Description
Nailed oak wooden pillar of 7 m high crowned with the Iron Cross and the inscription In Kriegsnot helf uns Gott.
with reliefs, nail surfaces, texts and founder plaques, surrounded by three stone columns connected by wrought iron railing.
The column is decorated in four discrete rings, each set consists of three large reliefs and three smaller intermediate reliefs:
- Top ring: War: advancing soldiers; advancing Landsturm ( third-class infantry) with his son; armourer; and in the intermediate fields: Three Furies as the horrors of war.
- Middle Ring: State: Imperial eagle, Hessian Lion, Mainzer Wheel, and in the intermediate fields: military on land, at sea and in the air.
- Lower ring: Brotherly Love: The work of women as Sower, distributing the children's bread and nursing the wounded, with between large fields icons and emblems of denominations and Mainz institutions.
- Tke lower part is the area decorated with nails representing the donations. Citizens could buy nails ranging from simple iron one for 1 Mark (about €5 these days) to a gold-headed one for 20 Marks and hammer them into the oak stem.
Between the reliefs are text rings with the fourth verse of the song Die Wacht am Rhein:
Solang ein Tropfen Blut noch glüht,
noch eine Faust den Degen zieht,
und noch ein Arm die Büchse spannt,
betritt kein Feind hier deinen Strand!
Lieb' Vaterland, magst ruhig sein,
fest steht und treu die Wacht am Rhein!
The three statues on the outer column represent"
- Mildtätigkeit - Charity, woman giving bread to a child.
- Tapferkeit - Strength, man with sword.
- Einigkeit - Unity, man with shield with the words seid einig einig einig
Inscription(s)
nagelsäule
im ersten weltkrieg
spendeten mainzer
bürger für die ver-
wundeten und schlu-
gen 1916 als zeichen
hierfür die nägel in
den eichenstamm +
|
Sculptors
- Adolf Gelius (Rebdorf 1863 - Frankfurt 1945),
city architect of Mainz
- Ludwig Lipp senior (1877 - 1945),
German sculptor
(Wikipedia).
Sources & Information
Tags
Locatie (N 49°59'56" - E 8°16'29") (Satellite view: Google Maps)
Item Code: derp179; Photograph: 1 October 2012
Of each statue we made photos from various angles and also detail photos of the various texts.
If you want to use photos, please contact us via the contact form (in Dutch, English or German).
© Website and photos: René & Peter van der Krogt
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