Das Goethe-Denkmal in Chicago (1914) Made in Germany

Introduction and summary

For the 100th Jubilee of the Erection of the Goethe Monument by Professor Hermann Hahn in Chicago

The Goethe Monument by Hermann Hahn in Chicago is one of a series of monument erections that started during the eighties of the nineteenth century. German emigrants coming from the West and urbanizing the American prairie, creating settlements while remaining conscious of their roots, initiated erections of monuments as a remembrance of their home culture and of their own achievements. The link to Germany was still strong enough, whereas confidence in American art had not yet grown, so that orders for sculptures went to German artists and orders for technical founding went to German foundries.

What was created here was the export of German art of monuments and founding technique, the traces of which can be found distributed over the five continents. Due to its colossal dimension and its experimental conception, the Goethe monument in Chicago represents the apogee of this development, but at the same time we must consider this monument as the latter portion, the twilight of the gods by way of monumental personal sculptures, in Germany as well as overseas.

On September 27the of 1913, the then highest bronze monument of the prince of poetry Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, was presented to the public in the Royal mineral foundry von Miller. Among the important number of invited guests, there was the Bavarian Prince Regent Ludwig III, who would not have foregone the personal inspection of this monument about which so much had been said and written prior the its erection. The connective spirit, the symbolic bridge between the old and the new world was underlined many times on the occasion of the official speeches on the day of presentation; indeed, the monument was not to be placed on German ground, but for America, more precisely for Chicago.

German emigrants, regrouped in a multitude of associations, above all located in the north of Chicago, wanted to erect a monument bearing witness to them and to their attachment to their home country. After the statues for Friedrich Schiller (1886), Alexander von Humboldt (1892) and Fritz Reuter (1893), there figure who was in their opinion the most important hero of German thinking: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. "The Mastermind of the German People", as it can be read on the front of the pedestal. As to the number of monuments donated, the Germans were on the forefront of other nations, which was in conformity with the inflation of documents during that time, and also with the percentage of German inhabitants in comparison with other immigrants from Ireland, Great Britain, Italy and Poland. " The Germans of Chicago" inaugurated on the 16th of June 1914 the highest personal bronze monument in North America, in the northern part of the Lincoln Park of the City. The festive act was watched by a crowd of some twenty thousand visitors, a majority of German descent. Pouring rain could not prevent them from being present during the three hours of the ceremony. Admiring speeches were held, German songs brought forward by the numerous association and chorals of singers, and a march of participating associations in their multi-colored costumes mqarked the end of the festivities. Only some weeks later, the First World War started in Europe.

How had the erection of this monument been conceived?

When on the 31st of March 1876 the "Swabian Association" was founded, it was the first association founded by German immigrants in Chicago. The objective of the "non-profit organization" should be as follows: To keep alive the festivities and customs of Swabians having come from Swabia, to acquire land and mutually help and support each other. Obviously, the erection of monuments was part of this effort, and as one of the first personal monuments in Chicago, the replica of the Schiller monument by Ernst Rau in Marbach, had been built under the responsible leadership of the Swabian Association. The Association and its members were also part of the realization of the the Humboldt monument that was already mentioned, and also of the Reuter monument. All the three statues are somewhat taller than life-size and appear in historic outfit; they are in accordance with the usual monumental style of the German Emperors, and they also agree with the interpretation of art as it was emerging in America which is reflected in particular in the public sculptures of Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Without a preceding public tender, the German sculptors had received their orders directly, and the bronze casting were done in German foundries: "MADE IN GERMANY".

As early as 1889 the board of the Swabian Association had planned the erection of a statue of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. However, this time there should be a special monument, for which reason the project was postponed for years. Finally, a committee for the monument was instituted under the direction of the Chicago lawyer Harry Rubens. On the occasion of several trips to Europe, Rubens had far-reaching consultations with artists, directors of museums and other authorities, whereupon an international Jury invited eight sculptors from Germany, with German background and from Austria, to enter a competition. Each one of those invited should receive a uniform prize money, and the winner was to conduct the execution of the monument. The idea was to create an independent monumental sculpture representing by way of an allegory the genius of the prince of poetry to be honored, not one more bronze doll in traditional garment as part of the existing series.

In the rooms of the Royal Academy of Arts in Berlin, during two days of meetings, the founder, artist and director of the Royal Academy of Arts Ferdinand von Miller (Munich), the sculpture of animal August Gaul (Berlin), the sculpturer or German origin Karl Bitter (New York), the architect Frederick A. Ohmann (Vienna) and Harry Rubens discuss the projects of Adolph Bermann(Munich), HermannHahn (Munich), Anton-Hanak (Vienna), Hugo Lederer (Berlin), Hubert Netzer (Munich), Othmar Schimkowitz (Vienna), Georg Wrba (Dresde), Albert Jaegers (Suffern, N.Y.) and HansSchuler (Baltimore, Md.) After tough negotiations, but in the end unanimously, the Jury decided in favor of the project by Hermann Hahn.

In order to have the public in Chicago participate, the initiators organized an exhibition of all the art models in the Art Institute of Chicago at the beginning of the year 1911. The selection process had been praised as one of the most diligent and most thoughtful by the press, as well as its result. Furthermore, preliminary models were to be circulated in the most important cities of the USA; the initiators were so convinced of their project that they envisaged the realization of the other seven designs. The beginning of the war prevented this plan.

The realization finally agreed upon was the design of a monument which was blatantly different in comparison of all preceding personal monuments in Germany. And one would like to say: inadmissible for a site in Germany, but from the German perspective looking at the other side of the Atlantic it was certainly justified.

"He beheld an eagle's wings", under this motto Hahn presented an ephebe of immaculate physical beauty who rather makes one think of antique athlete statues or statues of Zeus, than of Goethe. An eagle sits on his elevated right knee, a broad scarf, a chlamys, covers the hips, is turned around the neck and falls in a light swing on the back. The monument was meant to be symbolic, and symbolic it is, because nothing of this colossal statue almost 6 meters high recalls the Early Victorian style image of Goethe that had left the mark of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe on generations. But obviously the experiment went too far even for the artist. A rest bank in granite with a prominent high relief of the old Goethe is situated in the back of the monument. It is somewhat reminiscent of the classical image of Goethe.

Cast in bronze, resting on granite, this is how, according to the wishes of the donors the colossal monument of Goethe should rest here while bearing witness to centuries of German culture and German performances, both spiritual and technical. However, the first 90 years experienced highs and lows. Just a few years after the inauguration, when the USA had just entered into the First World War, the Chicago Herold wrote that the Goethe monument embodied "naked violence and German militarism".

As a consequence, the members of the Park Committee wanted the destruction of the statue, or at least a change of place for the monument. This first attack on the monument was blocked by art lovers in Chicago with loud protests.

If protests against the Goethe monument and thus against Germany had been of a rather literary nature during the First World War, they became more direct during the Second World War. Aggressions targeting the monument took place, without being capable of seriously damaging the bronze.

What the anti-war demonstrators had not succeeded in doing, that is to lift the monument from its base, nature managed this during the night of the 13th September 1951. During a thunderstorm at night, a flash of lightning hit the statue at 1:45 hours and smashed the left foot, the supporting leg of Goethe. Six German associations joined under the leadership of the architect Albert C. Fehlow, in order to donate the sum required for the repair. The imposing granite base remained an orphan for almost three years, and on the 13th of July 1954 the repaired monument could once again be placed where it had been, with a new left foot, having been sandblasted and...