Winterberg Monument

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Winterberg Monument before it was destroyed in the war (Saarbrücken City Archives)
In the Leipzig “ Illustrirten Zeitung ” from 1871, a draft of the Winterbergdenkmal, which was still in the planning phase, was published
The Winterberg Monument on a postage stamp from 1956 after the end of the partly sovereign Saar state

The Winterbergdenkmal was a war memorial on the Winterberg in Saarbrücken . The 30-meter-high tower monument with a surrounding foyer, erected on an artificial hill, reminded of Prussia's victory at the Battle of Spichern on August 6, 1870. Today only the reconstructed base with stairs, which is a listed building, is preserved.

History and design

Fundraising

The Königsstuhl von Rhens in its present form, model of the memorial hall of the Saarbrücken Winterbergdenkmal

After the end of the Franco-Prussian War , citizens from St. Johann and Saarbrücken organized a donation collection with the aim of building a large memorial on the Saarbrücken Winterberg, the highest elevation between Spichern and Saarbrücken, to commemorate the events of the Germans reached through the war against France To establish unification of the empire from 1870/1871. With a donation of 2000 thalers from the new Emperor Wilhelm I , the financing of this plan was secured relatively quickly.

construction

In the years from 1872 to 1874, under government councilor Otto Lieber (* 1825 in Düsseldorf , † 1897 ibid.) The monument, which was visible from afar, was erected on the Winterberg until 1939. Lieber, who came to the Saar with the construction of the railway, became a district master builder in Mülheim an der Mosel in 1865 and a building inspector in Saarbrücken in 1869. In 1873 he returned to Düsseldorf, where he was first a government and building officer, then a secret building officer. He retired in 1892. Lieber had already made a name for himself in 1857 with his lavishly designed neo-Gothic design for the new construction of the small Beckingen (Saar) train station .

"Rhenser Königsstuhl" hall

The lower part of the monument was a five-meter-high, ten-sided hall pierced by high neo-Gothic arches based on the model of the king's chair by Rhens . The architectural reference to the Rhensian model should be reminiscent of the medieval tradition of electing a king in the Holy Roman Empire . The neo-Gothic hall of the Winterbergdenkmal was meant to symbolize the inviolable unity of the German tribes.

The Königsstuhl near Rhens, built for the purpose of the meeting of the electors of the empire between 1376 and 1398 on the west bank of the Rhine , was located in a place where four electoral principalities originally met: Kurmainz , Kurtrier , Kurköln and Kurpfalz . The otherwise rather insignificant Rhine town had become one of the centers of imperial politics through meetings of the elector and king elections in the late Middle Ages .

For the first time in 1273, the powerful imperial princes are said to have agreed in a preliminary meeting on the election of Rudolf von Habsburg as German king. The Kurverein von Rhense was founded here in 1338 , which is a fixed point in the history of the Holy Roman Empire. Originally the Rhenser Königsstuhl was made of wood and was only built in stone on the order of Charles IV in 1376. In a letter from King Wenceslas from 1398, the stone pedestal was first referred to as "Thronus imperialis". The last important productions of the Holy Roman Empire had in 1442 under Friedrich III. and 1486 under I. Maximilian occurred. With the relocation of imperial politics to Vienna , the Königstuhl was more and more forgotten.

Only in the course of the French Revolution and the subsequent French occupation of the Rhineland did the king's chair suddenly regain political importance. In the chaos of the Napoleonic Wars , the Königsstuhl was damaged by French soldiers in 1795 and was demolished by the French occupying forces in 1804 for reasons of symbolism and its building materials were then sold. After the French occupation, which was ended by the Wars of Liberation , the reconstruction of the King's Chair became one of the culmination points of the revival of patriotic sentiments in the social currents aimed at the national unity of Germany. In a fundraising campaign initiated in 1826, which was supported by King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia , the rebuilding of the King's Chair as a national monument with a German national interpretation was called for, whereupon the builder Johann Claudius rebuilt the King's Chair between 1841 and 1843 came from Lassaulx . This reconstruction was extensively celebrated by the national romantic literature of Germany, for example by Ferdinand Freiligrath , as a symbol of Germany's resurgence. The architectural citation of the Rhenser Königsstuhl during the construction of the Saarbrücken Winterberg Monument therefore represents a politically highly charged moment.

tower

In the Saarbrücken variant, the “Rhenser” hall was supplemented and raised by the construction of a keep- like tower. The tower, which could also be interpreted as a watchtower directed against France , rose 20 meters above the hall and ended in a brick top. The inscription on the side of the tower facing Spichern read "Germany's Heroes 1870–1871" and was thus clearly to be understood as an indication of the triumph of the victorious troops of Prussia and its German allies over the aggressor France. The Winterberg Monument was the earliest national monument of the newly founded Little German Empire.

