Monument to the praying commander of the "black troop", Baron Ludwig Adolf Wilhelm von Lützow on horseback

Figure, sculpture

Information

  • Address: ul.KOściuszki, 55-050 Sobótka

    

On February 3, 1813, in Wrocław, King Frederick William III issued an appeal summoning his subordinates to a heroic fight with the French. 
This happened after the alliance with France was severed. In the appeal, he called for enlisting in volunteer rifle units (Freikorps). One of such
units that went down in the history of Lower Silesia was a unit under the command of Major Lützow. The core of the department were the inhabitants
of Sobótka and the surrounding area, but there were also many volunteers from Silesia (Theodor Korner - a poet, Friedrich Jahn - the founder of the
gymnastic and turner movement). On March 27, 1813, after a mass in the Evangelical church in Rogów Sobócki, the city crowded and spontaneously said
goodbye to a unit of 260 cavalrymen and 900 foot shooters. The first stage was Saxony where, in the rear of the French, Freikorps Lützowa became so
dangerous that the order was given to completely encircle and destroy the unit. There was no pity. The orders clearly ordered the execution of captured
soldiers. Among the fighters with the Freikorps was also a detachment of Polish cavalry. Theodor Korner was killed in the fighting and Lützow himself
was seriously injured. The unit was diluted but not liquidated. He withdrew to the depths of Germany where volunteers replenished fairly quickly.
After completing the detachment, Freikorps followed the French fleeing towards Denmark with other troops. He ended his combat trail in France in 1814,
where the unit was dissolved. Some soldiers returned home, others stayed, starting the regular Prussian army. The events related to the Lützow corps were
solemnly celebrated in 1863, on the 50th anniversary of the erection of a granite obelisk on Wilhelm Square, and a plaque was embedded in the house where
Theodor Korner once stayed. However, a bigger feast was held in 1913, exactly 100 years after the events - it was then that a monument was officially unveiled
among the large crowd presenting the commander of the corps of Baron Ludwig Adolf Wilhelm von Lützow on horseback, and then a parade took place. The figure
itself was 3.8 meters long and the entire monument was 11.5 meters high.
The author specially made it of stone, not of bronze, so that it would never be turned into a weapon and kept for posterity, and yet after World War II it was destroyed on the orders of the Soviet military authorities. It was in 1948.

In 2021, a glass plaque was placed in front of the remaining plinth, "overlaying" it with the image of the destroyed monument.