200 years of the Battle of the Nations (16-19 October 1813) - 200 years of remembrance and culture of remembrance
"I write to you on the morning of a battle the like of which has scarcely been fought in the history of the world. [] This battle will decide the fate of Europe"// "(One could have seen there) atrocities that would have sent an icy shiver through the limbs and raised the hair of even the most callous cannibal" // "to commemorate the glorious [] time 100 years ago, [] (which) was able to build the German united empire to its present power and glory"[1]
Remembrance and the culture of remembrance are always tied to the respective contemporary perspective and, like this, are subject to change. The victorious military conflict against Napoleon by the allied forces (Prussia, Russia, Austria, Sweden and England), which went down in history as the Battle of Leipzig, not only marked the turning point of Napoleon's rise to power in Europe, but also imposed the largest battlefield in European history to date on the Saxon trading metropolis. The event was reinterpreted and instrumentalised to conjure up a myth of national dimensions, which in 1913 was still steeped in the idea of freedom and the glory of unity. The 100th anniversary was also celebrated with great fanfare in Lößnitz, for example with a party organised by the National Liberal Association in the Albertschlösschen, which was filled to capacity. In keeping with the interpretation of the time as a mythical, proclaimed primordial battle or the birth of a united nation, this event was part of a canon of thanksgiving and victory celebrations that were overloaded with patriotic thoughts, self-aggrandising Germanism and evocative hero worship. The beacon of this backdrop was, of course, the inauguration of the Leipzig Monument to the Battle of the Nations.
The centenary celebration at the Realgymnasium, where a memorial stone was unveiled with sacred solemnity, accompanied by organ music from the auditorium and choral singing, was not quite as monumental. An oak tree was planted in front of it to lend the act even more symbolic power; an iconographic symbol of German courage and perseverance. The oak also refers to a painting depicting the young writer Theodor Körner, who fell in the run-up to the Battle of the Nations and was stylised as a hero. The fighters of the wars of liberation quickly became mythical role models and people never tired of chanting Körner's poetry. The ceremony therefore also included a ritual laying of 13 oak wreaths, during which the heroes of the Battle of the Nations were simultaneously sung to with pathetic verses of poetry. The organisation of an express run, in which around 35,000 athletes from all corners of Germany made their way to Leipzig to pass a certificate framed by oak leaves from hand to hand, illustrates the national scope of this centenary celebration. The route also led past the Lößnitz.
Around 600 people also gathered for a torchlight procession, which wound its way up the Spitzhaus steps like a "fiery snake" to the Bismarck Tower to finally burn down a bonfire. The Kötzschenbroda gymnastics community travelled to the Jacobstein, as this probably oldest landmark in Lößnitz is a surviving witness to the events of 1813. Here too, pithy speeches, songs and fires were a must. The Friedenskirche church had also been festively prepared for an extensive memorial service. Even the little ones could not escape the omnipresent day of remembrance. The railway hotel organised a children's performance to instil in them "enthusiasm and willingness to sacrifice, selflessness and trust in God".
After the events of October 1813, the term "Battle of the Nations" was quickly coined in view of the enormous scale of the effort, the size of the army and the mass graves. Originally, the term only referred to the army, i.e. the soldiers themselves. However, the war was quickly reinterpreted as a common battle of European peoples against Napoleon's foreign rule. Against this backdrop, the large-scale commemoration day in 1913 appeared to be a ritual celebration by the people for the people, because, according to the prevailing view, it was after all the people who gave their lives to achieve the much-vaunted victory and thus the birth of the nation in bloodshed. However, if one lifts the veil of mythical distortion, it becomes clear that the conservative wing did not have bourgeois-liberal freedom in mind after the battle, but had its hands full with forcing the summoned national masses back into their place. For Napoleon, for his part, the Battle of the Nations was a painful failure, but by no means a ruin. Rather, it was only a link in a longer chain of his downfall, which began in Russia in 1812 and only ended with Waterloo and his exile.
The memory of the Battle of Leipzig was repeatedly instrumentalised for various purposes. Only in recent times, it seems, has this part of cultural memory been reappraised with a view in all directions: critically questioning the past, consciously realising the present and prudently thinking ahead to the future[2].
Maren Gündel, City Archive
Published in: Official Gazette Radebeul October 2013
[1] Sources: Kirstin Anne Schäfer: Die Völkerschlacht, in: Deutsche Erinnerungsorte, Munich 2001; Hans-Ulrich Thamer: Die Völkerschlacht bei Leipzig, Munich 2013, RT/ Kö GA from 9-20 October 1913.
[2] http://www.voelkerschlacht-jubilaeum.de/ (last accessed September 2013)