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EXULANTEN MEMORIALS

EXULANTEN MEMORIAL AT KAMMERSTEIN, BAVARIA, GERMANY

The memorial is right in the heart of the village. It was created by the artist Thomas Volkmar Held and shows two exiles (father and son) walking through a gate towards their new home. Optical trick: Depending on one´s viewpoint, the Exulanten show themselves inside the gate (as below) or on the ground. Dedication was in June 2000.

A father and his son seem to be walking through the gate at Kammerstein, after just having arriving from Austria.

EMIGRANTS MEMORIAL SALZBURGER HAUSER IN HAMBURG, GERMANY

In the Salzburger Hauser Street in Hamburg´s Harburg District, once stood a so-called immigrants´ house. Here, 42 banished exiles from Berchtesgaden were given shelter in 1733. They had arrived at Hamburg via Hanover. After the building´s renovation in 1993, a memorial which commemorates the fate of these people was placed in the inner courtyard. The artist Knud Knabe created two bronze columns which symbolise a gate as “Gate of Remembrance”. The first verse of the exiles´ song forms a chiseled circuit on the ground stones: “I am a poor exile, that is why I have to write ...“

Above: The Salzburger Hauser at Hamburg-Harburg. Right above: The Salzburger Verein added an additional information board on the exiles´ fate to the monument in 2003.

EXULANTEN FOUNTAIN IN WAIN, BAVARIA, GERMANY

In Wain, a small village 20 miles south of Ulm/Danube, a little fountain on Kirchstrasse reminds us of the many Austrian Protestants which arrived here from Carinthia and Styria roughly 350 years ago. They had come to live in religious freedom. The fountain is made of bronze and was created by the artist Rainer Schlecker. It shows a woman on her way to Wain with a rack waggon.

(Thanks, Linda)

RADSTADT, STATE OF SALZBURG, AUSTRIA

In Radstadt at the Tauern Mountains, one can also find a short notice about the fate of the Protestant citizens that had to leave the town in the 18. century:

A little showcase in Radstadt reminds us of the 4.850 Lutherans that were expelled from the city in the years 1731/32 - mainly to East Prussia.

HALLEIN, STATE OF SALZBURG, AUSTRIA

These memories can be found at Bad Duerrnberg near Hallein:

The wooden board above commemorates the secret evangelic sermons at the “Predigtstuhl” in Duerrnberg´s Abtswald forest. To the right is a path that was named after the Protestants of Bad Duerrnberg. It once led to the secret holy services in the Abtswald.

SCHWARZACH IM PONGAU, STATE OF SALZBURG, AUSTRIA

A “Salt Licker” memorial shows the approximately 150 men of Schwarzach which swore - by tipping a finger into a little salt barrel - to obey “the rules of God more than mankind” and to confess their Protestant belief openly to the Catholic investigation commission.

The memorial with the “salt lickers” is located in Schwarzach´s city center. (Thanks, Linda).

ST. VEIT IN THE DEFEREGGER VALLEY, TYROL, AUSTRIA

This 18 feet long stone plaque can be found outside the church of Bruggen. The village is  part of the city of St. Veit today. The piece reminds us of the Deferegger Valley exiles and was created by the artist Georg Planer. As a symbol of the separation, the plaque is split in two, with two copper bands forming a cross over the gap. On its left piece it shows a group of people that is left behind and a child - held back by an old man -  stretching its arms out to its mother in the group of exiles. Full of despair she also reaches towards her child.  The Exulanten on the far right side seem to fall off the stone board, as they walk torwards the valley´s end. All people are naked (therefore without protection) in the hands of the Archbishop of Salzburg (left). Only he is dressed and is staring into emptiness. The Protestant girl next to him looks straight into the viewers´ eyes. Deprived of her parents, she stands upright, facing an unknown future.

This work of art commemorates the 691 exiles from the Deferegger Valley that were expelled between 1684 and 1686. They were forced to leave their children under the age of 15 behind.

To the left one can clearly see the faces of the archbishop and the girl that was forced to see her parents leave the valley. Right: the little chapel in the village of Bruggen, Deferegger Valley, Austria.

SIBIU (HERMANNSTADT), ROMANIA

Hermannstadt was already founded in 1150 by German settlers. Between the years 1734-1737, Emperor Charles IV. of Austria ordererd the deportation of 800 Austrian Protestants to what is Romania today. Appr. 200 of them came from Carinthia. In the years 1752-1756 additional “transmigrations” of around 3.000 people followed. More exiles arrived until 1776.

Above is the Lutherian Church at Hermannstadt (left). In front of the church stands the Archbishop Teutsch Monument. The window painting says the following: “In memory of the immigration of Protestant Austrian Exiles who arrived between 1733 and 1776”. (Thanks, Linda).

SAVANNAH, GEORGIA, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A unique monument for the Salzburger Exiles who emigrated to the USA can be found in Georgia, a state that was named after King George II. of England. In 1734 he allowed the banished Salzburgers to emigrate to his American colony. They settled in Ebenezer, a village 25 miles north of Savannah. The monument was donated in 1994 by the State of Salzburg and sculptured by the Austrian artist Anton Thuswaldner.

GUSEW, RUSSIA (formerly GUMBINNEN, EAST PRUSSIA. GERMANY)

This wall painting outside the parish building of the Protestant-Lutheran Church at Gumbinnen was made in autumn 2005. It shows the arrival of the Salzburgers in East Prussia, welcomed by King Frederick William I.

The original painting of Otto Reichert can be seen inside the Frederick School´s (Friedrichschule) assembly hall at Gumbinnen.

The renovated Salzburger Church at Gumbinnen (above). To the left, the altar picture which depicts an emigration  scene of the Salzburgers leaving their homeland. (Thanks,  Linda)

VILKYSKIAI, LITHUANIA (formerly WILLKISCHKEN, EAST PRUSSIA, GERMANY)

In the 18. century some hundred Protestant refugees from Salzburg and the German Palatinate settled in the area around Willkischken. In the village´s center one erected a memorial of black wood for them. It shows a waggon´s tongue, symbolising the horse waggons with whom the refugees once arrived here. A stone board tells the following: “In remembrance of the Salzburg Protestants who found a new home near the Memel river in the 18. century”.

Above one can see the oversized fork in the village of Vilkyskiai, Lithuania.

EXULANTEN MEMORIAL IN THALMÄSSING, BAVARIA, GERMANY

This memorial in a small town just 17 miles south of Nuremberg, symbolises the wheel of time and what it left behind on a metal plate: The traces of the exiled Austrian families.

Above one can see the wheel of time from behind and the engraving that it left on the ground. Besides a note about the immigration of the Austrians, it also mentiones their surnames. (Thanks, Lois)

Do you know of any Exulanten memorials that are not listed here? Please send an e-mail to the webmaster (see disclaimer/contact) or use the Guestbook..


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