Phönix Fountain Waldenburg

In the last days of the Second World War, from April 13th to 16th, 1945, 700 years of history were destroyed, burned down, reduced to rubble and ashes. The reconstruction in a relaxed style, interspersed with small green areas with comfortable seating, revived the homely charm of a medieval town - now equipped with all modern facilities. Like the phoenix from the ashes, Waldenburg was able to renew itself from the rubble in a rejuvenated form. The Phoenix fountain by the well-known sculptor Hermann Koziol on the market square symbolizes this sinking and resurrection.

Opposite the Evangelical Church of St. Ägidius is the Phoenix Fountain. It commemorates the almost complete destruction of the city in the last days of World War II and the reconstruction that followed. So Waldenburg rose like a "Phoenix from the ashes".

The myth (legend) of the Phoenix bird has always fascinated people. Its origins go back to the ancient Egypt of the Pharaohs.
A version of this that was widespread in antiquity can be found, for example, in the Greek historian Herodotus. According to this, the Phoenix is a bird the size of an eagle and the shape of a crane that lives in India or Arabia. When it is five hundred years old, it flies over Lebanon, collects fragrant herbs there and carries them in its beak to the altar of the sun god in Helipolis, Egypt. It builds a nest out of the herbs, in which it burns itself to ashes. After three days it emerges from it with renewed youth and beauty and flies back to its homeland.
While the Egyptians saw it as a symbol of the immortal, ever-renewing sun god, the early Christians saw it as a symbol of the Son of God, who rose from a transfigured body on the third day after his burial, or the phoenix was seen as a symbol of the immortality of the human soul in general. In the Baroque period, which loved aphorisms, the image of the phoenix, accompanied by the aphorism "Ex flammis orior", reflected something of the stoic, defiant attitude of a generation that, after the fire and devastation caused by the fury of war, dared to make a new start and live a new life. This also builds a bridge between the people of the time of the Thirty Years' War and us and our place.