Halfway up the Winterberg tower was a relief band with the names of the German regiments that had participated in the fighting in July and August 1870. In a further, pseudo-historical interpretation, the tower was also seen as the iconographic reincarnation of the former Germanic Irminsul , a sanctuary of the Saxons , which, according to the Frankish annals, was destroyed by the Franks in 772 at the instigation of Charlemagne .

inauguration

Town hall St. Johann, balcony of the ballroom with the imperial eagle and the coats of arms of the sister cities Saarbrücken and St. Johann an der Saar

The Winterberg Monument was inaugurated on August 9, 1874 in the presence of the Prussian War Minister Georg von Kameke . On the occasion of the inauguration of the Winterberg Monument, the Trier District President Arthur von Wolff had informed the assembled guests that King Wilhelm I of Prussia, German Emperor since 1871, had approved by the highest cabinet order of July 29, 1874,

"That the cities of Saarbrücken and St. Johann are allowed to use the Prussian colors in their coat of arms to commemorate their patriotic and self-sacrificing attitude during the last war."

Since then, the coats of arms of both cities have shown the Prussian eagle with royal insignia with the respective city arms as a breast shield.

Routing

Regarding the infrastructural connection of the monument, one reached the Sankt Arnualer district from St. Johann over the Saar bridge named after Reich Chancellor Bismarck . The President-Baltz-Straße, named after Constanz von Baltz , the royal Prussian government president of the Trier administrative district and honorary citizen of the city of Saarbrücken (since 1913), ran directly towards the Winterberg Monument as a visual axis. To eradicate the Prussian tradition, the axis was renamed Saargemünder Brücke and Saargemünder Straße after 1945. After the end of the Hoffmann era , the road axis got its Prussian name back. The "Street Renaming Commission", chaired by Heinrich Schneider, wanted to undo "the rape of tradition and truth (...) that want to sever all traditional ties of an original German city" and to restore the "German face of Saarbrücken in the mirror of the street names" .

Saarbrücken landmark

The Winterberg Monument quickly developed into a symbol of the city of Saarbrücken and adorned postcards and brochures. It was connoted not only throughout Germany, but also internationally as a landmark for the state on the Saar. For tourists, a visit to the Winterberg Monument, the battlefield on the Spicherer Heights with its memorials and a visit to the cemetery in Ehrental have been among the main attractions of Saarbrücken, which have been advertised in tourist brochures since the 1880s. The political character of the monument as a monument to victory over the French "hereditary enemy" was increasingly expressed in the period before and after the First World War. This happened especially when the Saar area was separated from the Reich for 15 years under the provisions of the Versailles Treaty . On August 11, 1929, as part of a constitutional ceremony in the Saar area, the Winterberg Monument was included in the circle of bonfires burning on the hills. On the territory of the Reich, the Saar Association used the Winterberg Monument as a club symbol. The Bund der Saarvereine was a private propaganda association for the purpose of advertising the return of the separated Saar area to Germany. He was financially and organizationally supported by the respective Reich governments. On the occasion of the federal meeting of the Saar associations in 1934 at the Koblenz fortress Ehrenbreitstein , a bridge of ships was built over the Rhine , in the middle of which a model of the monument was mounted.

In a resolution of the newly founded local group in Gelsenkirchen-Neustadt it said:

“As long as there are still Saar Germans, as long as a winter mountain monument proudly looks down into the Saar Valley as a symbol of once glorious days for the residents and as a symbol of the Prussian-German strength with which the Saar area has blossomed and prospered, as long as no real German will be Saarsohn deny his German mother. "

In the referendum battle for the reintegration of the Saar area into the German Empire, the Winterberg Monument was further stylized as the national symbol of the "German Front" ruled by the National Socialists:

"And especially in the season when the Saar region is again on its fateful path, this memorial should fill us with new strength and new courage to hold out in the struggle for the return of the Saarland until the hour of freedom strikes again in fate-shrouded walls."

