Windthorst-Denkmal - Osdnabrück, NI, Germany - Statues of Historic Figures on Waymarking.com

This is a statue for Ludwig Windthorst.
It is made of bronze and is a little smaller than life size.
Windthorst is shown wearing a suit and a jacket, in the left hand holding a scroll and with his right hand pointing to his right side and down while having his arm close to his body.

The plaque says
"Ich werde das Recht das ich für die
Katholiken und für die Katholische
Kirche und deren Diener in Anspruch
nehme, jederzeit vertreten
auch bei den Protestanten
und nicht minder bei den Juden.
Ich will eben das Recht für Alle.
Ludwig Windthorst 1812-1821"

(I will represent the law, that I claim for all the Catholics and the Catholic Church and their servants, at all times, also for Protestants, and nothing less for the Jews.
I simply want the Law/Right (ambigous in German) for Everyone.
Ludwig Windthorst 1812-1821)

Biography cited from Wikipedia:
"Ludwig Windthorst (17 January 1812 – 14 March 1891) was a German politician and leader of the Catholic Centre Party and the most notable opponent of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck during the Prussian-led unification of Germany and the Kulturkampf. Anderson argues that he was "Imperial Germany's greatest parliamentarian" and bears comparison with Irishmen Daniel O'Connell and Charles Stewart Parnell "in his handling of party machinery and his relation to the masses."[1]

He entered politics during the revolutionary years of 1848 and 1849 in the Protestant Kingdom of Hanover, where his legal and political skills overcame the handicap of near blindness and being in an unpopular minority. He supported Hanoverian independence ("particularism") and was loyal to monarchism. He was not a Liberal but they admired his opposition to the king's reactionary policies and his strong support for an independent judiciary and the rights of the accused. He served in 1851 and 1862 as minister of justice.

When Prussia absorbed Hanover and then set up the German Empire in 1871, Windthorst dealt with the new state of affairs and became a leader of the all-Catholic Centre Party. It won over 80% of the Catholic vote in a new nation that was one-third Catholic. He opposed Bismarck's harassment of minorities such as Catholics, Hanoverian Guelphs, Poles, Danes, and Alsatians. He argued for natural law as the basis of political rights. He perfected the arts of opposition, forming alliances that could win majorities. The Centre party became what Anderson calls "a liberal party manque." That is, it kept its distance from the anti-Catholic National Liberal Party but championed the rights of minorities, the powers of parliament, and the rule of law against Bismarck's moves.

In the 1870s, he was a vigorous enemy of the Bismarck's Kulturkampf, which persecuted the Catholic Church in Prussia in an effort to destroy papal control. Bismarck eventually lost, but it was Pope Leo XIII who negotiated with Bismarck in the end, cutting out Windthorst."

Considering his important role for the catholic church the placement of the memorial right next to the dome is very appropriate.

URL of the statue: Not listed

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