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Columbusstraße

Christopher Columbus

(prob. Cogoleto, Republic of Genua, c. 1451 - Valladolid 1506)
Italian explorer, who in Spanish service completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of America (see Background Information)

Ludwig Habich
1897 (1978)

Description

Bronze statue.

Information Sign

In 1992, a bronze plaque in the pavement is added with the following text:

Christopher Columbus, geb. 1451, gest. 1506, wird als Entdecker Amerikas
angesehen. Zur Erinnerung daran wurde ihm hier ein Denkmal gesetzt.
Anlässlich der 500 jährigen Wiederkehr dieses Ereignisses
soll jedoch auch der Folgen dieser Entdeckung gedacht werden:
— millionenfacher Mord an der indianischen Urbevölkerung
— jahrhundertelange Kolionialisierung und Ausbeutung
Lateinamerikas durch Europäer
— Armut, wirtschaftliche Abhängigkeit und Zerstörung der Natur
für den Wohlstand der Industrieländer
Gerechtigkeit und Bewahrung der natürlichen Umwelt zu schaffen
ist das Ziel, das es zu erreichen gilt!
Dies als Mahnung über das Jahr 1992 hinaus.

Annotation

This Columbus monument was donated by Bernhard von Glahn, a native from Bremerhaven who became a rich man in America. The impressive momument was designed by Ludwig Habich. In 1897 the bronze figure, cast by the Royal Foundry at Munich, was originally erected in a park on a huge granite pedestal. Two bronze plates on it showed the inscription "Columbus" and a stylized ship, undoubtly Columbus's flagship "Santa Maria".

The postcard (sent in 1917) shows the original statue on its location in Speckenbüttel (now a part of Bremerhaven).

In 1918 the figure, as many others in Germany, was melted down. At the end of World War I the German war industry desperately needed bronze for the production of grenades and other ammunition. Within a few years the statue seemed to have been forgotten. Only a few photos were left to remember it.

It was only in the late 1960s that Gert Schlechtriem, director of the Bremerhaven museum, discovered that the original plaster model which Habich had made was preserved at a magazine of the Academy of Arts at Darmstadt. Now there was a chance to bring Columbus back to Bremerhaven. The new statue was erected in 1978 in front of the Columbus-Center, a complex of flats, shops and offices. The building, as many other localities in Bremerhaven, was named after the North German Lloyd's steamship Columbus, which from 1924 on served the North America line from Bremerhaven.