The war memorial on the Preungesheim cemetery was erected in 1884 - 13 years after the victory of Prussia and its allied German states over France.

The well-preserved sandstone obelisk is not a mourning memorial, but a memorial of victory. That is why it was not originally on the Gottesacker, but in the middle of Preungesheim, which was still independent at the time, on the corner of Homburger Landstrasse and Weinstrasse.

In 1961 it had to go because of street reconstruction and found its current place in the cemetery.

The dead to the dead, that's what those responsible in the city thought at the time.

But the war memorial is not about the dead at all, or at least peripherally.

Because of the 44 men named on the obelisk, only two died in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71.

The main inscription explains why the people of Preungesheim erected the memorial: "In memory of the glorious victories of the German army in 1870/71".

A triumph that, however, deepened the Franco-German "hereditary enmity" and thus advanced a development that ended in two world wars.

Ask about handling the relic

Today's contemporaries can no longer do much with such heroisation of the "combatants", i.e. the fighting soldiers, and the "non-combatants", i.e. the heroes in the rear or on the home front, as it says on the Preungesheim obelisk.

Some consider the language of the monument to glorify war, others have absolutely no idea what the German victories at Gravelotte or Sedan and the proclamation of the German Empire in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles are all about.

How should one deal with this relic from a seemingly distant past these days?

The local council of Preungesheim has been dealing with this question for some time.

"You can't erase the inscription, but you can explain it," says Mayor Wera Eiselt (The Greens).

She and the local advisory board finally turned to the culture department for help and found a comrade-in-arms in the culture department head Ina Hartwig (SPD).

"We are largely unrelated to this monument," said Hartwig, head of the cultural department at the Preungesheim cemetery yesterday morning when an information board was unveiled next to the war memorial. "It's there, but it doesn't tell us anymore." That should now change change at the will of the head of department.

Not only in Preungesheim, but also in Bornheim, in Eschersheim and in other districts of Frankfurt, which have a war memorial to commemorate the victories of the German armies over the French army and the defeat of our neighboring country.

Explanatory panels

As in Preungesheim, a plaque is to be erected at all 20 memorials from that time in the city area, explaining the historical background of the Franco-Prussian War and the origins of the war memorials.

The Department of Culture is following a recommendation from the Commission for Culture of Remembrance, which includes experts from the Institute for City History, the Historical Museum and the Department of Culture.

The commission recommended that all monuments in Frankfurt commemorating the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 should be treated in the same way.

The plaque commemorates that around 180,000 soldiers died in the Franco-Prussian War, but also that the German Empire was founded as a result of this war.

The war memorials erected in many places as a result not only stand for sadness and joy, but also for national pride and admiration for the war.

But: "As historical testimonies, monuments like this one are part of our city's culture of remembrance." They represent a legacy that requires a critical approach.