Kyffhäuser Monument
The Kyffhäuserdenkmal (also Barbarossa Monument ) is a Kaiser -Wilhelm Memorial in Kyffhaeuser mountains in the grounds of the former kingdom Kyffhausen in the district of Steinthaleben in the Thuringian Kyffhauserkreis. The 81 m high monument was erected in 1890 to 1896 in honor of Emperor William I and is named after the Battle of the Nations Monument in Leipzig and the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial at the Porta Westfalica the third largest monument in Germany. Near the Kyffhäuserdenkmal is a Hindenburg Memorial ( see below).
Geographical location
The Kyffhäuserdenkmal is about 300 m south of the park 's northern border within the Kyffhaeuser Mountains in the Natural Park Kyffhaeuser. It is situated at about 420 m above sea level. NN just east and below the summit of Kyffhaeuser castle hill (about 439.7 m above sea level. NN ), a 800 m long Ostausläufer of the mountain, between the upper and middle castle of the former kingdom Kyffhausen. About 3 km south-west lies the stone valley Flush district Rathsfeld and about 6.5 km (each crow flies) south the core city of Bad Frankenhausen, both of which belong to the Thuringian Kyffhauserkreis. Just north and northeast is located Sittendorf Tilleda which include both the city Kelbra ( district of Mansfeld - South Harz, Saxony- Anhalt) and in the 260-meter deeper Golden Meadows (about 160 m above sea level. NN ) are.
Historical Background
After the death of Emperor Wilhelm I in 1888 in many places representative monuments were erected in honor of the deceased. The Kyffhäuserdenkmal is one of the largest and most famous of these Kaiser Wilhelm monuments. Together with the Niederwald Monument in Rüdesheim am Rhein, the Hermann monument near Detmold at the southern Teutoburg Forest, the Battle of the Nations Monument in Leipzig and at the Walhalla Donaustauf it fits into the imposing group of monumental memorial buildings in Germany. As so often in Wilhelminism witnessed these proportions do not necessarily self-certainty and security for the future, but were an expression of fear of external and internal enemies, against whom these bastions were built. In this case, it was mainly about the internal enemies, the German Social Democrats, against which the war veterans' organizations wanted to provide as guardians and guardian of imperial unity. The kingdom, which was once to have gone to internal strife, such a fate should befall a second time, and the mighty Kyffhäuserdenkmal should reflect this determination to.
Planning and construction
The Kyffhäuserdenkmal was built according to the plans of the architect Bruno Schmitz and inaugurated on 16 June 1896. It was suggested the Denkmalbau by the German warrior covenant, as Kyffhäuserbund took over the monument administration also from 1900.
Description
The architecture leans stylistically to the castle building the Staufer period. The image is supposed to represent the new program, dominated by Prussia Empire as the legitimate successor to the medieval Holy Roman Empire.
The plinth area of about 81 m high monument is a 6.5 m high, by the sculptor Nikolaus Geiger carved out of sandstone on site figure of Frederick I ( Barbarossa ), who seems to just wake up. In addition there is a 11 m high equestrian statue of Kaiser Wilhelm I of the sculptor Emil Hundrieser, a copper repoussé work in neo-baroque forms. This composition gives the programmatic idea of the monument, who took up the medieval Kyffhaeuser Sage and continued writing in the presence of Kaiser Wilhelm, sometimes dubbed as Barbablanca, completed the unification to which the German people had waited so long.
The monument has an approximately 57 m high, crowned with an imperial crown tower, from whose dome after climbing the 247 stairs is a good all-round view. The view is not only in the Kyffhaeuser mountains, but among other things, to the resin (eg, with the chunks ) in the northwest, north and northeast, in the Goldene Aue about in the north and the Thuringian Forest ( inter alia with the Great island mountain ) in the south.
In the accompanying memorial building is now the Castle Museum, which mainly deals with the imperial castle and Barbarossa Sage is.
Hindenburg memorial
On 6 May 1939, Hindenburg Memorial Hermann Hosaeus was opened below the Kyffhaeuser monument. The ten -ton, five -foot statue is made of Bavarian porphyry. The statue was toppled in 1945 and buried on the spot. On 7 June 2004 the owner Paul Breul found the buried statue on its grounds. Since the authorities ambiguity concerning the legal situation and the future management of the monument there, it is still only half excavated and fenced in the earth.
Road of Monument
Since 2008, the Kyffhäuserdenkmal part of the road of the monuments, which was founded at the initiative of the City History Museum Leipzig network German monuments and sites of memory. The network's objective is "to link the sites of memory as a former focal points of the past more closely and to think about joint marketing efforts as a whole to be more experienced ."
Pictures
Panorama of Barbarossa Cave
Barbarossa total
Barbarossa detail
Kyffhäuserdenkmal - Barbarossa and William I.
Definitive of the GDR, 1990
Tower view of the entire system