Karl Eibl Monument - Krems macht Geschichte

Introduction

KremsMachtGeschichte invites you to learn about and engage with the history of National Socialism in Krems. As you move through the city you connect various historical sites with each other. A simple stroll creates a personal narrative that brings the places, themes and histories into the present and enables you to keep the past alive in your critical memory.

What does it mean to “make history”? In 1938 Krems became the capital of the Gau, or Nazi administrative district, of “Lower Danube”. This was a time when Krems was making history, but history of a kind many would like to forget today. Today, when we remember, when we name perpetrators and tell the stories of victims, when we make resistance visible and point out continuities, we’re participating in the writing of history in our society. History isn’t just written in schoolbooks and by historians and at universities; it’s continually being produced by our everyday actions. History happens in the here and now.

24 historical sites, marked by green pennants, form the stations of the KremsMachtGeschichte tours. Every site stands for a different event that has something to tell us about destruction, persecution and crime, as well as about responsibility, solidarity and resistance. Some roads lead to memorials that glorify the past and that today need some historical correction. Prominent positions in the cityscape are taken up by the court and the prison, places where Nazi violence was once inflicted but that today contribute to the functioning of democracy. Many sites of past events are unrecognisable as such today; only through your imagination can they come back to life.

The information about each place can be called up with any smartphone by using the QR codes on the pennants. Texts and images can also be found in the catalogue which is displayed at various places in the city. By taking a walk through the city, you’re already making some history. En route from site to site, the historical picture gradually becomes more intricate. Common themes emerge, each of which groups the sites in a new way and connects them with our contemporary world. The themes include “on Jewish life”, “on resistance”, “on persecution and punishment” and “on remembering”. The short texts under these titles give some initial ideas that you can question and add your own stories to on the empty pages of the catalogue.

Karl Eibl (1891–1943), who had been to school in Krems and was stationed in the city during the First World War, joined the Wehrmacht in 1938 as a major. He died in 1943 leading an advance by an armoured corps in the Battle of Stalingrad. The Wehrmacht played a key operational role in the war of annihilation on the Eastern Front from 1941 to 1945.

The veterans’ organisation Kameradschaftsbund St. Pölten-Krems erected a monument to Karl Eibl in 1959. It was unveiled during the first reunion of Austrian Stalingrad veterans outside Vienna. Krems was chosen as the site of this meeting not least because the then Krems mayor, Franz Wilhelm, had opposed the prosecution of war criminals.

The Karl Eibl Monument in Krems is the only memorial to a general of the Wehrmacht in a German-speaking country. It first stood in the park next to the Wachau Bridge near Krems and was only moved to its current, central location in the 1970s. The City of Krems organised wreath-laying ceremonies at this monument for over 60 years. Finally, in 2021, an additional plaque was attached as the first initiative of the Krems Historians’ Advisory Council, which had been formed earlier that year.