Denkmal für die Gefallenen beider Weltkriege, Hamburg

The Hamburg Memorial, officially: Memorial to the Fallen of Both World Wars, is a stele with the relief Mourning Mother with Child. The relief was created in 1931 by Ernst Barlach in memory of the fallen of the First World War. The architect of the memorial, created from 1930 to 1932, was Klaus Hoffmann. It was made by the stonemason Friedrich Bursch. The memorial is located on the Kleine Alster at the eastern end of the Rathausmarkt.

The monument with the text "Forty Thousand Sons of the City Lent Their Lives for You - 1914-1918" was seen by the public at the time as a political declaration of war by the social-liberal senate of the SPD, DDP and DVP against the right-wing parties, especially since the equestrian statue of Kaiser Wilhelm I had been removed from the Rathausmarkt at the same time. The words "für Euch" in the inscription, suggesting a sacrificial death, had already been a concession to right-wing tendencies, which the SPD initially wanted to prevent. The relief was removed by the National Socialists in 1938 as degenerate art and replaced by the motif of a soaring eagle by Hans Martin Ruwoldt. They also erected a war memorial at Dammtor.

After World War II, the effigy was reconstructed by Friedrich Bursch and the memorial was rededicated to commemorate both world wars. Since then, the monument has been the city's official memorial to the fallen, where the wreaths of the Senate and the citizenship are laid every year on Memorial Day.