Elke Ulmer Smith
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Germany:
Memories of a Nation
A 600-year History in Objects opened at the British Museum in London on October 16, 2014
In 1926, Ernst Barlach designed a hovering angel suspended from above as a WWI memorial for the Protestant cathedral in Güstrow, in eastern Germany. It expresses not heroism, but the sorrow of those who remained after the war: the angel is a spirit floating high above the earth, seeking those who tragically lost their lives in battle. Not surprisingly, this memorial enraged the Nazis: when they came to power it was melted down and the metal was used for armaments.
The bronze figure was made in 1926 to commemorate the victims of the First World War. Barlach himself fought in this war and returned a pacifist. This memorial is unusual and unique. Detached from earth and time, with folded arms and closed eyes, the hovering figure expresses an internalized vision of the grief and sufferings of war. When the Nazis came to power in the 1930s, Barlach’s works were among the first to be declared Entartete Kunst (‘degenerate art’) and confiscated. Sadly, Barlach died in 1938, knowing that his masterwork had been taken down to be melted and probably made into war munitions. However, some courageous friends had managed to find the plaster mould from which the sculpture was created – and they made, and hid, a second cast, which was then hung in the Antoniter Church in Cologne after the end of WW2.
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​The photo shows Elke Ulmer Smith in front of the original Angel from Güstrow, and was taken by photographer Joanna O'Brian at the opening of the exhibition Germany: Memories of a Nation at the British Museum; A 600-year History in Objects at the British Museum in London, 16th October 2014 to 25th January 2015. The bronze figure was made by Ernst Barlach which formed part of the exhibition.
During the time of the Cold War in the 1950s, the parish of Cologne [West Germany] made another cast of the Angel and presented it in a gesture of friendship to the parish of Güstrow cathedral [in East Germany]. In 1981 Helmut Schmidt, the Chancellor of West Germany, met Erich Honecker in East Germany, and they visited Barlach’s Angel in Güstrow cathedral.
From December 11–13, 1981, Helmut Schmidt and Erich Honecker met at Schloss Hubertusstock on Lake Werbellin for discussions on German-German relations and the international situation in general. After the official talks, the two travelled to the town of Güstrow in Mecklenburg, where they visited the former home of sculptor Ernst Barlach (1870–1938).
The impetus for the excursion was Schmidt’s great fondness for Expressionist art and his interest in the work of Barlach, whom the National Socialists had defamed as “degenerate.”
