Dedicated by Hindenburg in 1924, on the tenth anniversary of the Battle of Tannenberg near Hohenstein (now Olsztynek, Poland), the structure, which was financed by donations, was built by the architects Johannes and Walter Krüger of Berlin, and completed in 1927. The octagonal layout with eight towers, each 20 metres high, was influenced by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II's Castel del Monte and Stonehenge.[2]
When Reichspräsident Hindenburg died in 1934, his coffin and that of his wife, who had died in 1921, were placed there despite his wishes to be buried at his family plot in Hanover.[3]Adolf Hitler ordered that the monument be redesigned and renamed "Reichsehrenmal Tannenberg". As the Red Army approached in 1945, German troops removed Hindenburg's remains and partly demolished key structures. In 1949, the Polish authorities razed the site, leaving few traces.
Concept and design
Aerial view 1944, from a Luftwaffe plane.
The memorial embraced the Anglo/French concept of the Unknown Soldier. In doing so, the architects anticipated the concept of Totenburgen (Fortresses of the Dead) housing mass graves of soldiers. This ideology was debated in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. The architects imagined the memorial to be a new völkisch "community of the dead" and incorporated the burial of 20 unknown German soldiers from the Eastern Front into the project concept.[4]
The memorial was built in a prominent place in a shape reminiscent of the castles of the Teutonic Knights. The monument's location on a hilltop was accentuated by massive earthworks and landscaping designed to look as if nature alone had shaped the site. The design influenced other projects undertaken by architects and builders during the era.[5]
Opening and dedication
A gathering of thousands came to the dedication of the newly finished memorial on 18 September 1927. The 80-year-old Hindenburg was dressed in the uniform of a Colonel-in-chief of a Masurian regiment to which he had been appointed by the Emperor (who had since abdicated). His speech was deemed highly nationalistic and in keeping with the times for the Weimar Republic, but was not well received outside Germany since it denied German responsibility for the war. An extract from the speech was later carved into a bronze plaque by the Nazi regime and installed in one of the towers of the memorial. A line of veterans, ten kilometers long and resplendent in Imperial uniforms, paid homage to Hindenburg and the 20 unknown German soldiers from the 1914 battle who were interred at the memorial.[6]
Inn
The architects had also built an inn nearby in traditional East Prussian style. The numbers of visitors did not meet expectations initially but during the Nazi era the numbers were such that the inn required an extension.
A year later, the monument again came to prominence on the death of Paul von Hindenburg. Hindenburg had requested a simple service and that he be interred next to his wife (who had died in 1921) in Hanover. However, Hitler decided to seize the opportunity for propaganda and instructed Albert Speer to ensure that the day was spectacular. It began with the transportation of the deceased president in the dark of night, on a gun carriage, from Hindenburg's East Prussian estate, Neudeck. Following a torch-lit route and escorted by infantry and cavalry, the cortège made its way to Hohenstein.[8]
Modernisation of the memorial
Image of the entrance to the new tomb
Following Hindenburg’s interment, the memorial once again became a national shrine. To add to the theatre, the government of the Reich again called upon the architectural firm of Krüger in Berlin and using the Stonehenge parallel again; above the entrance, a giant stone (symbolically from Königsberg) was placed, with the Field Marshal's name inscribed upon it. This stone was so large that railway bridges had to be strengthened to aid its transportation. Two giant stone soldiers (as if on guard) were placed outside the tomb. A porphyry statue of the victor, by the East Prussian Friedrich Bagdons, dominated the Hall of Honour above the tomb. The concourse grass was replaced with stone and around the memorial landscape were placed interpretations of the German presence in East Prussia.[9]
Hindenburg was originally buried in the central yard or "plaza" of the monument on 7 August 1934. On 2 October 1935, the anniversary of Hindenburg's birthday, the President's bronze coffin was relocated to a new, sombre chamber where he was joined by his wife Gertrud, who was moved from the family plot in Hanover. The new crypt, which was completed in the autumn of 1935, was located directly below the south tower. To create an entrance to the crypt, Hindenburg and the 20 unknown German soldiers from the 1914 battle were temporarily disinterred, and the level of the plaza was lowered by 8 feet (2.4m), with stone steps surrounding it on all sides.[10] The unknown soldiers were re-interred in the side chapels.[1] Designed by the Kruger brothers and carved by Paul Bronisch, the entrance to Hindenburg's crypt was dominated by two fourteen-foot sculptures of the Eternal Watch, known as the Ewige Wache, which were carved out of more than 120 tons of Königsberg granite. The mausoleum had a dramatic vaulted ceiling.
