REITERDENKMAL
After much controversy the Reiterdenkmal, Windhoek’s familiar historical monument next to the Alte Feste, was removed in August 2009 making way for the new Independence Museum.
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The Reiterdenkmal, until its removal in August 2009, was synonymous with Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, or the place where “the rider never gets off the horse”. This is a reference to the equestrian statue of a German Schutztruppe, which for nearly a century gazed north from its commanding position in the centre of the city, between the Alte Feste (the old German fort) and the Christuskirche.
The Reiterdenkmal was inaugurated on Kaiser Wilhelms birthday, on 27th January 1912. On 19 August 2009, the historical landscape was altered - the bronze statue of horse and rider, weighing over two tons and wrapped in plastic, was unbolted, lifted into a crate and removed.
In 1911 the sculptor Adolf Kürle travelled by boat from Germany, to accompany the larger-than-life statue to the shores of South West Africa. Upon its arrival in Swakopmund, the monument, commemorating those German subjects who had died in the German- Herero War (1904 to 1907), was taken inland by train to Windhoek.
Kürle´s design was the outcome of a competition held by Colonel Ludwig von Estorff, but would serve only briefly as an icon of German power and victory. By 1915 Germany had lost the colony to South African forces. Nevertheless, for almost a century afterwards, the image of the monument held a privileged place in colonial visual culture. It appeared repeatedly on postcards, stamps, and marketing logos, and was endlessly photographed, as a nostalgic reference point to a departed era, or a curiosity in the urban landscape. For others, the Reiterdenkmal remained an everpresent symbol of oppression.
Unavoidably, the removal of the monument caused controversy. After almost a century, the rider and its horse had become an intrinsic part of a city´s historical fabric, a landmark that had meaning beyond its symbolic and emotional impact. But those who argued against its removal underestimated the presistent power of its representation of suffering under occupation.
The Reiterdenkmal will be re-erected on a nearby, less prominent site, in front of the Alte Feste. Its recontextualization will inevitably transform its inconographic significance. At the moment of its removal, history was displaced, to make way for a new revision.
Nicola Brandt record the historic moment on camera and her photographic documentary was on display at the NAGN during January 2010.
Her images of Namibia´s most prominent colonial monument and its removal are a case study in how physical structures can serve as repositories for individual and collective memory.
The photographs are intended to place the Reiterdenkmal at the centre of a narrative that demonstrates how landscapes, and structures within landscapes, are never neutral.
