This eagle sitting on a sphere (not a world sphere just a ball) is watching over a war memorial for the fallen of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870/71. He doesn’t look happy maybe because he was a visionary seeing more wars to come.
Monday Portrait
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Hubert Löneke’s sculpture of three children holding up their bent pinkie is alluding to the greeting gesture of people from Aachen when they meet each other away from the town, a sort of recognisable code. Without these three men we might not read books today. … Continue reading Sculptured Trios II
The war memorial (in Germany usually referred to as warrior memorial (Kriegerdenkmal) because the names of the fallen soldiers are displayed) in our town was inaugurated in 1936 to honour the dead of world war I. The much longer list of fallen soldiers from world war II was added in the 1950s. Because of the bellicose demeanour of the sculpture it is now viewed critically. Instead of removing the sculpture the town has chosen to go a different route: in direct line passing the location of the former synagogue (destroyed in 1938) is a memorial for the victims of violence, war, and prosecution. I see it as a warning against a dystopian future which would resemble a not so distant past.
Ragtag Daily Prompt: Dystopian
That’s the war memorial in my home town. It was erected in 1936 and all the dead of world war I were registered. Except for four of them. It you look closely you see the four last ones on this list, not in alphabetical order and slightly different in colour. It’s because they were Jewish Germans who had fought and died alongside their Christian German comrades. During the Nazi era they were not acknowledged. Their names were added in 1946.
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I’ve always been skeptical about war memorials. They usually reek of pathos if not bathos and I question the motives behind them.
I came across this rather odd war memorial in Bad Dürkheim. It’s in memory of the participants of the Franco-Prussian war. The participants – not the fallen as is more common – are listed with their military regiment, and a curt “gefallen” if they didn’t return. Even worse, in my mind, is the use of the ditto mark ” – not just for the same regiment but also for the word “gefallen” as if in such a monumental glorification set in stone they had to economise with letters.
On one side the non-combatants are listed, I suppose these are the financiers of this war. But what is even more disconcerting to me is the fact that this memorial was erected 40 years after the war, which resulted in the formation of the German empire, only three years before the next one, the so-called “Great War”. Almost as if a new generation was being prepared for the ultimate sacrifice. Of course, I say this with hindsight but it gives the impression of a fractured relationship with history.
The Cosmic Photo Challenge: In Memory
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War memorials often show soldiers or warriors or national emblems. This one in Guttach in the Black Forest shows the survivors.
This is the back of the war memorial in our town. Erected in 1936, it did both at the time: commemorate the men who had died in the first world war, and glorify the war itself, preparing the population for the next one. The names of the dead from that war where added in the fifties.
For Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: things from behind. For more rear views, click here.
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