The motif
8 April 1945 is still today the great trauma of Halberstadt. Just a few days before the end of the war, the entire city centre was destroyed in an air raid. A painter’s view that has existed for centuries accompanies this event and shows its strength. We encounter it in many paintings in the Municipal Museum and can take its viewpoint in front of city models that show it in its former, destroyed, and current states. In doing so, we stand at the Holzmarkt and look either to the left towards the Martinikirche or to the right towards the Fischmarkt. It’s therefore a beautiful composition with two lines of sight. This painter’s view alone in the museum is worth wandering through the building, as the city’s history is reflected in it. As is all the pain of what Halberstadt once was.
Its creator is the painter Carl Hasenpflug. What a self-confident picture of the townspeople. Of course, the town hall is at the centre of the painting. It bears witness to the citizens’ rights that had been wrested — with many setbacks — from the episcopal sovereign since the Middle Ages. Attached to it is the council loggia from 1662, built when the town finally had rights over the entire city. At the start of the Second World War, it was walled up, so it remained protected — as did the Roland statue, by the way. The reconstruction of the town hall succeeded thanks to the great dedication of the people of Halberstadt — as a modern building in old forms. In 2004, as the final stage of the reconstruction, the council loggia could also be rededicated. The Martinikirche, which was also destroyed, had by the way already been rebuilt shortly after the war, by 1954.
