17

Swords to plowshares

In early November of 1989 an ocean of ​​burning candles covered the forecourt of the Gethsemane Church and became a symbol of non-violent protest. These days and the origins of the GDR democracy movement are today commemorated by the expressionist bronze figure “Spiritual Warrior” by Ernst Barlach on an external wall of the church.
Archangel Michael holds his long sword in both hands. With bare feet on the back of the wolf-like animal, it almost appears to be floating. Barlach himself described the memorial in a letter as an external representation of an internal process. He went on: “What strives upwards separates itself from the earthy-horizontal”; the base here stands symbolically for the material existence, the animal for the earthly, instinct-driven existence, the angel for soul and spirit and finally the sword for the imperturbable power of faith.
The first cast of the monument was unveiled in 1928 at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Kiel. Since Barlach already struggled with hostility from the right at that time, it was set up secretly and without celebration or consecration. In 1937, a year before the artist died sick and embittered, both the Floating Angel in Güstrow Cathedral and the Spiritual Warrior were removed. Repeated attempts to melt down the bronze figure were frustrated by Barlach’s former employee, Bernhard Böhmer, by means of a cleverly camouflaged purchase. To save the sculpture, he cut it into four parts. Packed in boxes, it thus survived in a shed in the Lüneburg Heath and returned to Kiel in 1954. The Berlin copy was cast from its impression in 1990.