Which seems nearly sensationally unthinkable to the non-insider of the town Gardelegen has been a matter of course for over two century in Gardelegen. In front of the town hall there was a Roland made of stone.

Yes, it is a fact without any doubt that a statue of the Roland was accompanying the flowering time of the town between 1500 and 1630 and that this statue was also forming the picture of the city-town-hall-site   and this time.And it is also without any doubt that the inhabitants of Gardelegen did not know why this statue was put up by the ancestors. And when the statue collapsed in 1727 after several centuries no inhabitant of Gardelegen could think of a reason to get a new undamaged statue and to put it up again. That’s why it wasn’t done.

A fire in the year 1526 destroyed the statue (probably made of sandstone) that much that the inhabitants of Gardelegen bought a new one in the year 1564. In those days the town got rich through the export of the Garlei-drink.

The Roland that was put up in 1564 “ is a statue made of stone, dressed with an armament/is holding an upright sword in one hand, the other one is closed“. That is all what wittnesses were able to tell about the look of the Roland.

1668. In those times a highly educated man had to think about and then tell the citizens what this “statua“ was supposed to stand for: It was supposed to remind the “fathers of the town“ and the judges of being unswerving and incorruptible in their judgements. “They are supposed to lead the sword well/and have closed hands.”

A fire sealed the destiny of the maybe first Roland, a fire also sealed the destiny of the last Roland: in 1667 a fire was raging in the town, made the statue brittle so that he collapsed in the night of April 18th in 1727 despite several buttresses.