1937 Germany Postcard..location?

Good find, Spring and rhiw!!

--- Susan

 

I wasn't watching this because I thought it was leading nowhere. Shows what I know! Congrats to rhiwfield on the catch.

Here's a postcard that shows Konigsallee without even a plinth, but all the buildings are different.
http://www.library.ohiou.edu/archiv...-Book 1 Germany/22_Dusseldorf_Konigsallee.jpg

I found an article that said the lion was put in place 1910 (it was a heraldic symbol of the city and had 2 tails) but the article didn't say what happened to it. It did say that another lion was commissioned and installed in 1963, but not at that site.

Dusseldorf was heavily bombed in 1943 and my guess would be that the lion was destroyed.

There's currently a post card on eBay, Germany that says it's from 1945 and shows the lion in place (without the flags), but I imagine the image is much older than 1945.

 

Following image is used under doctrine of free use for educational purposes:



This image was described by the owner as post-1945. Interestingly the lion has lost his Nazi-marked shield, which I had speculated may have been added to him or her some time after the lion had been put in place. The clothing seems consistent with timeframe given.

 

So if this is a post war image, with the Nazi connotation gone, I wonder why the lion was replaced?

 

Following image is used under doctrine of free use for educational purposes:

Pic from a 1936 "picture book" of D'Dorf.



No flagpoles, no benches nor hedge in foreground, when magnified, Lion appears to have narrow, triangular shield down low somewhat diagonally-placed. It has a regular pattern of some kind, and is not the larger Nazi shield he had later.

We've sent the question of what happened to the lion, and when, to some German folks but it may take a while.

 

Small lion on different plinth is there now:

 

Is that in the same place? That will be the lion that was put in place in 1963 and I must have incorrectly read that article.

 

Thanks for all of the photos! One thing I wonder about this one... I can't see well enough to make sure, but are some of the people women wearing long skirts and hats? If so, that leads me to think earlier in the 20th century.

Fig

 

There are some other postcard pix of that area in this group, from various times. Not sure they will answer last question asked. One must be from ca 1920 looking at the "model T"-like vehicle on the street.

http://www.ebay.de/sch/i.html?_from...kw=postkarte+dusseldorf++konigsallee&_sacat=0

Here's about the oldest pic I've seen showing the lion missing. Looking at the cars it can't be very long after WWII. Can anyone put model years on those cars? I put in an ASQ asking seller if the card had a date on it anywhere.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-GER...rial-RP-b-w-/311423719122?hash=item48824cd6d2

Here's one with a side view of the lion in 1926:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/CPA-Dusseldorf-Konigsallee-Lowen-/171898577289?hash=item2805f42189

 

Yes, the middle postcard looks 1945-50 from the cars, not that I'm an expert!

 

5th paragraph this page (automatic translation from German):
https://translate.google.ca/transla...f.info/2011/02/14/bergische-lowe/&prev=search

"1933 Leo was replaced by a new monument made of teak. But the weather and the bombing in the Second World War made for his timely end."

 

Well done! So my postcard is of a teak lion . I think that wraps up the search, you lot are awesome!

 

Edited

Good find, and I have no question that the last part of it regarding the new bronze lion arriving on King Street in 1963 is accurate, but am struggling a bit to relate the early history of it to the various images.

Anyway, here's the original 1916. apparently wooden lion.



Robo-translation of the text for this is: "DÜSSELDORF : Bergischer Löwe , design by Johannes Knubel , Graf Adolf Square , the beginning of 1916 , Nailing in favor of the Red Cross picture he was terminated in 1933 and by a new lion teak replaced , the perished in the bombing . 1963 a new one was Created lion bronze by sculptor Harth , stands at the Königsallee ."

That's all it says but I keep running into incompletely-explained text regarding nails. My wild guess given that the lion looks a bit mangy, is that for a donation to the Red Cross of a certain amount, you got to pound a nail into Mr. Lion. The ladder affords easy access to do your pounding.

That came from this document which has hundreds of pix of German monuments, museum artifacts, etc, most of which I've never seen:

http://www.munzel-everling.de/download/Kriegsnagelungen_August_2012.pdf

 

Word I didn't know was "Kriegsnagelungen." Another robo-translation explains the practice:

"As nail men are hundreds of actions in Austria-Hungary and the German Empire refer to operations where during the First World War against a donation, a nail was driven into a for-positioned wooden object. The 1915 mass-onset phenomenon went from the nailing of the sculpture of Wehrmann's in iron, also called Iron Wehrmann, in Vienna from. Additional properties were pronounced differently and have been referred to as nail figure, nail, nail image of nails, nail cross, nail column, as well as a military shield or war landmarks.

At the Nailings public events with solemn character wide sections of the population took part in the frame. . At the same time carried out in schools with the participation of students school Nailings. . The money thus acquired funds were used for support of war victims, as survivors and wounded. The revenues in the estimated seven-figure range to Mark were more likely not critical to the success of Nailings. Far more important was their propaganda effect, as the patriotism speeches and the sense of community of the people and so to strengthen the "home front" contributed.

Similar Nailings to a lesser extent, there were worldwide in countries and regions where ethnic German minorities or German immigrants lived."

 

I get the impression that nails were sold to raise funds for the Red Cross (or whatever) and something would be provided for the donors to hammer the nails into. Maybe the original wooden lion became one of those somethings, even though it was a municipal monument.

It never occurred to me that such a public monument might be made of wood.

 

Really !

 

I think the original lion was made expressly for the nailing ritual. All kinds of figures and particularly wooden iron crosses were made just to take nails. The link I posted "munzel" above has hundreds of photos of nailing objects, posters, and tickets. This War nailing ritual was "the thing" in Germany ca. 1916.

 

The wood block nailing thing was a traditional pub game in Krefeld in the late 1970's....

 

I guess I'd have to ask why.

 

Maybe it was passed down.....& the younger generation brought it into the pubs as a drinking game..... I guess.