The interior is a magnificent hall--of nearly the same dimensions as
the Parthenon--with walls of ruddy-tinted marble; the floor of marble
mosaic; the roof, brilliant blue and star-spangled, strikes a note a
little out of keeping with the general severity of the rest. There
are sculptured Victories and Valkyries, and a frieze representing,
in sculptured relief by Martin Wagner, something of the history
of the German race before the coming of Christianity, while high
around the walls are a series of marble tablets bearing the names of
those worthy a place in the Temple of German Fame, but of whom no
authentic portraits have come down to us. Indeed, even those of great
achievement, whose names have not come down to us are not forgotten,
for three of these tablets commemorate the author of the “Nibelungen
Lied,” and the builder of Cologne cathedral. Other tablets serve to
remind us that Tennyson but stated a truth when in compliment to Queen
Alexandra he said, “Saxon, Norman and Dane are we,” for here among
the heroes of the Germanic Temple of Fame, we shall find the names
of King Egbert, of Alfred the Great, of Hengist and Horsa, even that
of the Venerable Bede. At the further end of the hall is a seated
statue of King Ludwig, and ranged along the walls are more than a
hundred busts, many of them very fine examples of modern sculpture.
The latest addition, Von Moltke (added in 1909), is particularly good.
The bust of Bismarck, which was placed in Walhalla in 1908, on the
sixty-sixth anniversary of the opening, is also admirable. There is
about the whole so much excellence as to suggest that the Temple in
addition to fostering national feeling should prove an encouragement
of the sculptor’s art, for next to the honour of winning a place in
the Walhalla must be the distinction of contributing to the work there
permanently placed.
From the programme which I picked up in the “oaken wood” at the back
of the building two years after the event, we may gather from the
ceremonies at a students’ “homage” paid to Bismarck here, a few days
after the bust was placed in position, some idea of the ceremony, which
presumably attends the dedication of a new entrant among the “Walhalla
comrades.” The programme runs as follows:
HOMAGE
Of the Society of German students before the bust of
PRINCE BISMARK
in the Walhalla
on the 7th November, 1908, at 4 in the afternoon.
* * * * *
PROGRAMME
Coronation March from the Opera, “Die Folkunger,”
by F. Kretschmar, for string quintet and harp.
Entry of the Deputation.
The “Bismarck Hymn,” written by Dr. Raimund Geister,
composed by Georg Meyer.
Sung by the “Regensburger Liederkranz” under the leadership of
their choirmaster Herr G. Meyer.
DEDICATORY ADDRESS
delivered by Professor Sponsel, President of the Union of all
Student Societies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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