Qualla: Brunswick Lion

Brunswick Lion: Introduction

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Benutzer:Brunswyk, CC BY-SA 3.0. The lion on the Burgplatz is not the lion. It is a good copy, made to be looked at and rained on, and most visitors never learn the difference. The original stands a short walk away, indoors, in Dankwarderode Castle, where the air is filtered and still. It was brought inside in 1980 for a reason that would have baffled everyone who handled it before: eight centuries of Saxon weather had done less damage than a few decades of exhaust fumes.

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Image: Benutzer:Brunswyk | CC BY-SA 3.0

Brunswick Lion: Twelve Millimetres of Skin

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:Mattes, Public domain. Pick any point on the animal's flank and the bronze under it is, at its very thickest, twelve millimetres. The whole lion — 2.79 metres from nose to tail, 1.78 metres to the crest of the mane, 880 kilogrammes on the scale — is a shell. It is usually described as the first large h...

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Image: User:Mattes | Public domain

Brunswick Lion: A Duke Draws His Line

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Daderot, Public domain. Henry the Lion, of the house of Welf, held both Saxony and Bavaria and made Braunschweig his seat. Newly married to the English princess Matilda, he rebuilt Dankwarderode Castle in the manner of an imperial palace — a deliberate answer to the Kaiserpfalz at Goslar, twenty-odd mil...

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Image: Daderot | Public domain

Brunswick Lion: The Lion That Starved

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zairon, CC0. Henry died in 1195, and a folktale grew over him almost at once. In the Heinrichssage he travels to the Holy Land, comes upon a lion fighting a dragon, throws in with the lion, and kills the dragon. The lion follows him home to Braunschweig, and when his master dies it refuses fo...

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Image: Zairon | CC0

Brunswick Lion: Nearly Melted, Then Mined

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:Brunswyk, CC BY-SA 3.0. The lion has been rescued more than once. In 1616, after long quarrels between duke and citizens were finally settled, Frederick Ulrich had the sculpture and its base overhauled; it had stood on two low columns and gained a proper pedestal. In 1812, with the Westphalian governmen...

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Image: User:Brunswyk | CC BY-SA 3.0

Brunswick Lion: Copies, Everywhere

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Daderot, Public domain. Long before the replicas, the lion had become an image the city could use. It is the heraldic animal of Braunschweig, stamped on the municipal seal of 1231 and on ducal coinage. In 1903 the local Büssing works put it on the radiators of its trucks and buses; MAN bought the compan...

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Image: Daderot | Public domain