By Maik Ullmann

Like no other in the Wolfsburg area, the war memorial in Ehmen is to fulfill various commemorative cultural tasks: In addition to a dead man of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 and the fallen of the First and Second World Wars, the loss of the former German eastern territories is also commemorated at the Hall of Honor by means of two cube-shaped stone monuments. However, this was not the intention from the beginning.

The idea for the memorial located in the south of the courtyard of the local church was pushed by the community in the course of the year 1921. Already in October a fixed memorial commission consisting of the community leader Hildebrandt, the master carpenter Steib, the chief engineer Teutschenbein and the courtyard owner Santelmann had been formed. This committee intended to create a memorial for the 63 soldiers of the village who died in the First World War. For its construction, the committee organized a well-funded competition at the Technical University of Hanover, as the invitation to tender provided for prize money of 200, 300 and 500 Reichsmark for the first three places. For this competition, Teutschenbein wrote on behalf of the committee to Professor Gustav Halmhuber of the Faculty of Civil Engineering and asked him to inform his students about the announced competition. He would be very pleased, Teutschenbein said, "if the academic youth would participate quite numerously in this-__-0000-__- patriotic assignment".-__-0001-__- As can be seen from the enclosure list of January 4, 1922,-__-0002-__- the chief engineer from Ehm hit the nationalistic zeitgeist of the 1920s with his words, as a total of 13 entries were received.-__-0003-__-.

Even though Lothar Köpke, Franz Josef Becker and Harald Hanson won the competition with their designs, in the end a non-prizewinning design by architecture student Otto Winkelmüller was given preference with the following justification: "The design 'Ehrenhof' was created from the endeavor to create a consecrated space closed off by pillar positions and trees."-__-0004-__- The tribute to the fallen comes into its own in this design in a particularly appealing way and at the same time lends expression to the "native world of thought," according to an explanatory report by the monument commission. Winkelmüller's "happy hand in the overall disposition" ultimately tipped the scales in his favor.-__-0005-__-.

Already on the following day of the meeting of the jury, chief engineer Teutschenbein sent his congratulations to the student with the "most humble" request to be allowed to purchase his design for a price of 100 Reichsmark.-__-0000-__- The approval was given a short time later, so that with the help of donations from the community, further planning could begin -__-0001-__- and the project finally reached its conclusion with the inauguration in the spring of 1923.-__-0002-__-.

Until the early 1950s, the memorial was to remain in its former form: two columns, each 2.40 meters high, made of "Weser sandstone" on each side, and another six as a back wall, which at the same time function as a holder for the likewise sandstone inscription plates, on which the names of the fallen of the First World War are listed.-__-0003-__-.According to the historian Meinhold Lurz, the basic idea of the Hall of Honor as a symbolic tomb, with its rectangular and upwardly open form, goes back to the English stonehenge, the Neolithic stone circle.-__-0004-__- Because during the Germanization of different types of graves, which took place in the course of the 19th century, the dolmen was usurped by the German commemorative culture and instrumentalized for the supposed heroism of the fallen. In keeping with the architectural zeitgeist, Winkelmüller created an unroofed consecration room in Ehmen with space for mourners and a clear focus on the name plaques. In the early 1950s, a plaque was finally added to the memorial listing the names of those who died in World War II.-__-0005-__- Additional names were added to an existing plaque names. Apparently, the name of an Ehmer soldier who died in the Franco-Prussian War has now also been added. At whose instigation and with what intention the individual additions were made, and whether they took place at the same time, is not handed down in the available sources. The same is true for the cubes that were placed on the left and right in front of the steps of the memorials and above which the naming of, for example, "Danzig" or "Pomerania" reminds of the loss of the former German eastern territories.