After the vote for the NSDAP on January 13, 1935 and the annexation of the Saar area to Hitler's Germany on March 1, 1935, a large illuminated swastika was placed on the Winterberg Tower as a triumphant sign of victory .

Demolition

On September 10, 1939, the monument was blown up by the German Wehrmacht in order not to give the enemy artillery a point of orientation during World War II . In connection with this measure, the Hindenburg tower, the Alexander tower near Böckweiler and several church towers in the Saarland were also blown up in Berus .

Reconstruction initiatives

After the Second World War and after the second Saarland referendum in 1955 as well as the incorporation of the Saarland into the Federal Republic of Germany, a symbolic reference to the Winterberg Monument was attempted again in 1957/1958: It became the emblem of the magazine “Saarheimat” and the Saarland homeland - and the Kulturbund. After the rejection of the Europeanization Agreement of the Saar state and the related resignation of the government of Saarland Prime Minister Johannes Hoffmann , the new pro-German government of Saarland issued Saarland postage stamps between 1956 and 1958, the surcharge of which was intended to benefit the reconstruction of the monument.

In 1975 a “Board of Trustees for the Reconstruction of the Winter Mountain Monument Saarbrücken” and the “Association of German Africa Corps, District Comradeship Saarbrücken eV” called for donations in the Saarheimat magazine for the reconstruction of the monument. With the donations collected, at least the base of the Winterbergdenkmal could be reconstructed.

gallery

Web links

Commons : Winterbergdenkmal (Saarbrücken)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Saarland Monument Preservation Report of July 17, 2013, http://www.saarland.de/SID-EA0DC1C8-D1DDBE78/103901.htm , accessed on May 14, 2015.
  2. ↑ Egon Dillmann: Rhens with the king's chair, ed. from the Rhenish Association for Monument Preservation and Landscape Protection, Cologne 1975, p. 9.
  3. ↑ Simon Feistel: The history of the king chair near Rhense, Koblenz 1842, p. 9-14.
  4. ↑ Simon Feistel: The history of the king's chair near Rhense, Koblenz 1842, p. 16.
  5. ↑ Prussian facets, - Rhine romanticism and antiquity, evidence of the work of Friedrich-Wilhelm IV. On the Middle Rhine and Moselle, ed. from the State Office for Monument Preservation Rhineland-Palatinate, Castles, Palaces, Antiquities Rhineland-Palatinate, Regensburg 2001, p. 54.
  6. ^ Ferdinand Freiligrath: Complete Works, Volume 6, New York 1859, p. 49.
  7. ^ Saarbrücker Zeitung of August 11, 1874.
  8. ↑ http://www.memotransfront.uni-saarland.de/pdf/winterbergdenkmal.pdf , accessed on November 4, 2014.
  9. ↑ Minutes of the meeting of the Saarbrücken City Council from September 25, 1956, Saarbrücken City Archives, available at: https://www.saar-nostalgie.de/Strassennamen.htm , accessed on April 18, 2019.
  10. ↑ http://www.memotransfront.uni-saarland.de/pdf/winterbergdenkmal.pdf , accessed on November 4, 2014.
  11. ↑ Gerhard Paul: Das Winterbergdenkmal, in: Klaus-Michael Mallmann , Gerhard Paul, Ralph Schock , Reinhard Klektiven (eds.): We were never right at home, journeys of discovery to the Saarrevier 1815–1955, 3rd edition, Saarbrücken 1995, p. 82 -83.
  12. ↑ Rolf Wittenbrock: Die Drei Saarstädte 1860-1908, in: Rolf Wittenbrock (Ed.): Geschichte der Stadt Saarbrücken, Vol. 2, From the time of stormy growth to the present, Saarbrücken 1999, pp. 11–130, here p 28-29.
  13. ↑ Doris Seck : It began 40 years ago, Saarländische Kriegsjahre, Saarbrücken 1979, p. 18.
  14. ↑ http://www.memotransfront.uni-saarland.de/pdf/winterbergdenkmal.pdf , accessed on November 4, 2014.

Coordinates: 49 ° 13 '14.83 "  N , 7 ° 0' 7.39"  E