De Monn mit da long Stong, Bronze sculpture in Dudweiler, Germany

De Monn mit da long Stong is a bronze sculpture group on the cobbled Alter Markt in Dudweiler. On the left a girl holds a large hoop; in the centre a smaller boy reaches up toward a tall man on the right who wears a hat and long coat and holds a long rod diagonally with both hands. A rectangular metal plaque is set into the ground, and behind the man a tall lamp post with a lantern top rises from a round stone base.

The lamplighter figure and gas lantern were made by blacksmith artist Zoltan Hencze in 1989; he added the two children a year later. The monument goes back to an idea by Dudweiler district mayor Hermann Schon and was financed by donations from residents, businesses and companies. It recalls the Dudweiler lamplighters who lit the gas lanterns at dusk with a long pole, a trade carried out here from 1902 to 1960.

In Dudweiler dialect, 'Monn mit da long Stong' meant the man who lit the gas lanterns at dusk with a long pole. The writer Ludwig Harig, raised in neighbouring Sulzbach, found the phrase dark and threatening as a child and used it as the guiding motif of his speech at Dudweiler's millennial celebration on 1 July 1977. The inscription names what the monument stands for: Dudo, the dialect, the grumpy 'Grammetschler' and the lamplighter of 1902 to 1960.

The memorial is located on a public square with good accessibility and paved pathways surrounding the sculpture. It is best to visit during daylight hours when the bronze details are clearly visible and you can see the surrounding area and architecture.

The memorial was funded entirely through donations from Dudweiler residents, making it a community-driven creation rather than an official government project. This grassroots effort reflects how deeply the local population valued preserving the memory of this disappearing craft.