City history: The Kolping memorial at the Haus des Handwerks

In 1914, the Catholic Journeymen's Association of Bocholt had a monument erected on the north side of St. George's Church in honour of the journeyman father Adolf Kolping. The annual honouring of the fallen took place there before the monument was desecrated by Austrian legionnaires from the Bocholt relief camp in April 1935.

In 1945, the memorial was destroyed in the war and was not rebuilt. In the immediate post-war period, a bust with Kolping's image was temporarily placed on the remains of the plinth as a makeshift memorial.

As early as 1954, the idea of having a new Kolping memorial built was considered. On 28 March, the Kolping Choir organised a song recital in aid of the planned project. However, the plans only became more concrete at the beginning of the 1960s, when the Bocholt Kolping Family organised a competition to obtain designs and set up a memorial commission.

Four different designs were finally presented and put up for discussion at a meeting of the Kolping Family on 15 April 1962. These were relief depictions, individual and group statues. It had already been decided in advance that the new memorial would not be placed in its original location, but in front of the Haus des Handwerks on Nobelstraße.

The decision was then made at a further meeting on 5 May 1963, and the model chosen was that of the 31-year-old sculptor Hermann Hölker from Dingden-Berg, who had been awarded the Folkwang School of Art Prize in Essen two years previously. In his design, he conceived a group sculpture in which he depicted Adolf Kolping in conversation with the Kolping son as a young craftsman and the Kolping family as a spiritual community.

The artist envisaged a low plinth made of natural stone (Eifel basalt lava), on which the standing figures are grouped together at a height of 2.20 metres. The design emphasises the togetherness of the figures. Father Kolping, the main figure, can be recognised by his raised hand and the craftsman by his tools. The couple depicted is an expression of the family concept.

The church blessing of the new, 37-centner Kolping monument took place on 5 September 1964 by Vicar General Laurenz Böggering, who also gave the ceremonial address. In the course of the remodelling work to erect a memorial plaque for the Jewish synagogue destroyed in 1938 on Nobelstraße, the Kolping monument was moved to the immediate vicinity of the Kolping House, where it still stands today.

Photo: Bocholt city archives, Halbfas estate no. 22, text: Wolfgang Tembrink