Heimkehrerstein

The Heimkehrerstein stands in Radebeul’s Seewiesen, just inside the old village boundary on the road from Dresden-Kaditz. It is a modest granite memorial raised in 1910 by the local military association to mark the fortieth anniversary of Sedan. Three veterans of the 1870–71 war—Gautzsch, Schwenke and Petzold—had planted poplars on the spot in 1872 to celebrate their safe return. The stone itself carries the scars of a century. It was knocked over more than once and even vanished for years before private hands rescued it. In 2000 the Radebeul heritage group and the city’s conservation office re-erected it exactly where it had stood, though the original poplars had long since been felled in the 1960s. The faded inscription was copied onto a new metal plaque so the worn lettering could remain untouched. Today the monument sits beside the quiet Kaditzer Straße, surrounded by fresh young poplars. The uneven surface of the stone and the copied plaque give a sense of its age and troubled history. Visitors can read the story of the three men and the tree they planted, now grown anew, while the surrounding meadows of the Seewiesen stretch away gently under the Lößnitz hills.