Heinrich Heine, the greatest of all German poets to whom Germans have never erected a monument because he was a Jew, will be honored in France. The Commission to Preserve Old Paris will place a marble slab on the house where Heine lived and died, No. 3 Avenue Matignon.
The Commission’s decision recalls a bit of history which bears out the German determination not to honor Heine because he was a Jew. The Austrian Empress, Elizabeth, devoted to Heine’s poetry, had erected on her estate, Achileon at Corfu, a monument to the German poet. When the German Emperor Wilhelm acquired the Corfu estate one of his first orders was that the monument to Heine be torn down. The only monument to Heine in all Germany was erected in Hamburg in the private garden of Heine’s publisher.
When an attempt was made in 1987 to erect a memorial to the poet at Dusseldorf, his birthplace, permission was refused by the government on the ground of Heine’s anti-German utterances. The memorial that had been made for the purpose was accordingly offered to the municipality of New York, which has placed it on Mott Avenue and 16lst Street. It is commonly known as the Heine or Lorelei Fountain.
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