Pomp
The re-interment of the Generalfeldmarschall was marked by much pomp and ceremony by the Hitler administration, who declared that the upkeep of the memorial would thenceforth be carried out at government expense. The sarcophagus was draped in the German War Flag for the ceremony, at which Adolf Hitler performed the rededication.[9] The Masuria region, where the memorial was built, was going through an economic resurgence at that time and nationalistic spirit was running high. This, and the ceremony of re-interment, caused one newspaper to claim "a glorious return of the Teutonic Order".[11] From 1936–1939 a travelling exhibition about Masuria, but centred on the Tannenberg battle and memorial, toured Germany. The Baedecker guide of 1936 described the Tannenberg Memorial "Where President Hindenburg rests beside his fallen comrades" as "a place of national pilgrimage".[12]
Plans were drawn up to install busts of the commanders and politicians involved in the Polish campaign with tablets inscribed with the Führer's speeches and a full-length statue of Adolf Hitler, but these never came about. At least one other commemoration was cancelled after the signing of the Anglo-Polish military alliance on 25 August 1939. The last state ceremonies held at the memorial were of two generals killed in the July Plot of 1944.
Hindenburg's disinterment and partial demolition of the memorial
In January 1945, as Soviet forces advanced into East Prussia, Hitler ordered that the lead coffins of Hindenburg and his wife be disinterred and along with some of the regimental standards in the tomb, removed to safety. They were first moved to a bunker just outside Berlin, then to a salt mine near the village of Bernterode, Thuringia (in north central Germany), along with the remains of both KaiserWilhelm I and King Frederick II of Prussia (Frederick the Great).[3] The four coffins were hastily marked to indicate their contents using red crayon, and interred behind a 6-foot-thick (1.8m) masonry wall in a deep recess of the 14-mile (23km) mine complex, 1,800 feet (550m) underground. The coffins were discovered by U.S. Army Ordnance troops on 27 April 1945, and were moved to the basement of the heavily guarded Marburg Castle in Marburg an der Lahn, Germany. In August 1946, 20 months after being removed from the Tannenberg Memorial, Hindenburg and his wife were finally laid to rest by the American army at St. Elizabeth's, the church of his Teutonic ancestors in Marburg, where they remain today.[13]
On 21 January 1945, withdrawing German forces planted demolition charges inside the entrance tower and the tower previously housing von Hindenburg's coffin, causing both towers to collapse. On 22 January Germans demolished more of the construction with a further 30 tonnes of explosives.
Dismantling
1998 photo of the remains of the Tannenberg Memorial.A sculpted lion, which once topped an 8-metre (26ft) pyramid near the monument, is now displayed in Olsztynek
In the spring of 1949, the Communist Polish government ordered the dismantling of the very substantial remains of the monument; removal of the ruins continued until the 1980s, by which time virtually all traces of the memorial had gone. Today, only a protruding island in an isolated field remains to mark the extensive 120-acre (0.49km2) site. The Court of Honour (which measured slightly larger than a football field) has been reduced to little more than an overgrown pit of scattered debris and rubble.
Several significant remnants of the structure can still be seen elsewhere. A perfectly preserved sculpted lion, which once topped an eight-metre pyramid at another war memorial about 300 m beside the monument, is now displayed in the town square in nearby Olsztynek.
Architect Dietrich Zlomke, born in Heiligenbeil near Königsberg, was commissioned to design a memorial to the dead of East and West Prussia in the two world wars, which was dedicated at Oberschleißheim near Munich in 1995.[15] His choice of design was a smaller-scale replica of the Tannenberg Memorial in concrete, dominated in the centre by an oak cross six metres high and a smaller iron cross on the pale wall at the rear.[14]
Related Research Articles
Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg was a German military leader and statesman who led the Imperial German Army during the First World War and later became president of Germany from 1925 until his death in 1934. He played a key role in the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 when he appointed Adolf Hitler as chancellor of Germany.
The Battle of Tannenberg, also known as the Second Battle of Tannenberg, was fought between Russia and Germany between 23 and 30 August 1914, the first month of World War I. The battle resulted in the almost complete destruction of half of the Russian Second Army and the suicide of its commanding general, Alexander Samsonov. A series of follow-up battles destroyed most of the First Army.
Führer is a German word meaning "leader" or "guide". As a political title, it is strongly associated with Adolf Hitler, the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. Hitler officially styled himself der Führer und Reichskanzler after the death of President Paul von Hindenburg in 1934 and the subsequent merging of the offices of Reichspräsident and Reichskanzler.
Erich Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorff was a Prussian-born German military officer and politician. He achieved fame during World War I for his central role in the German victories at Liège and Tannenberg in 1914. After his appointment as First Quartermaster General of the Army General Staff in 1916, he became the chief policymaker in a de facto military dictatorship until Germany's defeat. Later during the Weimar Republic, he took part in the failed 1920 Kapp Putsch and Hitler's 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, thereby contributing significantly to the Nazis' rise to power.
Anton Ludwig Friedrich August Mackensen, was a German field marshal. He commanded Army Group Mackensen during World War I (1914–1918) and became one of the German Empire's most prominent and competent military leaders. After the armistice of 11 November 1918, the victorious Allies interned Mackensen in Serbia for a year. In 1920, he retired from the army. In 1933 Hermann Göring made him a Prussian state councillor. During the Nazi era (1933–1945), Mackensen remained a committed monarchist and sometimes appeared at official functions in his World War I uniform. Senior Nazi Party members suspected him of disloyalty, but nothing was proven against him.
Stębark is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Grunwald, within Ostróda County, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, in northern Poland. The village is chiefly known for two historic battles which took place there or nearby: the 1410 Battle of Grunwald and the (Second) Battle of Tannenberg in World War I.
