When I went on a walk visiting the war memorials in Oberursel last year, the one that we started at happened to be the one that I did not publish a photograph of. This was partly due to the weather but also because it was undergoing restoration work at the time.
A year has now passed, and it is still being restored. However, being „Volkstrauertag“ in Germany today, the equivalent of Remembrance Sunday, I decided to take a look at the progress that has been made in the past year.
The „Ehrenmal“ is located next to the „Christuskirche“ church, at the junction of the Oberhöchstädter Straße leading out of the town centre and the Füllerstraße, which used to be part of the main B455 road from Königstein.
Unveiled on 12th October 1930, it was designed by an artist from called Lina von Schauroth, who had already designed the monument for a location in her home city of Frankfurt. But in the end, as we know, it ended up in Oberursel.
The „Ehrenmal“ is a concrete column, placed on a block inscribed with the names of the town’s war dead in the First World War. On the top there is a copper sphere. But what makes the monument particularly special is the mosaic on the outside of the column.
The mosaic depicts the image of Jesus Christ, with a smaller image beneath of soldiers in uniform. There is a colour photo taken before restoration began on Wikipedia.
But the years took their toll on the momument. Cracks began to appear and pieces of the mosaic began to fall off. [Read more…]
Every year on Remembrance Sunday I sit down at 11:45 to watch the wreath-laying ceremony at the Cenotaph in London, and from year to year doing so is getting more and more difficult.