Ettlrad
Thursday, 6th November 2008 by John Andresen
What is going on here in Grevenbroich, Germany? This shadow appears to be large human heads on a wheel.
It is actually a steel sculpture by George Ettl, entitled Ettlrad, a play on the German word, Schaufelrad, or paddlewheel. According to a translation of the city of Grevenbroich's website, the wheel symbolizes the wheel of a coal excavator, with human heads rather than shovels.
The sculpture was part of the Landesgartenschau (Regional Garden Show) in 1995, whose principle is, "To heal the earth." You can really see their smiles in this ground view photo.
Thanks to hati39 for the suggestion.
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https://www.googlesightseeing.com/maps?p=&c=&t=h&hl=en&ll=51.065115,6.508241&z=18
you can see a real schaufelradbagger (coal excavator). pretty large things. some years ago there was an accident in which the excavator ate a whole bulldozer.
see the biggest one here http://www.oih.rwth-aachen.de/~hendrik/bagger.html