By Maik Ullmann

They blend inconspicuously into their surroundings. Partly covered with moss, occasionally not even at their former location, their originally intended effect can hardly be grasped anymore. Whether Kästorf or Warmenau in the north, Hehlingen in the east, Almke, Hattorf, Heiligendorf, Neindorf and Nordsteimke in the south or Fallersleben, Ehmen, Mörse and Sülfeld in the west - such a stone can be found everywhere, even in the city center. Once deposited by glacial transport at their places of discovery, the erratic blocks thematized here are commemorative stones deliberately placed there, which were donated by the communities on the occasion of the centenary of the Battle of Leipzig.-__-0001-__- As "memorial stone-__-0002-__-" -__-0003-__- erected in honor of the 90,000 soldiers who fell in October 1813, they also commemorated the wars of liberation themselves. These memorial stones are by no means a phenomenon that spread only in the villages around Wolfsburg Castle. As an inexpensive memorial motif, they can be traced back to the beginning of the 19th century in the French-occupied northern German region and were considered a collective expression of widespread rejection of the oppressors.-__-0004-__- Just as the erratic blocks stood up to the elements, so too should the population have stood up to the French in the wars of liberation between 1813 and 1815. For the end of the 19th century, such erratic blocks with a commemorative function can finally be proven for the entire German Empire.
There is no doubt that Germany was united at the time the erratic blocks were erected. During the wars of liberation, however, the individual German-speaking kingdoms and principalities were divided. Quite a few of the towns, communities and patches around Wolfsburg Castle were not on the side of the victorious coalition from the beginning during this time. This was originally composed of an alliance of the Prussian Kingdom and the Tsarist Russia. At the beginning of the wars of liberation, they still fought in the army of the Kingdom of Westphalia, a satellite state of France created in 1807, but after the Battle of Leipzig a change of attitude took place. However, this was not solely due to the defeat of France and the Rhine alliance states, including the kingdoms of Bavaria and Würtemberg. While Napoleon initially tried to influence the population of the newly founded model state in his favor by introducing the Code Civil, it soon became apparent that the innovations it enshrined for the Kingdom of Westphalia existed only on paper. The nobility continued to be privileged and, contrary to all promises, the landlord property relations remained untouched.-__-0005-__- In addition, the rural population suffered particularly, as an excerpt from the Hattorf local chronicle shows: reprisals, such as the numerous quarterings or considerable tax levies, led to a general disgust with the French.-__-0006-__-.
The main task of the newly created state was to consolidate France's hegemonic position within Europe. For this as well as for defense purposes, the individual Rhine Confederation states were required to provide a 25,000-man army. Whether it was aversion to military service, hatred of the French-controlled Kingdom of Westphalia -__-0007-__- or disgruntlement at not being able to exercise the rights promised in the highly praised constitution, there were many reasons for soldiers to desert. In turn, the deserters enlisted mainly in the Prussian Freikorps.-__-0008-__-.
As an excerpt from a speech of June 8, 1817 makes clear, there is also evidence for Fallersleben, which actually belonged to the Kingdom of Westphalia, that the soldiers of the town fought on the side of the Prussians. On the occasion of the erection of the Waterloo monument, the Fallersleben bailiff Justus H. Franck recorded in his speech: "As the German peoples prepared in 1813 to overthrow the Westphalian king from his illegitimate throne and to expel him together with the French from Germany, that Westphalian flag was publicly burned on the local market by my son Georg together with his chamberlains who rushed with him into the field of war."-__-0009-__- Two years after the end of the war and the creation of the German Confederation, this was an unmistakable sign of a growing national consciousness. The common and above all victorious struggle against Napoleon had the not insignificant side effect that suddenly not only language connected the territorial patchwork with each other, but beyond that also a collectively achieved, historical victory.
According to the Aller-Zeitung, the speech by Fallersleben school principal Otto Heinrichs on October 18, 1913, "borne by a patriotic spirit" -__-0010-__- was directly linked to this community-building narration, which he delivered in the course of the centenary of the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig.

In it, Heinrichs referred in particular to the central importance of this day for the further course and outcome of the wars of liberation. At the grand finale of the celebrations, which took place on Fallersleben's Denkmalsplatz, the Aller-Zeitung commented, completely caught up in the pathos of the event: "Deutschland Deutschland über alles -__-0000-__- and then many hundred lights spread out." The commemorative day had, as it went on to say there, caused a tremendous upsurge in "the German national soul."-__-0001-__-.
The choice of the type of monument immediately fits into this context, since the erratic block is one of the Germanizing motifs that have been used since the early 19th century to mythicize one's own German identity and origin.-__-0002-__-.
On the everywhere visible erratic blocks the mostly only short text messages remind of the battle itself as well as of the commemoration day. But behind the stated unity hides sometimes still another political message. After all, the boulders in Almke, Neindorf, Ehmen and Mörse explicitly commemorate the 25th anniversary of the throne of Kaiser Wilhelm II.-__-0003-__- Apart from the intention of commemoration, the communities thus set a sign for their part by erecting the stones: They symbolically acknowledged the emperor and the empire. According to historian Meinhold Lurz, the boulders were intended on the one hand to express indivisible German unity, and on the other hand to symbolize German resilience and national strength.-__-0004-__- In part, the inscriptions on the stones themselves point in an admonitory manner to the urgency of adhering to these virtues: "1813/1913. Nimmer wird das Reich | zerstöret, | Wenn Ihr einig seid | und treu," as it says on the memorial stone in Nordsteimke.
In addition, the communities also recognized the service rendered by the people themselves, which was often expressed by planting a lime tree right next to such a memorial stone. In German tradition, the lime tree is considered the "tree of the people."-__-0005-__- Similar to the erratic block, the lime tree is a recourse to the Germanizing motifs established since the early 19th century.-__-0006-__-.
Nevertheless, a look back shows that the erratic blocks were not quite so immovable, despite the attributes attributed to them - indivisibility, resilience and, above all, immovability. Once placed in the central squares of the community, over time they were moved more and more to the periphery. Thus for the stone in Heßlingen two conversions can be proved.-__-0007-__-.

