WAR HAMMERS ON KÖNIGSPLATZ: THE UNVEILING OF THE IRON HINDENBURG
This week in Berlin: 4 September, 1915
On September 4, 1915 a giant, 12-metre tall figure of Prussian national hero, Paul von Hindenburg, was unveiled on Königsplatz (now Platz der Republik) in front of the German Reichstag. Not so much to honour the moustachioed victor of the Second Battle of Tannenberg1 as to start what effectively turned out to be one of the most successful crowd-funding campaigns in the history of Berlin.
The wooden effigy of Paul von Hindenburg was a Nagelmann (Nailman) - a wooden statue made to have nails hammered into them in exchange for a small donation. These Nagelmänner were quite popular in the German Reich during the First World War and fulfilled a very simple task: help collect money while at the same time consolidating one of the most important assets in every waring nation: public support.
In exchange for between 10 and 50 Pfennig - for an iron (or grau, grey) piece - or even up to 50 Marks for a silver or gold one (option for the well-heeled patriots), anyone, including school children, could buy a nail and drive it into the effigy, gradually creating a certain pattern. The school children, mind you, attended special events, organised just for them.
Behind the effigy, inside a small pavilion, donors could leave their names in a special commemorative book, the “Eisernes Buch”.
Eventually, using a wooden platform with stairs, the most of the statue would have been covered with hammered in pieces of metal, creating an impression of it being made of “iron” itself. Hence the Königsplatz giant's other name, Eiserner Hindenburg.
The future Chief of the General Staff (1916) and President of the Reich (1925-1932) had his twelve-metre tall effigy unveiled in Berlin to collect donations specifically for Luftfahrerdank GmbH, a charitable organisation focused on helping wounded or incapacitated German aeronauts and their families, who could not yet count on any support through insurance (it did not exist yet for this particular profession). A noble cause by all means but one which unfortunately ended in a catastrophe: in May 1918 Luftfahrerdank GmbH went bankrupt and all the money (nearly one million Marks!) evaporated without a trace.
The Iron Hindenburg stood on Berlin’s central plaza until November 1919 when the statue was dismantled and stored at an unknown location. Legends had it it had been sold to the Americans and/or to the French. But by 1933 its traces were found in the north of Berlin: most of the nearly 26 tonnes of alder wood it had been made of turned out to have been burnt as (possibly) regular firewood. Nothing but the 1.55-metre-tall head survived until the mid-1930s.
In 1938 the Nazis (of course…) had it included in the “patriotic” exhibition at the Deutsche Luftfahrtsammlung (German Aviation Museum) in Berlin-Moabit. And so, like most of the exhibits in its collection, Hindenburg’s wooden head vanished during the Second World War, most probably burnt in one of the many fires.
Thank you for reading Berlin Companion. Please comment, follow and share, and if you enjoy my work, consider becoming a subscriber, or just buy me a coffee:
The 1914 East Prussian battlefield near today Polish village of Grunwald where German troops - led by the future President of the Weimar Republic - managed to nearly pulverise the Russian Imperial Second Army and push their commander, General Samsonov, to commit suicide. “Second” as in 1410 joined Polish-Lithuanian forces did the same to the then militarily unsurpassed troops of the Knights Templar.