Among Germany’s multitude of monuments some attract tourists from around the world, whereas others you might walk past without a thought.
Monuments are meant to remind us of the past in the present and future. But they fail to do so, unless we take a moment to notice learn about them.
This year’s Tag des offenen Denkmals (Open Monument Day) is on September 8th. On this day, monuments across the country are open to visitors for free.
If you don’t know where to start, here are seven unusual monuments in Germany and the stories they are meant to remind us about.
1. Chandelier Hall in the Cologne Sewer System
If you thought Cologne’s biggest monument was its cathedral, you should visit the sewer system under Theodor Heuss Park.
In the late 19th century, the city had exhausted its canal system so it built this vault to absorb sewage and rainwater.
But when Kaiser Wilhelm II was scheduled to visit the inauguration in 1890, the city decided to equip the vault with two magnificent chandeliers. To this day, they hang in the so-called Chandelier Hall, which is still a functioning part of the sewage system.
READ ALSO: What’s on in Germany – 9 events not to miss this September
2. Hamburg’s market lemon woman
The “Zitronenjette” was a woman known for selling lemons in Hamburg’s streets from 1854 to 1894. Her real name was Johanne Henriette Marie Müller, and at just 1.3 metres tall she was easily recognisable and became a well-known local character.
As the story goes, some residents would offer the lady schnapps instead of buying her lemons. Tragically, in her old age, Zitronenjette succumbed to alcoholism and was committed to an institution for drunkenness and dementia.
Henriette Johanne Marie Müller, besser bekannt als Zitronenjette war ein Hamburger Original.
a) sie wurde in Dessau geboren
b) war nur 1,32 Meter groß
c) sie war Henry Vahls letzte große Rolle in einem
Schauspiel pic.twitter.com/U2UcKar8CH— HURASTL 😷 #noAfD (@bardi1212) February 10, 2023
Today, a bronze sculpture in the St. Pauli district commemorates her difficult life – with a basket full of lemons, of course.
3. Meet ‘Unterm Schwanz’ in Hanover
When you need to meet someone at Hanover’s main train station, you could suggest meeting “under the tail” – meaning beneath the tail of a horse, which is a monument to honour King Ernst August.
The monument has since become a central meeting places in Hanover.
Unterm Schwanz pic.twitter.com/LLyYqUZy6t
— Gaby 🤠 (@flatterweib) October 2, 2023
In it’s recent history, the monument was central to a trial last year after a Last Generation activist climbed onto the statue and painted the horse’s tail orange.
But that was far from the first time someone defaced the monument. Just a couple years prior a man had wrapped the entire statue in black plastic wrap and covered it in red dots as part of an art project.
READ ALSO: Why are Last Generation activists in Germany getting prison sentences?
4. Rubble of the World Trade Center in Bavaria
In Oberviechtach, a small town in the Upper Palatinate, a memorial was erected on the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Seen there is a 160-centimetre-long piece of the original steel girder from the rubble of the destroyed World Trade Center in New York.
The small town is the only place in Germany that owns a piece of the destroyed Twin Towers.
The reason why is Martin Zimmermann, then chairman of the Association of German-American Firefighters and Friends, had applied for a piece of rubble from the World Trade Center and had his application granted.
5. Guinea pig monument on the experimental island of Riems
Cute and tragic: On the Baltic Sea coast near the island of Riems (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania) there are three stone guinea pigs.
What seems cute at first glance is intended to remind us of the thousands of guinea pigs that died each year from 1920 onwards as laboratory animals for the vaccine development of foot-and-mouth disease. The Friedrich Loeffler Institute’s virological research centre is located on the island, hence why the monument is there.
After researchers discovered that guinea pigs are susceptible to the virus, they switched from testing cattle, which were harder to keep.
6. ‘Heavy-duty bodies’ in Berlin
On the southern edge of Berlin’s centre, there is a massive concrete cylinder which is registered as a building.
Called the Schwerbelastungskorper in German, which literally translates as “heavy-duty body” was built in the 1940s as a test object for Hitler’s planned triumphal arch, which was to be part of the “world capital Germania”.
According to estimates, the planned arc would have taken up 50 times as much space as the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. And at an estimated weight of 12,650 tons, it would have tested the load-bearing capacity of the sandy Berlin soil.
7. The ‘diver’s helmet’: bus shelter in Buschvitz
A bus stop shelter in the municipality of Buschvitz on the island of Rügen serves as a rather unusual monument, and a unique piece of GDR (former East German) architecture.
After a storm destroyed all the bus shelters on the island in 1973, there was a need for a shelter for students at a stop for school buses. So the then mayor Eva Preuhs and the GDR pioneer Ulrich Müther, who was a friend of hers, developed the idea for the bus shelter.
Construction was completed in the spring of 1974. Because of its shell construction and its side portholes, the windproof little house is also popularly known as the “diving helmet”.
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