Veterans memorial (Frankenthal)

The veterans memorial is a memorial of the veterans for the fallen of the Napoleonic wars from Frankenthal (Palatinate) . It was built in 1841 by surviving participants in the French campaigns. It was dedicated to the fallen; only the survivors were noted by name.

Geographical location

The monument stands in the city's park cemetery, which was laid out in 1821. It stands there east of the central axis in an abandoned part of the cemetery. It forms the southern entrance to the morgue and is laid out as a chestnut avenue.

history

During the pre-March period , veterans' associations were formed in towns and communities in the territories on the left bank of the Rhine that had belonged to France until 1813. The small town of Frankenthal was then part of the Bavarian Rhine District . The local veterans association with 57 members was founded in 1837. The first goal was to erect a monument. Collections soon raised 1,500 guilders.

The design was donated by King Ludwig I. The order for the execution was given to the sculptor Peter Menges (1793-1859) in Kaiserslautern. The solemn inauguration of the monument took place on February 13, 1841. In the following years the names of the deceased members of the association with their rank in the Napoleonic army and the date of death were noted in italics. The death of the last - Corporal Konrad Kissel - is recorded on June 4, 1880.

After Kissel's death in 1880, the association's assets fell to the city, which took care of the monument. It is registered as a cultural monument and is now looked after by volunteers from the French War Graves Commission.

description

The monument is made of red sandstone . A flat cuboid stands on a three-tier stepped base. An upright rectangular cuboid stands on it. The side facing the avenue bears the dedication:

" This memorial is dedicated to the comrades who have returned home to the warriors from Frankenthal who fell in the campaigns
of 1804 to 1813. "

The three other pages contain the 57 names of those who survived the campaigns as veterans and donated the memorial - not those of the fallen, who are not mentioned by name. The monument is crowned by a Greek helmet carved in stone as an attachment, which rests on a stepped cover plate.

Four stone posts at the corners of the base were connected by bronze grids. The last two posts were removed after 1960.

See also

• Veterans memorial from 1848 in the neighboring, then Hessian city ​​of Worms
• Napoleon stone

literature

• Ernst-W [ilhelm] Lamann: The Frankenthaler Veteranenstein . In: Frankenthal then and now. Issue 1, 1960. pp. 12-14.
• Ulrich Kerkhoff (arrangement): Frankenthal (Pfalz) (=  cultural monuments in Rhineland-Palatinate . Volume 6 ). Schwann in Patmos Verlag, Düsseldorf 1989, ISBN 3-491-31037-7 .

Web links

• General Directorate for Cultural Heritage Rhineland-Palatinate (ed.): Informational directory of cultural monuments - district-free city of Frankenthal. Mainz 2020, p. 6 (PDF; 4.2 MB).

Footnotes

1. ↑ Founder of the Menges sculptor dynasty, he also created the monument in Kaiserslautern.

Coordinates: 49 ° 32 '25 "  N , 8 ° 21' 19.4"  E