Military man in iron

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The Wehrmann in Eisen as a war nail from 1915 in Vienna
Wehrmann in (in) iron
Theodor Hartig (idea), Josef Müllner (sculpture); 1914/1915
Limewood sculpture, nailed
Public: Vienna City Planning House , arcades; Vienna 1 , corner of Felderstrasse – Ebendorferstrasse ⊙ Coordinates: 48 ° 12 ′ 42.85 ″  N , 16 ° 21 ′ 24.55 ″  E

Wehrmann im Eisen , also known as Wehrmann in Eisen , Eiserner Wehrmann , is a sculpture in Vienna . It was the first of the wooden objects that were set up to finance the war in the First World War and nailed down for a donation . Today it is at the office building on the corner of Felderstrasse and Ebendorferstrasse , opposite the town hall on the Ringstrasse .

history

The idea of war nailing , based on the Stock im Eisen at Stock-im-Eisen-Platz, originated in Vienna and spread not only in Austria-Hungary, but also rapidly in the German Empire and other countries.

The idea for the military man in Eisen came from Corvette Captain Theodor Graf Hartig and after a unanimous decision by the Vienna City Council to take over the foundation and maintenance costs, the City Planning Director Heinrich Goldemund was commissioned with the planning and implementation.

The sculptor Josef Müllner created the lime wood figure of a knight in Vienna in 1914. The original installation site was Schwarzenbergplatz in Vienna near the Schwarzenberg monument.

The Austrian Archduke Leopold Salvator , the German Ambassador Tschirschky-Bögendorff and the Turkish Ambassador Hüseyin Hilmi Pascha, as allies in this war, drove the first of around 500,000 nails into the Iron Wehrmann. The daily newspaper Reichspost reported on Monday, March 8, 1915 that on the first two days around 1,400 people had driven a nail into the Iron Wehrmann. Among them was the Minister of the Interior, Doctor Freiherr von Heinold.

As the newspaper Die Zeit from Vienna reported on August 10, 1916, until September access to the Wehrmann in Eisen on Schwarzenbergplatz was only possible for a limited time or for registered groups. The reason was the drastically reduced number of visitors. Although the author of the article cited the increased number of possible donation locations as an excuse for this decline and also mentioned the wooden model of a submarine set up for nailing at a war exhibition, which was apparently very popular, nevertheless he was not satisfied with the donation behavior of the Viennese. He called the donation income of around 700,000 kroner for a metropolis like Vienna not very satisfactory, especially if you compare it with the income in Drohobycz in Galicia , which was liberated from the Russians , where reports say 400,000 kroner had been donated on the first day alone.

On May 5, 1918, the Neue Freie Presse and some other newspapers from Vienna reported, citing earlier reports, that the City Council of Vienna had decided to set up the iron military man under the arcades of the Rathausstrasse / Felderstrasse house and with a verse to be provided by Ottokar Kernstock. According to Tristan Loidl, the military man was removed from the Schwarzenbergplatz location after the end of the war (at least two newspapers commented on this) and stored in a depot, from where soldiers of the "Alt Starhemberg No. 2" infantry regiment kidnapped him and brought him to the regimental museum.

In 1934 it was put back into service. He was supposed to collect money again at Schwarzenbergplatz. This time for the conversion of the outer castle gate into a hero monument. For the proceeds of the donation, ten books of honor were purchased, in which the names of the fallen Austrians were written down and which are in the crypt. In the same year, the Wehrmann was placed in the arcades at the back of the Vienna City Planning House , one of the arcade houses (Felderstrasse No. 6-8, today MA18 and MUSA ). A memorial plaque attached at the same time bears the following text by Ottokar Kernstock :

"Wehrmann Vienna reminds you of the time,
Since
love and mercy were inexhaustible as the suffering of war !"

It is uncertain whether this took place in the later fulfillment of the municipal council resolution from 1918.

literature

  • Small pictures of the great war. In:  Oesterreichische Illustrirte Zeitung / Österreichs Illustrierte Zeitung. Modern family paper / Wiener Illustrierte Zeitung. Modernes Familienblatt , year 1914, issue No. 25, March 28, p. 616 (online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / oizwith pictures of the first fitting; Text on p. 621.
  • Gunda Achleitner (Ed.): The Wehrmann in iron. Nails for a good cause. Provincial Library, Vienna 2014.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tristan Loidl: Souvenirs from the Iron Age. Patriotic badges of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy from 1914 to 1918. Militaria-Verlag, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-9501642-4-3 .
  2. ↑ A critical examination of traces of Austrofascist symbolism, on austrofaschismus.at ( Memento from May 4, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Vienna City Planning House. wien.gv.at → Stadtentwicklung → Dienststellen → MA18 (accessed March 23, 2016).