The construction of honorary memorials experienced a nationwide boom in the still young Weimar Republic. It was therefore not uncommon for "stone sculptors" such as Eggert and Wilborn from Fallersleben to place newspaper advertisements to advertise the making of "grave and war memorials."-.__-0006-__- In the end, the sculptors from neighboring Fallersleben were awarded the contract for the structural implementation of the memorial:-__-0007-__- "Unsern Gefallenen Söhnen Zum Gedächtnis" ("To Our Fallen Sons In Memory") was the sober memorial inscription on the Ehm Hall of Honor, which was further supplemented by lines from the Gospel of John: "No one has greater  love than this, that he  lays down his life for  his friends" While it was Teutschenbein's intention to create a memorial that would convey the nationalism that was enormously widespread especially in rural regions, the result was different: realized on a church property, the Ehm war memorial manifests, as was common in many places during the Weimar Republic, a sacralized hero worship of those who died in the war.-__-0008-__-

Only the central depiction of the steel helmet entwined with oak leaves refers to the supposedly honorable heroic death of the Ehm soldiers. The fact that the memorial was nevertheless received accordingly is attested, for example, by the statement of the then Ehm pastor Friedrich Bernhard Ahlers on the occasion of a commemorative event for the Volkstrauertag on March 1, 1931: "This gratitude must fill our hearts at the commemoration of all these brave ones, who went out with the joy of battle and victory to protect homeland and fatherland. Reminiscere!"-__-0000-__- With this, the theologian continued during his field service the fairy tale of the mythically transfigured "August experience," which had basically already been exposed since the 1920s as a war myth and erroneous belief fomented by reactionary circles.

Sources:

-__-0000-__- StadtA WOB, B.Ehmen II, Kultur, 1901-1940, Teutschenbein an Professor Halmhuber, Betr. Denkmalserrichtung vom 13. Oktober 1921.
-__-0001-__- StadtA WOB, B.Ehmen II, Memorial of Honor/Warriors' Graves, 1921-1940, list of attachments dated January 4, 1922.
-__-0002-__- StadtA WOB, B.Ehmen II, Culture, University's internal competition notice for a war memorial. Undated.
-__-0003-__- StadtA WOB, B.Ehmen II, Memorial of Honor/Warrior's Graves, 1921-1940, explanatory report of memorial commission. Undated.
-__-0004-__- StadtA WOB, B.Ehmen II, Honor Monument/Warriors' Graves, 1921-1940, Minutes of the meeting of the jury for the erection of a monument to the fallen of the municipality of Ehmen, December 30, 1921.
-__-0005-__- StadtA WOB, B.Ehmen II, Kultur, 1901-1940, Teutschenbein to Winkelmüller dated December 31, 1921.
-__-0006-__- StadtA WOB, B.Ehmen II, Memorial of Honor/Warriors' Graves, 1921-1940, collection list for the erection of a memorial to the fallen warriors of Ehmen Parish dated October 12, 1921.
-__-0007-__- StadtA WOB, B.Ehmen II, memorial of honor/war graves, 1921-1940, memorial committee to the firm of Eggert and Wilborn dated December 12, 1922.
-__-0008-__- StadtA WOB, B.Ehmen, Kriegsgräber, Anschlagwesen u. Reklame 1945 -1959, J. Billen Stein- und Bildhauerei to the municipal administration of Ehmen b. Fallersleben dated September 24, 1952.
-__-0009-__- Here and in the following Meinold Lurz, Kriegerdenkmäler in Deutschland. Volume 4. Weimar Republic. Heidelberg 1985, p. 199.
-__-0010-__- StadtA WOB, B.Ehmen, Kriegsgräber, Anschlagwesen u. Reklame 1945-1959, J. Billen Stein- und Bildhauerei an die Gemeindeverwaltung Ehmen b. Fallersleben vom 24. September 1952.
-__-0011-__- "Production of grave and war memorials", in: Aller-Zeitung from January 7, 1923; "Grave memorials in all forms u. künstl. Ausführung", in: Aller-Zeitung from January 7, 1923.
-__-0012-__- StadtA WOB, B.Ehmen II, Honorary Monument/Warriors' Graves, 19211940, The Monument Committee to the Eggert & Wilborn Company dated June 23, 1922.
-__-0013-__- Here and in the following Michael Jeismann/Rolf Westheider, "Wofür stirbt der Bürger? Nationaler Totenkult und Staatsbürgertum in Deutschland und Frankreich seit der Französischen Revolution," in Reinhart Koselleck/Michael Jeismann (eds.), The Political Cult of the Dead. War Memorials in Modernity. Munich 1994, pp. 23-50, here pp. 28f.
-__-0014-__- "Volkstrauertag im Kreise Gifhorn," in Aller-Zeitung, March 4, 1931.


Published on 7.11.2018