The Griffin cannon, also called Vogel Greif, (English: Bird Griffin), is one of the largest cannons from the 16th century. Since 1984, it has been in display in the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress in Koblenz. The possession of the cannon moved several times between Germany and France and became a symbol of the Franco-German reconciliation.
The Trier elector and archbishop Richard von Greiffenklau zu Vollrads had Master Simon from Frankfurt am Main pour the cannon in 1524 and set it up on the Ehrenbreitstein fortress. After the conquest of the Ehrenbreitstein by the French in 1799 during the coalition wars, the cannon on the Moselle was brought to the Arsenal there in Metz. [1] Metz was besieged in 1814 and 1815. Since the French feared the fall of the city, they buried the Griffin in the ground or sank it in the Seille. In 1866 it was moved to Paris by rail to the French Musée de l'Armée in the Hôtel des Invalides, Paris. [2] [3]
In 1940, after the conquest of France by Nazi Germany, the cannon was sent back to Koblenz. [4] After the war it was brought back to Paris during the French occupation of Koblenz following World War II in 1946. As part of the Franco-German reconciliation, French President François Mitterrand signed in 1984 with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl an agreement for permanently lending it to the fortress Ehrenbreitstein. [4] [5] [6] The director of the French Musée de l'Armée resigned in protest. [7] Since then, the cannon has been one of the best-known exhibits of the Koblenz State Museum.
The Griffin was allegedly never used due to a closed ignition hole but this was refuted after finding four bullets and black powder residue in the cannon. The ignition hole was closed with iron nails at some point after it was used.
Made of cast bronze, the Griffin weighs nine tons and is 4.66 meters long. With a 280-mm caliber, it was designed as a siege cannon and, according to theoretical calculations, was able to fire balls weighing 80 kg, using 40 kg of black powder, up to 16 km. [4] Although the cannon had been fired, no engagement in the battle is documented.
The inscription on the cannon reads:
SIMON GOS MICH 1524
VOGEL GREIF
DER GREIF HEIS ICH MEINEM GENEDIGEN HERRN VON DRIR DIN ICH WO ER MICH HEIST GEWALDEN DO WIL ICH DORN UND MAURN ZU SPALTEN
Ehrenbreitstein Fortress is a fortress in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, on the east bank of the Rhine where it is joined by the Moselle, overlooking the town of Koblenz.
Between Bingen and Bonn, Germany, the river Rhine flows as the Middle Rhine through the Rhine Gorge, a formation created by erosion, which happened at about the same rate as an uplift in the region, leaving the river at about its original level, and the surrounding lands raised. This gorge is quite deep, about 130 metres (430 ft) from the top of the rocks down to the average water-line.
The Electorate of Trier was an ecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire that existed from the end of the 9th to the early 19th century. It was the temporal possession of the prince-archbishop of Trier who was, ex officio, a prince-elector of the empire. The other ecclesiastical electors were the electors of Cologne and Mainz.
The Railway line Laupheim West – Schwendi in Germany connected the town of Laupheim with the then village of Schwendi. The railway line was opened by the Royal Württemberg State Railways on 17 May 1904. It branched off from the Ulm–Friedrichshafen railway. The length of the railway line was 16 km. The railway line had the classification number of 4510. The steam locomotive used on the line, received the nickname Rottalmolle by the local population, referring to the course of the railway line through the valley of the river Rot.
Koblenz Hauptbahnhof is a railway station in the city of Koblenz in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It is the focal point of rail transport in the Rhine-Moselle-Lahn area. It is a through station in southern Koblenz built below Fort Großfürst Konstantin and opened in 1902 in the Neustadt, which was built after the demolition of the city walls in 1890. The station replaced two former stations on the Left Rhine railway, which were only 900 m (3,000 ft) apart, and the former Moselle line station. Koblenz-Stadtmitte station opened in April 2011 in the old centre of Koblenz. Koblenz Hauptbahnhof is on the West Rhine Railway and connects to the Moselle line, the East Rhine Railway and to the Lahntal railway. It is used daily by about 40,000 travelers and visitors. In the station forecourt are a bus station and a pavilion.
The Electoral Palace in Koblenz, was the residence of the last Archbishop and Elector of Trier, Clemens Wenceslaus of Saxony, who commissioned the building in the late 18th century. In the mid-19th century, the Prussian Crown Prince had his official residence there during his years as military governor of the Rhine Province and the Province of Westphalia. It now houses various offices of the federal government.
