Berlin center – Walter Ulbricht would have liked that: The marble statues of Gerhard von Scharnhorst and Friedrich Wilhelm Bülow von Dennewitz have disappeared from their traditional surroundings between Neuer Wache and Lindenoper. Without substitution. Just as the strong man from the GDR wanted it to be back in 1950.
On June 21, 2021, the crane and low loader drove to Unter den Linden, loaded the two high-profile works of art created by Christian Daniel Rauch from 1819 to 1822 and transported them to the Spandau Citadel. There they are now in company with other historical monuments removed from the public, such as Lenin’s head or the sculptures from the Siegesallee in the Tiergarten, which was dissolved after the end of the war.
The two Prussian generals Scharnhorst and Bülow, who earned great merit in the wars of liberation against Napoleonic rule, are not in political exile there like their new neighbors.
Marble weathered in the Berlin air
The statues were actually doing badly, the caustic Berlin air had attacked the Carrara marble so badly that they not only had to spend the winter in an enclosure to protect them, but all year round. The State Monuments Office justified the removal in June with the “questionable state of preservation”, these important testimonies from the Berlin sculpture school threatened gradual disintegration.
Although the word of exile leads to a real trace, because there are two previous stories: in 1950, shortly before 700,000 young people traveled to the first meeting of Germany in Berlin, which was not yet separated, SED leader Walter Ulbricht arranged for five monuments to be removed from theirs prominent locations in front of the Neue Wache. With an ideologically narrowed view, he saw them as representatives of Prussian militarism.
Not even Scharnhorst was spared, the man who fundamentally reorganized the Prussian army for the purposes of the Enlightenment. Together with August Neidhardt von Gneisenau, he abolished old nobility privileges in the course of the Stein-Hardenberg reforms; Since then, officers have not only qualified through their origins, but through training and performance. The humiliating flogging was banned. The Prussian army was transformed into a standing people’s army.
FDJ also wanted to tear down the Neue Wache
In 1949 there was even the threat of demolition of the Neue Wache, erected between 1816 and 1818 by Karl Friedrich Schinkel as a memorial for those who died in the wars of liberation: Berlin FDJ members had demanded this, monument protectors protested, the responsible Soviet cultural officer Alexander Lvowitsch Dymschitz rescued one of the main works of the German classicism before annihilation.
Rauch had made the larger-than-life statues of Scharnhorst and Bülow from white marble based on a design by Schinkel as part of the sculpture program for the redesign of the street Unter den Linden into Via Triumphalis.
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The army reformer
Gerhard Johann David Scharnhorst, from 1804 von Scharnhorst, (1755-1813) was of rural origin and rose to general. The army reform of 1807, which he shaped significantly, prepared the victory over Napoleon.
From 1855 on, Schinkel’s “Denkmalstrasse” also included the smoky bronze statues of Blucher, Gneisenau and Yorck von Wartenburg on the other side of the “Linden”. The fact that the latter two and Scharnhorst were honoring bourgeois personalities ennobled for their services in the representative center of Berlin was revolutionary.
Walter Kiaulehn described the scenery most beautifully in his 1958 book “Berlin – Schicksal einer Weltstadt”: “To the right of the guard, Scharnhorst stood with a lecturing hand, Bülow in the pose of calm, one hand on his hip, the other up the sword leaning on a walking stick. The relationship between the figures on their pedestals and the Neue Wache, their distance from the building, was precisely calculated. It was also calculated that these two men were standing here, Scharnhorst, the revolutionary-minded peasant’s son who had defeated Napoleon with the ideas of the revolution he had betrayed, and Bülow, the victorious defender of Berlin, who saw the threat to the open city far outside, in brilliant field battles, had turned away from their gates. “
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The defender of Berlin
Friedrich Wilhelm von Bülow from Dennewitz, 1755-1816, called “the always happy Bülow”, defended Berlin in 1813 against Napoleon’s troops in the battles near Luckau, Großbeeren and Dennewitz. He made a decisive contribution to the victories at Leipzig (1813) and Waterloo (1815).
In 1964 the three bronzes and the marble Scharnhorst (Bülow stayed in the depot) returned to the green area opposite the Neue Wache. This had meanwhile been rededicated as a memorial for the victims of fascism and militarism. In 1990, shortly before its end, the GDR planned to return all the monuments to their original locations. Eberhard Diepgen, CDU, governing mayor of Berlin since 1991, advocated the project “so that German history from the wars of liberation can be read again to this day”.
Kollwitz heirs against monuments
With the power of the Federal Chancellor, Helmut Kohl smashed this plan. He left his mark at the central German place of remembrance: an enlarged copy of the Pietà by Käthe Kollwitz, a Christian-pacifist mother-son symbol, in the housing, which has now been converted into the central memorial of the Federal Republic of Germany for the victims of war and tyranny. Wreaths will be laid there on the day of national mourning, and this will happen again on Sunday.
The Kollwitz heirs resisted the military in the area. The Chancellery gave way to the pressure and assured that the monuments would not be erected. As in the GDR, people refused to recognize the services rendered to state reform and national defense – although Scharnhorst in particular was part of the tradition here and there.
The figures moved to the depot in 1993. After all, they were thoroughly renovated and in 2002 – the Kollwitz family had given their consent – five of them were placed in the Prinzessinnengarten. Since the transport in June 2021, the two front seats have been empty, the three bronze generals are hidden behind trees and bushes.
Where is the replacement?
It had been clear for many years that the Scharnhorst and Bülow originals had to be saved. It has also long been clear that Rauch’s masterpieces will not be replaced by casts in artificial stone or bronze, but by replicas made in Carrara marble. Nothing has happened. So the questions are: Has the new production already been commissioned? Who will carry out this honorable edition? Is the order financially secure?
Upon request, the State Monuments Office refers to a press release distributed on June 14, 2021, which tightly says: “The replacement of the originals by substitutes is planned according to a decision of the State Monument Council of 2017 at the Lindenforum location.” There is no new state of affairs. In other words: The void remains – for a long time.
Appeal to the Federal President
The working group of Berlin Citizens’ Associations addressed Federal President Frank Walter Steinmeier in desperation in June: “… we are shocked to learn that by order of the Senator for Culture and Europe, Dr. Klaus Lederer, the most important monument ensemble in Berlin is to be torn apart. ”
And further: “The proposal of the Berlin State Monument Council from 2017 to display the precious originals in the courtyard of the German Historical Museum or in the Friedrichswerder Church obviously remained unsuccessful. We now expressly request that copies be made as soon as possible and that they be set up at their old locations on Unter den Linden. “
The letter complains that the Senate does not have a funding concept for the copies – however, there is a private funding commitment. The letter ends with an appeal to the Federal President “to speak out against this serious encroachment on the historic center of the capital”.
Welcome to Spandau
In Spandau, people are happy about the new additions as “cultural and historical highlights”, as museum director Urte Evert says. The “great monuments” could unfold their full effect there. As soon as they see the exhibition “Unveiled. Berlin and its monuments ”.
The gentlemen in gala uniform and cloaks with many folds survived the transport well, the necessary renovations have already been carried out. Dry, safe and dignified they stand at the beginning of the path through Berlin history, which leads past margraves, electors, patricians and priests and ends at the Leninkopf.
It is difficult to understand Scharnhorst and Bülow in this series. Placing the future copies in their original locations to the right and left of the Neue Wache would compensate for the unfortunate position in Spandau. Exit open.
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