Recreating three vertical buses used to stop sniper fire in Syria is ‘an abuse of artistic freedom’ say rightwingers in German city devastated in WWII

To some Dresdeners, the towers of rusty metal are nothing but a distraction from the reconstituted glory of their city centre. To others, they are a thought-provoking reminder that the city was itself a pile of rubble not that long ago.

A new installation in the heart of the east German city, unveiled on Tuesday and entitled Monument, recreates one of the most surreal images to have emerged from the Syrian civil war: three buses propped up vertically in an Aleppo street to build a barricade against sniper fire.

Devised by Syrian-German artist Manaf Halbouni, 32, the sculpture has been installed in front of the famous Frauenkirche church just a week before the 72nd anniversary of the start of the 1945 Allied air raids, which unleashed a firestorm on the city, killing approximately 25,000 people, most of them civilians.

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However, the buses are being seen by some in Dresden as a provocation, and a way to block protest marches organised by the anti-Islam Pegida movement, which has used the Neumarkt square as a rallying point.

A statement issued by the local branch of Germany’s rightwing populist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) decried Halbouni’s artwork as an “abuse of artistic freedom” deliberately designed to “snub the citizens of Dresden and drive Pegida on to the barricades”, overshadowing the central symbol of Dresden’s post-reunification revival with “scrap metal”.



The official unveiling on Tuesday led to tumultuous scenes in the city centre, with protesters and supporters jostling each other in a large crowd in front of the artwork. Mayor Dirk Hilbert’s speech was largely drowned out by a crowd of people booing, jeering and shouting “Go away!”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Manaf Halbouni in front of his artwork in Dresden. Photograph: Michael Sohn/AP

Halbouni, denounced by the AfD statement as a “rootless wanderer”, has close ties to Dresden. His Syrian father met his German mother while studying architecture at the city’s university. Together they moved to Damascus in 1979. Halbouni was born there but returned frequently to Germany in his youth. He has childhood memories of the Frauenkirche church when it was still in ruins. Since 2009, he has been based at the city’s school of fine arts.

Responding to the AfD, the artist said, in a roundabout way, his critics were partly correct: “I am rootless, in the sense that the war has taken my childhood away from me, by killing or scattering the friends of my youth all over the globe,” he said. “Since then I have been in transit, because I still feel that people here struggle to take me seriously as a German.”

On the Facebook page of one local rightwing activist network, users criticised the artwork as a deliberate attempt to shame native Germans and belittle their historic suffering. “Since the fall of the wall we are apparently only allowed to be perpetrators, not victims”, one statement read.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The installation mirrors a barricade in Aleppo to protect residents from sniper fire. Composite: Action Press/Rex/Karam Al-Masri/AFP/Getty

This month, Hilbert, a member of Germany’s liberal party, received death threats after criticising attempts to create a “victimhood myth”, saying that “Dresden was anything but an innocent city”.

The mayor’s supporters point out that the city has just secured funds for the completion for a new memorial inside the Busmann Chapel, which will name 19,000 of the known victims of the 1945 raids. The contemporary art gallery behind Monument is also hosting an exhibition that deals with the plight of Germans expelled from Poland after the war.

On Monday afternoon, as two cranes lifted the buses, originally from Bayreuth, into an upright position, Halbouni was joined by two visibly outraged pensioners on their bikes. “This is absolute nonsense, a complete scandal,” said the local man, who declined to give his name but said he had lost both his parents during the bombings. “You just wait and see what will happen here in the coming weeks.”

One of the curators behind the project suggested that the image of the upright buses may help a generation of younger Dresdeners think about the horror and devastation caused by war. But the man on his bike shook his head: “Too complicated. And Dresdeners already know that anyway.”