Monument to the March Dead
Monument to the March Dead is an expressionist monument in the Weimar Central Cemetery in Weimar, Germany that memorializes workers killed in the 1920 Kapp Putsch. A 1920 design produced by Walter Gropius, in collaboration with Fred Forbát, was selected from those submitted in a competition organized by the Gewerkschaftskartell and the Städtisches Museum Weimar.
Although Gropius had said that the Bauhaus should remain politically neutral, he agreed to participate in the competition of Weimar artists at the end of 1920.
The monument was built between 1920 and 1922. An unveiling ceremony for the memorial was held on May 1, 1922.
Objecting to it politically and as an example of what they called degenerate art, the Nazis destroyed the monument in February 1936.
The monument was reconstructed in 1946.
Architecture
The form of the monument alludes to a thunderbolt. The structure is constructed of concrete.The monument was arranged around an inner space, in which visitors could stand. The repeatedly fractured and highly angular memorial rose up on three sides, as if thrust up from or rammed into the earth.