page_title: Prussia Columns
section_title: Recent history to the present
hierarchical_section_title: Prussia Columns / Recent history to the present
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Vom Rost gesprengte Säulentrommel der Preußensäulen auf dem Lagerplatz in der Alleestraße von Putbus im April 2006
context_page_description: The Prussia Columns are two monuments, over 15 metres high, that were erected in the years 1854 and 1855 by order of the Prussian king, Frederick William IV on the southeast coast of the German island of Rügen near Neukamp and Groß Stresow. Both villages are today part of the municipality of Putbus.
  The monument near Neukamp was inaugurated on 15 October 1854 and the one near Groß Stresow exactly one year later, on the 60th birthday of Frederick William IV. The drums and parts of the pedestal were carved from one of the largest glacial erratics in North Germany, the Great Rock near Nardevitz on Rügen's Jasmund peninsula. Most of the rock was destroyed as a result of being quarried for the columns. Nevertheless, it is still impressive today, and sticks 3 metres out of the ground. See also: Erratics on and around Rügen.
  The monuments were intended to commemorate the landings of the Brandenburg and later, Prussian troops on the island in the years 1678 and 1715 and to demonstrate Prussia's claim to power over the southern Baltic Sea region.
context_section_description: In 1985, i.e. 130 years after the erection of the monuments, experts from the Dresden Office for Monument Conservation (VEB Denkmalpflege Dresden) questioned the structural stability of the columns during an inspection. Five years later, following an emergency meeting on 11 September 1990 in Putbus, a Berlin master stonemason and restorer was contracted to remove both monuments. In late November 1991, the monuments were dismantled and their drums, capitals and statues transported to the master stonemason's workshop in Berlin-Pankow. Originally replicas of the drums, capitals and statues were to be made, because the advice had been not to repair them due to the severe damage to the original stone. The drums had once been joined together by means of iron pins. Serious corrosion of these jointing pins over many decades had caused the granite to split in places, which meant there had been a danger of the columns collapsing as result of the formation of cracks and fissures. The statues, too, were so badly eroded by weathering and lightning strikes, that their outline had been destroyed for ever. The material to be used for any replicas - i.e. Elbe Sandstone for the capitals and statues and Bornholm granite, of which the Nardevitz Erratic was also made, for the column drums weighing six and five tons respectively - would be readily obtainable.
  Further damage occurred during disassembly. The commissioned stonemason used percussion drills to get the iron pins out that held the pieces of the granite together. In doing so, large pieces at the respective ends of the drums were broken off. The drilling holes at each end of the drums show this clearly. The journey to Berlin was did not go smoothly either. The statue of Frederick William I from Great Stresow broke off at the legs. The head came off and was glued back by the master stonemason.
  Due to the continuing shortage of money in the district of Rügen, which was the owner of the monuments, little work was carried out in the following years, with the exception of the completion of a capital. One of the factors in this situation was, for example, the fact that in allocating funds, the making of replicas had a lower priority over the restoration of original monuments.
  A staged plan agreed in March 2003 by the Prussia Columns Working Group envisaged the following steps: First the pedestals of the two monuments should be returned to their rightful place, then the column drums and finally the statues by 2010. Because parts of the pedestals were and are still dotted randomly around the site of the monument in Neukamp (as at January 2007). The idea behind this phased plan was and is that a beginning must be made more visible to attract sponsors and increase donations. In seeking sponsors for this project, the  President of the County Council even wrote, for example, to the royal houses of Denmark and Sweden.
  In April 2004 it was decided to return the original pieces of the first Prussia Column to the island by the time of the 150th anniversary of its inauguration, i.e. by 15 October 2004. Even this return journey failed thanks again to financial problems, because for the two monuments only a token amount of 500 euros was set aside in the county budget.
  In October 2004, the 3.30-metre-high pedestal of the Prussia Column at Groß Stresow was restored. As was suspected from the results of earlier soil investigations, the stability of this monument had been reinforced by the use of stones laid to a depth of 5.80 metres and which had been taken from a megalithic tomb that had formerly lain on the site. This was re-confirmed during work on the foundation. The necessary €20,000 were found from donations by the bank of Kreissparkasse Rügen and the German Foundation for Monument Conservation.
  On 2 September 2005, the original pieces were transported, unworked, from Berlin to Putbus and, since then have been displayed to the public in an open area on Alleestraße road, near the roundabout. Here, too, an accident happened for the master stonemason. The already broken statue of Frederick William I fel
caption: Broken column drum on the storage site in Putbus in April 2006
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