On January 21, 1851, the express train from Berlin to Bonn jumped off the tracks about 3 km before Gütersloh because of excessive speed, the locomotive with the name "Gütersloh" and the four cars fell down the embankment and buried the train driver, the stoker and the secretary Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia (1831-1888), later Emperor Friedrich III (ruled 1888), and his companions remained almost unharmed.
To commemorate the mild outcome of this incident, the district of Wiedenbrück decided to erect a memorial at the site of the accident in the municipality of Avenwedde on the occasion of the celebration of its 50th anniversary on June 21, 1865. The main initiator was the Reckenberg bailiff Wilhelm Lümkemann, who bought the intended property and raised 250 thalers through collections, which were supplemented by a subsidy from the district municipal treasury. In 1887, the district acquired the monument site and thus secured its continued preservation.
The 7.50 m high monument originally stood directly on the railway embankment on a hill made of field and grotto stones, which was surrounded by a grid. Planning and execution came from the Wiedenbrücker sculptor F. Goldkuhle. Various cube-shaped steps of sandstone taper upwards, where an eagle with spread wings sat on a sphere, also made of sandstone. The prototype was a model by the sculptor and Schadow student Christian Daniel Rauch (1777-1857).
Four marble plaques were attached to the cube in the middle, bearing the inscriptions "In memory of the happy rescue of Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm von Prussia from mortal danger on January 21, 1851", "Established by the district of Wiedenbrück in the jubilee year 1856 - renewed in the Three Emperors Year 1888", "To each his own!" (Latin "suum cuique", was engraved as a justice motto on the Prussian eagle order) and "From the rock to the sea" (German victory march of 1860, composer Franz Liszt). On both sides of the hill high flagpoles were erected, the entire facility was maintained by the Isselhorst innkeeper Upmann.
In the course of the four-track expansion of the railway body in 1909, the system was dismantled and rebuilt in 1917 east of the railway embankment on today's monument path. Shortly before the end of the First World War, the bronze eagle was melted down and replaced by another model. In 1952 the municipality of Avenwedde took over the facility. In 1967, the memorial was removed as part of the expansion of Friedrichsdorfer Straße and a children's playground was created at this point.
Translated by Google •
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