by Susan | Nov 19, 2018 | Monuments
In 2009, architect Ruedi Baur constructed a memorial in Cologne for those who have refused to fight. It is a bus shelter with these words on the roof: Homage to the soldiers who refused to shoot at the soldiers, who refused to shoot at the people, who refused to...
by Susan | Nov 12, 2018 | Monuments
Between 1939 and 1945, about 400,000 German soldiers (2% of the total) deserted or attempted to desert, not counting those surrendering in battle. 30,000 of them were caught in the act, 23,000 of those were executed. This was the first of the monuments now in Germany...
by Susan | Mar 19, 2018 | Monuments
In the waning days of World War II, Würzburg, a city of no military but great historical importance, was reduced to a smoldering ruin in a British fire-bomb attack. Five years before, the Germans rained down the same fate on the English city of Coventry, destroying...
by Susan | Feb 12, 2018 | Monuments
This was built in 1899 as a Siegesdenkmal — victory monument — over the French in the Franco-Prussian War (1870/71), on the edge of the Pfaltzwald. Because of its location, one can see across the Rhine all the way to Strasbourg (there are stairs in the...
by Susan | Dec 4, 2017 | Monuments
Commissioned by the city, artists Jochen Gerz and Esther Shalev-Gerz described their design as a Gegen-Denkmal––a countermonument. They rejected the city of Hamburg’s offer to place it in a park and instead constructed it in a pedestrian shopping mall in the...
