Veterans Memorial (Worms)

West side with dedication

Signature: A [loys] Boller

Grünstadt copy, cast in 1852 from the Worms original by Aloys Boller

The veterans memorial is a memorial of the veterans for the fallen of the Napoleonic wars from Worms .

Geographical location

The memorial is in Albert-Schulte-Park , a former cemetery of the city of Worms. It is placed there to the east and in relation to the central axis of the former cemetery, which is designed as an avenue .

history

The idea of erecting a memorial for the local participants in the Napoleonic campaigns was widespread in the province of Rheinhessen in the Grand Duchy of Hesse in late March . To this end, an association was formed in Worms in 1846. The city made an area available on what was then the main cemetery, today's Albert-Schulte-Park. A sculptor named Holekamp made a design. It provided for a multi-tiered pedestal that carried a standing figure of Athena . But this did not come to fruition.

Rather, the young stonemason Aloys Boller received the order. Its name can be found - heavily weathered - on the north side of the plinth cuboid. It was built in the revolutionary year of 1848 by surviving Worms participants in the Napoleonic campaigns, who immortalized themselves by name on the memorial - including some who have since died. It was inaugurated on September 24, 1848.

description

The monument consists mainly of yellow sandstone . On a three-tiered pedestal stands an almost cubic parallelepiped with a relief depicting war trophies. An upright rectangular cuboid stands on it. Its side facing the avenue bears the dedication under a Napoleonic eagle :

"Monument - erected in 1848 under the government of S [a] Royal H [oity] Ludwig III of Hesse and the Rhine" for the Worms who fell under the banner of Napoleon from their brothers in arms who had returned from the campaigns "

The remaining three pages contain, each under the French heading Noms des veterans , the 40 names of those who survived the campaigns as veterans and donated the memorial - not those of the fallen, whose names are not even mentioned. Most of the people named were still alive at the time the monument was erected.

The monument is crowned by an antique helmet carved in stone with Greek and Roman elements, which rests on a cover plate that is decorated with flat gables and corner acroteries . In terms of design, the monument stands in the tension of the elements that relate to Napoleonic France, the revolutionary events at the time of its construction and the reference to the new sovereign, Ludwig III. of Hesse and the Rhine, who, as a liberal hope, had become Grand Duke in 1848, succeeding his conservative father .

Varia

The association also kept a "veteran book" listing military careers and brief biographical notes on individual war veterans.

Based on the Worms model, the veterans in the Palatinate town of Grünstadt had an identical, but cast-iron monument erected in the Peterspark there in 1852, so that the monument designed by Boller exists today in duplicate, but in different materials. The Grünstadt monument was cast in individual parts by the Gienanth company in Eisenberg .

See also

• Veterans memorial from 1841 , in the neighboring, then Bavarian city ​​of Frankenthal (Palatinate)
• Napoleon stone

literature

• Margit Rinker-Olbrisch and Torben Olbrisch: The Worms Veterans Association and its memorial from 1848 for those who took part in the Napoleonic Grande Armée . In: Der Wormsgau 26 (2008), pp. 53–74.
• Irene Spille: Monument topography Federal Republic of Germany . Cultural monuments in Rhineland-Palatinate 10 = city of Worms. Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft , Worms 1992. ISBN 978-3-88462-084-7

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Rinker-Olbrisch, p. 57.
2. ↑ Rinker-Olbrisch, p. 63.
3. ↑ Rinker-Olbrisch, p. 64.
4. ↑ Spille, p. 72; Inscription on the monument.
5. ↑ Rinker-Olbrisch, p. 65.
6. ↑ See: List of Worms Veterans . In: Rinker-Olbrisch, pp. 70-74.
7. ↑ Spille, pp. 72f.
8. ↑ Today: Worms City Archives : Dept. 204, No. 1/04.
9. ^ Website of the company Gienanth ( Memento of the original from March 31, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
10. ^ Georg Peter Karn and Ulrike Weber: Monument topography of the Federal Republic of Germany. Cultural monuments of Rhineland-Palatinate 13.2 = Bad Dürkheim district. City of Grünstadt, Union communities Freinsheim, Grünstadt-Land and Hettenleidelheim . Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, Worms, p. 2006, ISBN 3884622153 , p. 206.

Coordinates: 49 ° 38 ′ 15.1 ″  N , 8 ° 21 ′ 31.3 ″  E