 1914 . It is now in the German military cemetery in Vladslo , West Flanders , around 20 kilometers south of Ostend . The sculpture made of Belgian granite is considered Käthe Kollwitz 'main sculptural work.

Creative phase

Käthe Kollwitz : Lying Dead Soldier ( Peter Kollwitz ), 1915/16

According to Käthe Kollwitz's diary entries, on December 1, 1914, she began thinking about, planning and working on a memorial for her son. Specifically, she first turned to the sculpture of her fallen son, which she modeled out of plaster and executed in a first phase as a nude and dressed in 1915/16. Only one photograph of this has been preserved in the Berlin State Archive to this day. It shows a dead soldier lying on his back with his head stretched back, Peter Kollwitz, who was planned as the central figure of a three-part monument. The stylistic feature of the overstretched head is later found in the realized Pietà mother with dead son .

A suggestion from Ernst Barlach is said to have given Käthe Kollwitz the impetus to give the figures representing her parents their own facial features and those of her husband Karl Kollwitz .

description

Both parent sculptures, which are positioned on pedestals, were made roughly life-size and kneeling. The sculptural work was carried out by August Rhades (1886–1979) and Fritz Diederich (1869–1951). The sculpture of the fallen son Peter, which was planned in the middle in front of it, was completely omitted. From the overall impression, he would have looked as if he was looking for eye contact with his parents through his overstretched neck. The figure of the father exudes dignity, it holds itself upright, but appears completely withdrawn, as literally petrified - with sunken cheeks, closed lips, with bitter corners of the mouth drawn down. Your gaze, directed slightly towards the ground, seems to get lost in infinity. The figure of the mother, on the other hand, is bent low, half of her collar pulled up to her face, her hands cramped looking for support in the fabric of her coat, her eyes are closed.

Presentation and installation

Karl Kollwitz and his wife Käthe next to the sculpture bearing Karl's facial features in the German war cemetery Esen-Roggeveld, West Flanders , 23 July 1932
Map of the Esen-Roggeveld War Cemetery, 1932

After 18 years of work, the group of figures was first presented in the Berlin National Gallery in the summer of 1932 and then placed on July 23, 1932 in Belgium at the Esen-Roggeveld German military cemetery under the personal supervision of Käthe and Karl Kollwitz, where the couple's youngest son was buried.

However, the establishment of the sculpture group was preceded by long discussions and a lot of resistance. The Belgians saw the two figures as enemies carved in stone and constantly present in their country. For many years they were mocked as "Mette" and "Pette", as "Manten" and "Kalle". The breakthrough was only achieved through mediation by Albert Einstein ; the group of sculptures was allowed to be set up. But there was also contradiction in Germany; the National Socialist Völkischer Beobachter was of the opinion: "Thank God a German mother doesn't look like that". The sheet referred to the Nazi picture of the German mother .

At the Roggeveld military cemetery, the two figures formed the entrance to the burial site; incoming visitors ran between them to visit the burial site.

After most of the German military cemeteries in West Flanders were dissolved, there were 158 in 1956, the graves were reburied. The group of sculptures by Käthe Kollwitz was also removed and re-erected in Vladslo in the Praatswald. At their feet, a few meters away, are now 25,645 German soldiers, including their own son Peter Kollwitz.

A copy of the group of sculptures made of shell limestone , released to the public by Federal President Theodor Heuss in 1959, stands in the ruins of St. Alban's Church in Cologne, which serves as a memorial , the figure of the father was executed by Joseph Beuys at the time , that of the mother by Erwin Heerich , both at that time Master student of Ewald Mataré at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. A cast was made on September 20, 2014 in the German war cemetery Rshew in memory of the grandson Peter (1921–1942) who died in World War II near Rschew by the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge . The cemetery is visited by around 70,000 visitors annually. When plans became known that the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge might want to move the statues to a museum in Germany, the Belgian state placed the entire area under monument protection by a ministerial decree of March 18, 1997.

Video

Web links

Commons : Mourning Parents  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Ulrich Grober : The short life of Peter Kollwitz. Report of a search for clues . In: Die Zeit , November 22, 1996, on: zeit.de
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g Gisbert Kuhn: The stone suffering of Käthe Kollwitz (PDF file; 281 kB). In: Konrad Adenauer Foundation, on: kas.de
  3. ^ Sven Felix Kellerhoff : Home Front. The fall of the ideal world - Germany in the First World War . Bastei Lübbe, 2014, ISBN 978-3-8387-5621-9 .
  4. ↑ According to written information, the photograph of Käthe Kollwitz lying dead soldier from 1915/16 is not made available to Wikipedia for copyright reasons: Landesarchiv Berlin, photo collection LAB IV Ba, Gz: IV Ba - 9221, Monika Bartzsch, October 4, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Lying dead soldier ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: Käthe Kollwitz Museum Cologne, on kollwitz.de @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kollwitz.de
  6. ↑ a b Martina Reinhard: Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945) . In: The future needs memories, on: Zukunft-bendet-erinnerung.de
  7. ^ Marion Böhm: Peter Kollwitz: Die fürs Vaterland. The son of the artist Kathe Kollwitz in WW1 . In: ZDF History, on: zdf.de
  8. ^ Raf Seys: Käthe Kollwitz in West-Vlaanderen . In: Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse letteren, on: dbnl.org
  9. ↑ a b c "The Mourning Parents" by Käthe Kollwitz soon also in Russia . In: Presseportal ( Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge ), on: presseportal.de
  10. ↑ The artist - curriculum vitae . In: Käthe Kollwitz Museum Cologne, on: kollwitz.de
  11. ↑ Reiner Oschmann: Peter and the Pietà . In: Neues Deutschland , October 22, 2014, at: neue-deutschland.de
  12. ^ Gisbert Kuhn: Steinernes Suffering . In: Belgiuminfo, on: belgieninfo.net
  13. ↑ Simone Reber: Life means fighting . In: Der Tagesspiegel , July 6, 2017, on: tagesspiegel.de
  14. ↑ Roggeveld War Cemetery . In: Leibniz Institute for Regional Development and Structural Planning, call number C_12_01_14-01
  15. ↑ routeyou

Coordinates: 51 ° 4 ′ 13.3 "  N , 2 ° 55 ′ 44"  E