Eseltreiber, Bronze sculpture in Osterode am Harz, Germany

The Eseltreiber is a bronze sculpture group in front of the Old Town Hall on Am Schilde in Osterode am Harz. It shows a donkey driver holding a schnapps bottle beside a donkey loaded with a grain sack, the sack bearing a rhyme from a Lerbach tale recorded by Heinrich Pröhle. The figures are placed so that the donkey heads right past the town hall toward the Kornmagazin and the driver heads left toward the Martin-Luther-Platz.

Calls for an Eseltreiber monument began in December 1978, and a donation drive by the Heimat- und Geschichtsverein had raised 54,615 Mark by December 1986. On 1 April 1987 apprentices from the firm Piller placed a welded steel-sheet donkey beside the Alten Rathaus as an April Fool's joke. The bronze group by Helmut Moos was inaugurated on 3 June 1988, with a minute of silence for the victims of the Borken mining accident.

The figures depict an Eseltreiber, a donkey driver, carrying a schnapps bottle, beside a donkey loaded with a grain sack. The sack bears a rhyme from a Lerbach tale collected by Heinrich Pröhle: "Eseltreiber juck, juck, juck, / hat en kleinen Schluck, Schluck, Schluck". A plaque reads that donkey drivers from Osterode supplied Oberharz miners with grain.

The sculpture sits in a flat, walkable pedestrian zone near the old town hall and is easy to locate from any part of town. The spot offers good access and remains open throughout the year without restrictions.

The bronze group was unveiled on 3 June 1988, created by sculptor Helmut Moos. It shows the driver holding a schnapps bottle while the donkey carries a grain sack inscribed with a rhyme from a Lerbach tale recorded by Heinrich Pröhle: "Eseltreiber juck, juck, juck, / hat en kleinen Schluck, Schluck, Schluck". A plaque on the base reads that donkey drivers from Osterode supplied the Upper Harz miners with grain.