The same applies to the erratic block in Ehmen, which still adorned postcards in 1913 but has since been moved to church grounds. The development seems to be similar everywhere: While passers-by passed by the original sites in the course of their daily lives, the stones are now found in comparatively remote places. As a result, they have disappeared both from the public eye and from the collective memory.-__-0000-__- They are an example of how history passes.

Sources:

-__-0000-__- StadtA WOB, Postkarten, P-0738 (Kunstverlag H.W. Schüpphaus, Fallersleben).
-__-0001-__- "The Celebration of October 18," in: Aller-Zeitung, October 21, 1913; StadtA WOB, HA 8938, Bauverwaltungsamt, Kriegerdenkmäler in Wolfsburg, July 22, 1958; Dr. Hans-Georg Schulze, Texte zur Geschichte Wolfsburgs. Volume 4. Ehmen. A Chronicle. Wolfsburg 1981, p. 81.
-__-0002-__- "Centennial celebration next Sunday and Monday," in: Aller-Zeitung, June 7, 1913.
-__-0003-__- Here and in the following Meinhold Lurz, Kriegerdenkmäler in Deutschland. Vol. 1: Wars of Liberation. Heidelberg 1985, pp. 171 and 153.
-__-0004-__- Here and in the following Helmut Berding, Napoleonische Herrschafts- und Gesellschaftspolitik im Königreich Westfalen 1807-1813. Göttingen 1973, pp. 21 and 25.
-__-0005-__- Kulturverein Hattorf (ed.), 700 Jahre Hattorf. Chronicle of the village of Hattorf. Hattorf 1997, p. 11f.
-__-0006-__- Fritz Lünsmann, Die Armee des Königreichs Westfalen 1807-1813. Berlin 1935, p. 38.
-__-0007-__- Ibid, p. 40; Stephan Freiherr von Welck, Franzosenzeit im Hannoverschen Wendland (1803-1813). A micro-historical study of everyday life in the countryside between occupation burdens and social reforms. Hannover 2008, p. 266.
-__-0008-__- Stadt Wolfsburg/Institut für Zeitgeschichte und Stadtpräsentation Wolfsburg (ed.), Das Ratsbuch der Stadt Fallersleben. 1547-1948. transcribed and explained by Annette von Boettcher. Braunschweig 2013, p. 150.
-__-0009-__- Here and in the following, "Die Völkerschlachtfeier in Fallersleben," in Aller-Zeitung, October 19, 1913.
-__-0010-__- "October 18," in: Aller-Zeitung of October 15, 1913.
-__-0011-__- Lurz, Kriegerdenkmäler in Deutschland. Vol. 1: Wars of Liberation (as note 4), p. 151.
-__-0012-__- StadtA WOB, Postkarten, P-0738 (Kunstverlag H.W. Schüpphaus).
-__-0013-__- Meinhold Lurz, Kriegerdenkmäler in Deutschland. Vol. 4: Weimar Republic. Heidelberg 1985, p. 196; Ders, Kriegerdenkmäler in Deutschland. Vol. 1: Wars of Liberation (as note 4), pp. 170f.
-__-0014-__- Doris Laudert, Mythos Baum. What trees mean to us humans. History, customs, 30 tree portraits. Munich 1998, p. 166.
-__-0015-__- Meinhold Lurz, Kriegerdenkmäler in Deutschland. Vol. 4: Weimar Republic (as note 14), p. 193.
-__-0016-__- StadtA WOB, HA 8938, Stadtplanungsamt, Kriegerdenkmäler in Wolfsburg, October 31, 1958; Ibid, sketch concerning war memorial in front of the village - corner Fallersleberstr; StadtA WOB, HA 10132, vol. 1, note, redevelopment Rothenfelder Markt, June 6, 1988.
-__-0017-__- This very thing was lamented by a working group of Wolfsburg local history preservationists in the course of a panel discussion on October 18, 2013, in the civic hall of the town hall on the subject of "Wolfsburg memorial stones to the Battle of the Nations in Leipzig." They expressed regret that the stones were largely unnoticed in a "protected-__-0018-__- place-__-0019-__-" lie, "the knowledge regarding" the stones "miserable" ARE.

Published 7.11.2018