How the Stone Crocodiles Came to Südstadt

© Matthias Kothe

Lion Bastion instead of Crocodile Bastion

The two giant crocodiles are literally ancient: in 1934, sculptor Peter Schumacher carved them from solid sandstone—they were originally intended to guard a viewing platform on Lake Maschsee, now known as the Löwenbastion. But instead of the two crocodiles, two lion sculptures were erected there in 1938, created by Arno Breker—a sculptor favored by the Nazis at the time—and modeled after the Braunschweig Lion. They ultimately gave their name to the bastion, which resembles a defensive structure, at the southern end of the Maschsee’s quay wall. But why are the two fearsome reptiles now lying in the front yard of the house at Lindemannallee 19?

Garden ornament instead of a monument

The story is a bit convoluted: The owner of the plain prefab building, a man named Erich Cordes, was a passionate art collector at the time and had acquired the two crocodiles from the estate of Georg Greiser. Greiser, in turn, was a wealthy entrepreneur from Hanover, a pioneer in horticulture, and an art lover. After the crocodile design was not selected to “guard” the bastion on the Maschsee, Georg Greiser commissioned the sculptor Peter Schumacher to create them as monumental garden ornaments on his property in Dollbergen near Hanover. After Georg Greiser’s death, the pair of crocodiles was purchased in 1965 by Erich Cordes, who eventually placed them in the front yard of his apartment building on Lindemannallee near Alte Bult. 

Incidentally, remnants of other old works of art can also be found there: for example, an empty pedestal in the back of the garden that once supported an equestrian statue of the Venetian general Bartolomeo Colleoni, or broken columns that lie in a seemingly random heap in the front garden on the right.