Heinrich Heine memorial

The Heinrich Heine monument stands in Frankfurt’s Friedberger Anlage, a green space in the city’s old centre. Created in 1913 by sculptor Georg Kolbe, it is Germany’s only major public statue of the poet Heinrich Heine. The bronze shows a young man striding forward and a seated woman, an image of youthful lightness Kolbe took from the dancer Vaslav Nijinsky. A limestone pedestal bears a bronze relief of Heine’s profile, also by Kolbe.

The monument survived the Nazi era and the Second World War almost unharmed. In 1933 the Nazis tore it down, destroying the original name plaque but saving the figures. They were hidden in the Städel Museum garden under the label “Frühlingslied.” During the war the bronze was stored in the museum cellar and later buried by a bomb, yet emerged unscathed. After 1945 Kolbe made a new plaque and the statue was re-erected in Taunusanlage in 1947.

Today the monument sits again near its first site, surrounded by plane trees and paths. The relief profile of Heine is Kolbe’s last completed work, finished just before his death that same year. Visitors can walk around the figures, read the plaque, and feel the quiet strength of a work that outlasted political storms. The nearby park benches and flowerbeds offer a place to pause and look at the bronze figures against the Frankfurt skyline.