Carl Adolf Maximilian Hoffmann was a German military officer and strategist. As a staff officer at the beginning of World War I, he was Deputy Chief of Staff of the 8th Army, soon promoted Chief of Staff. Hoffmann, along with Erich Ludendorff, masterminded the devastating defeat of the Russian armies at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes. He then held the position of Chief of Staff of the Eastern Front. At the end of 1917, he negotiated with Russia to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
Aleksandr Vasilyevich Samsonov was a career officer in the cavalry of the Imperial Russian Army and a general during the Russo-Japanese War and World War I. He was the commander of the Russian Second Army which was surrounded and defeated by the German Eighth Army in the Battle of Tannenberg, one of the early battles of World War I. Ashamed by his loss of the Army, Samsonov committed suicide while retreating from the battlefield.
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until his suicide in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then taking the title of Führer und Reichskanzler in 1934. His invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 marked the start of the Second World War. He was closely involved in military operations throughout the war and was central to the perpetration of the Holocaust: the genocide of about six million Jews and millions of other victims.
Oskar Wilhelm Robert Paul Ludwig Hellmuth von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg was a German Generalleutnant. The son and aide-de-camp to Generalfeldmarschall and Reich President Paul von Hindenburg had considerable influence on the appointment of Adolf Hitler as German chancellor in January 1933.
The Bismarck Memorial is a prominent memorial statue in the Tiergarten in Berlin dedicated to Prince Otto von Bismarck, Minister President of the Kingdom of Prussia and the first Chancellor of the German Empire. It was sculpted by Reinhold Begas and unveiled in 1901.
The Castle of the Teutonic Order in Malbork, commonly known as Malbork Castle, is a brick gothic castle complex located in the town of Malbork, Poland, built in 13th and significantly expanded in 14th century. It is the largest castle in the world measured by land area and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Olsztynek is a town in northern Poland, in Olsztyn County, in the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship. It is the administrative seat of Gmina Olsztynek. It is part of the historic region of Masuria.
The Russian invasion of East Prussia occurred during World War I, lasting from August to September 1914. As well as being the natural course for the Russian Empire to take upon the declaration of war on the German Empire, it was also an attempt to focus the Imperial German Army on the Eastern Front, as opposed to the Western Front. Despite having an overwhelming superiority over the Germans in numbers, the invading Imperial Russian Army spread its forces thin and was defeated in the battles of Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes, resulting in a complete strategic collapse of the Russian invasion.
Ogrodzieniecis a village in the administrative district of Gmina Kisielice, within Iława County, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, in northern Poland.
Ruins of the Reich is a documentary series that traces the rise and fall of the Third Reich through its architecture. Written and directed by film maker R. J. Adams, the film's "then and now" format focuses on the primary sites that played key roles from Hitler's rise to his final days in his Berlin bunker.
Žrnov or Žrnovan (Жрнован) was a medieval fortress on the highest top of the Avala Mountain, at 511 metres (1,677 ft), in Belgrade, Serbia. The Ancient Romans had built an outpost there, and later the Serbs expanded it into a fortress. It was completely demolished in 1934 to make the way for the Monument to the Unknown Hero.
The Battle of Grunwald was fought on 15 July 1410 during the Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War. The alliance of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, led respectively by King Władysław II Jagiełło (Jogaila), and Grand Duke Vytautas, decisively defeated the German Teutonic Order, led by Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen. Most of the Teutonic Order's leadership was killed or taken prisoner.
World War I is remembered and commemorated by various war memorials, including civic memorials, larger national monuments, war cemeteries, private memorials and a range of utilitarian designs such as halls and parks, dedicated to remembering those involved in the conflict. Huge numbers of memorials were built in the 1920s and 1930s, with around 176,000 erected in France alone. This was a new social phenomenon and marked a major cultural shift in how nations commemorated conflicts. Interest in World War I and its memorials faded after World War II, and did not increase again until the 1980s and 1990s, which saw the renovation of many existing memorials and the opening of new sites. Visitor numbers at many memorials increased significantly, while major national and civic memorials continue to be used for annual ceremonies remembering the war.
Gertrud Wilhelmine von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg was a German noblewoman and philanthropist. She was the wife of Paul von Hindenburg, the Chief of the German Army Command in the second half of the First World War and President of Germany from 1925.
↑ Koshar, Rudy. From Monuments to Traces: Artifacts of German Memory, 1870-1990 Volume 24 from Weimar and Now: Cultural Criticism. University of California Press, 2000 ISBN0520217683, 9780520217683, page 107.
↑ The Great War and medieval memory: war, remembrance and medievalism in Britain and Germany, 1914-1940. Stefan Goebel. ISBN0-521-85415-6, ISBN978-0-521-85415-3 - p38
Goebel, Stefan. The Great War and Medieval Memory: War, Remembrance and Medievalism in Britain and Germany, 1914–1940. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. ISBN9780521854153.
Jürgen Tietz: Das Tannenberg-Nationaldenkmal. Architektur, Geschichte, Kontext. Berlin: Verlag Bauwesen 1999.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
