Rüdiger-Brunnen

The Rüdiger-Brunnen stands in the Kaufbeuren district of Neugablonz, Swabia. It is a reconstructed fountain featuring a central granite pedestal surrounded by six bronze relief panels. A 2.90-metre bronze statue of the medieval margrave Rüdiger von Bechelaren tops the pedestal. The figure is shown in prayer, sword resting on his arms, caught at the moment he must choose between loyalty to the Huns or the Burgundians in the Nibelungen saga. The fountain’s history began in 1904 when Franz Metzner, a sculptor from Bohemia, was commissioned to create a Nibelungen fountain for Vienna’s Ringstrasse. After that project failed, the Prague society for the promotion of German art and science bought the single finished figure, Rüdiger. In 1924 the city of Jablonec nad Nisou purchased the statue for 50 000 Czechoslovak crowns and installed it near the Annakirche. A decade later the city completed the fountain with six new reliefs and dedicated it in 1931. After the Second World War the statue was toppled and damaged by soldiers in 1945, then replaced by a Soviet-style war memorial. In 1968 the original Rüdiger and reliefs were brought to Neugablonz, where local entrepreneurs donated the funds and the fountain was rebuilt in front of the Herz-Jesu-Kirche. Visitors find the reconstructed fountain in a small park in front of the church. The granite pedestal carries six bronze reliefs showing muscular male torsos. Above them rises the tall bronze figure of Rüdiger, carved by Metzner in 1904. The surrounding park offers benches and mature trees, giving a quiet place to view the sculpture and read the story of its journey from Bohemia to Swabia.