The Kanonenbahn is a former German military strategic railway between Berlin and Metz via Güsten, Wetzlar, Koblenz and Trier. Metz is in Alsace-Lorraine, which was annexed by Germany after the Franco-Prussian War.
The Jakobikirche was a High Rhenish Neo-Romanesque church built in Dresden between 1898 and 1901 to plans by Jürgen Kröger. It was destroyed by bombing in the Second World War and its ruins were demolished in 1953.
The Erlöserkirche was a Protestant neo-Gothic church building in Dresden. It was built by from 1878 to 1880 by Gotthilf Ludwig Möckel, wrecked in 1945 by bombing and finally demolished in 1961–62.
Koblenz-Ehrenbreitstein station is the only station on the right (eastern) bank in the city of Koblenz in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It is on the East Rhine railway at the foot of the Ehrenbreitstein hill in the Ehrenbreitstein district, next to the Rhine.
The following is a timeline of the history of Koblenz, Germany.
The Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes, or ORL, is a 550-kilometre-long section of the former external frontier of the Roman Empire between the rivers Rhine and Danube. It runs from Rheinbrohl to Eining on the Danube. The Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes is an archaeological site and, since 2005, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Together with the Lower Germanic Limes it forms part of the Limes Germanicus.
The Old Castle was a former Elector-owned, substantial water castle in the German city of Koblenz, incepted in the 13th century. It is today reduced to the later Burghaus ; which houses the city archives. It sits on tall foundations and has a tall, black slate roof with further floors in the attic and two small cupolas. The lowland castle abutted the remaining building in the old town quarter. The castle house stands tall, next to the Moselle's right-bank towpath downstream of the strategic Baldwin Bridge built in 1342. The bridge, much-repaired, remains intact.
The Lower Germanic Limes is the former frontier between the Roman province of Germania Inferior and Germania Magna. The Lower Germanic Limes separated that part of the Rhineland left of the Rhine as well as the southern part of the Netherlands, which was part of the Roman Empire, from the less tightly controlled regions east of the Rhine.
The Neckar-Odenwald Limes is a collective term for two, very different early sections of the Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes, a Roman defensive frontier line that may have been utilised during slightly different periods in history. The Neckar-Odenwald Limes consists of the northern Odenwald Limes (Odenwaldlimes), a cross-country limes with camps, watchtowers and palisades, which linked the River Main with the Neckar, and the adjoining southern Neckar Limes (Neckarlimes), which in earlier research was seen as a typical 'riverine limes', whereby the river replaced the function of the palisade as an approach obstacle. More recent research has thrown a different light on this way of viewing things that means may have to be relativized in future. The resulting research is ongoing.
Degerloch is one of the stadtbezirke, or city districts, of Stuttgart in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Degerloch was founded 1956 by fusing the former municipality with the same name and the former district of Hoffeld. Degerloch is a traditional wine-growing area. Degerloch is connected by the Stuttgart Rack Railway to the city of Stuttgart. Its population is 16,527 (2020).
The Theater Koblenz is a multi-arts theatre with its own ensembles for drama, music theatre, puppetry and ballet located in Koblenz, Germany. It has about 190 permanent employees from 22 nations and offers 500 seats in a theatre building from the 18th century not far from the Electoral Palace. The manager until the end of the 2024/2025 season is Markus Dietze. Venues include the Theater am Deinhardplatz, rehearsal stages 2 and 4 as well as the Festung Ehrenbreitstein for the summer performances. In addition, the theatre participated in the Koblenz Fortress Plays for several years. In the 2009/2010 season, it was renamed from Theater der Stadt Koblenz to its current name.
Soziale Frauenschule was the name given to certain educational institutions that emerged in Germany between the turn of the century and the beginning of the 1920s.
Koblenz Charterhouse was a Carthusian monastery, or charterhouse, in Koblenz, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It stood on the Beatusberg, a hill that forms the north-easterly tip of the Hunsrück overlooking the city. The site was first occupied by a Benedictine monastery, the Kloster St. Beatusberg, which was closed in 1315, when the monks were replaced by a community of Augustinian Canons until the Carthusians took over the site in 1331.
The Philippsburg palace ) was a former Baroque-style palace in Ehrenbreitstein, a district of the city of Koblenz in Germany. It was situated on the banks of the Rhine river, below the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress. Constructed between 1626 and 1632 by Philipp Christoph von Sötern (1567–1652), Prince-Elector of Trier, it served as the main residence of the Archbishops and Prince-Electors of Trier until 1786. The palace had similarities to Schloss Johannisburg in Aschaffenburg, as they have the same architect.