Strong blacksmith
A well-fortified blacksmith is a legendary Aachen figure who is today dedicated to a fountain monument named after her in 1909 by the Aachen sculptor Carl Burger and the Düsseldorf ore caster Bernhard Förster in Jakobstrasse.
history
The legend of the fortified blacksmith is based on the Gertrudis Night . The historical model of the blacksmith was probably a butcher who killed Count Wilhelm von Jülich on Jakobstrasse in front of the White Women's Monastery in Aachen on the night of St. Gertrud's Day in 1278, i.e. on the night of March 16-17, 1278 , who had invaded Aachen with a retinue and wanted to subdue the Free Imperial City , but this failed due to the resistance of Aachen citizens. Aachen remained imperial , but had to conclude an atonement treaty in 1280 . Part of this contract was the erection of an atonement memorial at the place where the event culminated with the slaughter of the count. An eternal lamp burned there , which later, when the old monument became dilapidated, was brought to the church of the White Women's Monastery, where one of four altars was already located, which the city had to donate for the peace of mind of the slain. This atonement memorial existed in parts until around 1800 and was then removed.
The fountain monument that stands there today was advertised in 1907 by the Beautification Association, whose jury put Burger's design first and awarded five more of the 29 designs.
Burger's fountain was first installed on July 27, 1909 on Jakobstrasse in the small square on the corner of Klappergasse . The figure shows the larger-than-life figure of a blacksmith in work clothes with a large hammer in his right hand, whose head rests on the ground behind the blacksmith's feet. It stood on a rectangular base, on the sides of which there were drains into rectangular basins standing in front of it, which were connected to quarter-circle basins. The arrangement stood on a square pedestal which was fenced off with a low cast iron grille.
On August 30, 1918, the city council of Aachen successfully defended themselves against the threatened confiscation of the monument towards the end of the First World War . The fountain also survived the Second World War . The figure escaped the fate of the "metal donations", but was dismantled and under unexplained circumstances came to the Talbot wagon factory , where it was used as a "guard post" at the administration building on Jülicher Strasse, but was defaced before it was stored in the Suermondt Museum and has been restored. On May 7, 1947, it was put back in its old place without any ceremony.
On December 21, 1962 the well-fortified blacksmith was moved a little closer to the chapel of the Kind-Jesu-Kloster des Sisters of the Poor Child Jesus , the former convent of the White Women, whereby the figure was placed on a slightly raised plinth with two simple lateral wells. On December 18, 1976, the monument was toppled from its pedestal at night and damaged. After the damage had been repaired, it could be put back in its old location a short time later.
On October 18, 2012 it was announced that the rail vehicle manufacturer Bombardier, formerly Waggonfabrik Talbot , intends to close its operations in Aachen with around 400 employees in 2013. At 175 years of age, this is the oldest still existing company for rail vehicles in Germany. The workers who resisted chose the defensive blacksmith as their identification figure.
In his 1909 book Der Schmied von Aachen , JW Neumann made the defensive blacksmith a character in a novel.
See also
literature
- Hugo Loersch : Medieval style exercises on the slaughter of Count Wilhelm IV of Jülich zu Aachen . In: Aachener Geschichtsverein (Hrsg.): Journal of the Aachener Geschichtsverein . tape 5 . Benrath & Vogelsang, Aachen 1883, p. 129–131 ( Text Archive - Internet Archive [accessed May 4, 2015]).
- Hugo Loersch: The monument commemorating the slaughter of Count Wilhelm von Jülich according to an old description . In: Journal of the Aachen History Association . tape 6 . Aachen 1884, p. 245–246 ( Text Archive - Internet Archive [accessed August 21, 2015]).
- Peter Hermann Loosen: From old Aachen. Historical sketches or Aachen history in stories. 3rd expanded edition. Aquensia-Klette-Verlag, Aachen 1978, pp. 43-46.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Fall of the monument: Chronicle of the City of Aachen 1976. (PDF; 21 kB) City of Aachen, accessed on January 10, 2012 .
Web links
Coordinates: 50 ° 46 ′ 29.6 " N , 6 ° 4 ′ 50.7" E