Angels around Ingelheim: The Niederwald Memorial

On Monday, the Pfingsten holiday, my hosts took me on a trip to Rudesheim. We walked through town on the main street, zipped up through the Drosselgasse (soberly avoiding the temptation of the wine and ice cream shops) and found ourselves at the Seilbahn (cable car), on which we glided above vineyards to witness one of the most beautiful views the Rhineland has to offer.

At the Niederwald statue there, I found myself gazing at an angel. 

I could tell she was an angel by her huge wings and her soft features. She had long hair (it was always long in the illustrated Bible stories I remember from childhood--and always blonde, too). She was crowned with rosebuds. In her left hand she held a Horn of Plenty, with fruits and grains always ripe. With her right hand, she offered an olive branch. 

It was a beautiful offering, she was beautiful. But there was another angel at the other side of Germania's base: a male angel with a rather different aspect.

I knew he was an angel by the wings. But he was no bringer of plenty. Instead of long, flowing robes, he wore a short tunic, under which I could see the rings of his armor. His cheeks were drawn in, preparing to blow on a long horn he held in his left hand. In his right hand he gripped a crooked sword. He wore no crown on his head, but a helmet with a plume on its crest that looked like fire. On closer look, his wings look ragged, as if he had dove too close to the melee before racing back to sound the alarm.

Angels.

And as I looked on these angels, I realized I had seen angels everywhere since I had come to Germany: winged creatures, divine messengers.

I remembered another angel I had seen a week ago. It was in Berlin at the Pergamon Museum. In the room of Assyrian artifacts, among the stella of great kings, and the giant winged sphynxes, were several reliefs depicting (what I undersand to be) angels. 

This was the angel from the Old Testament, a culture under the strong influence of Assyria, who presented these winged beings. This angel's features are strength and majesty: the calves and forearms are so muscular and defined so well that one can see the sinews. 

Like the angel to the right of Germania, the Pergamon angel wears a short war dress. But his black hair is neatly coiffed and curled as if for a formal, religous event. He wears a headband and a long, dangly earring. This is one of the oldest representation of an "angel" that one can see, and a clue to what Bible writers had in mind when they introduced these beings, as I addressed in a blog from long ago.

No mention of the angels of Berlin can be made without a reference to the winged goddess, Nike, atop the Victory Column in the Tiergarten. With the same gender and countenance as the peaceful angel at the Niederwald Memorial, she nevertheless offers a vicory's wreath of laurel to the victorious Prussian soldiers returning from Denmark (among other battle sites). On her head and in her right hand are the symbols of Prussian royalty: an iron cross and an eagle.

I would be remiss if I mentioned the angel on the Victory Column in the Tiergarten without mentioning Wim Winders's classic German film, Wings of Desire / Der Himmel ueber Berlin (1987). It traces the story of an angel who wishes to give up immortality for the love of a beautiful circus performer. In one iconic scene, the angel sits on the shoulder of Victory and looks down on Berlin, still divided by the Wall just two years before it came down.

(In a video for the title track to Winders's sequel, Faraway So Close, U2 lead singer, Bono, sang from the same, iconic shoulder.)

Angels, angels everywhere! That's what I found in Germany. Perhaps it's because my destination was Ingelheim, "home of angels," whose name origin is explained by this fun story I posted elsewhere on this blog.

But could it be somerthing more? Could it be hubris? In the Bible, angels were messengers--one might say evangelists (as that word does contain the word, "angel"--sent to proclain God's words, God's deeds). Indeed the difference between the two Greek words for "angel" and "evangelist" is the prefix, "ev-" which means, "good." Angels were news-bringers from a greater king.

The name of the greater king of the Pergamon Museum's Assyrian angels is written boldly on the stella they decorate. The greater king of the Tiergarten angel is Kaiser Wilhelm I. It is Charlemagne in the Ingelheim founding myth--or one could say that the heavenly king, God, sends the news-bringer to his faithful servant.

My mind goes back to the news that the two, angelic news-bringers were meant to deliver to the Rhine. To understand, it's best to zoom out and look at the whole monument.

There is a greater king above these two remarkable angels--or rather Koenigin / queen. Her name is Germania. In her right hand she raises a crown with an iron cross at its peak. Her left hand holds a sword. There are no wings--there is no need for them. Angels do her bidding for her, and they deliver...what one might call, a 'mixed message.'

It'll take another blog to really understand the message and the monument. And this one has run long. 

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Photo Credits: Angels at the Niederwald Monument (me). Assyrian Angel (Metropolitan Museum of Art). Tiergarten Angel (Berlin.de). Niederwald Monumen (me)