À propos de ce lieu
Standing where the medieval Iron Gate once guarded the entrance to the inner city, the Marian Column was completed in 1670 to fulfil a vow made after the Battle of Mogersdorf in 1664, a victory over the Ottoman army that the Habsburgs celebrated as a triumph of Christendom. A gilded figure of Maria Immaculata crowns its Corinthian bronze shaft, and the monument was moved twice before settling on this square in 1928. Beneath its quiet Baroque dignity lies a far darker chapter. After the Anschluss of March 1938, Graz was singled out by the regime and granted the honorary title 'Stadt der Volkserhebung', the City of the People's Uprising, in reward for its early and fervent National Socialism. To mark the occasion the regime encased this very column in a twenty-metre obelisk of red-draped timber, hung with swastikas and topped by a fire bowl, inscribed with the slogan 'Und ihr habt doch gesiegt'. In 1988, fifty years on, the artist Hans Haacke rebuilt that obelisk as a memorial, listing the regime's victims at its base. Days before the exhibition closed, neo-Nazi arsonists set it alight, and the fire destroyed the Baroque Madonna beneath. The column you see today was restored afterward, a layered witness to memory, denial and remembrance in this single square.
À retenir
- 1670 completed — The Marian Column was finished in 1670 to fulfil a vow made after the 1664 Battle of Mogersdorf against the Ottomans
- 20 metres — Height of the timber propaganda obelisk the regime built around the column in 1938 for the 'City of the People's Uprising'
- 1988 memorial — Hans Haacke rebuilt the obelisk as an anti-fascist memorial, which neo-Nazi arsonists then burned, destroying the Baroque statue
📍 Am Eisernen Tor 11, 8010, Graz