At the Grey Castle in Mihla, the attentive visitor comes across a memorial: a concrete stele by the Mihla artist Eckhard Mater, who died far too young, which was created at a "historic location" in 1979.

As a work commissioned by the municipality, Mater deals in various scenes with an event from the history of the town, the storming of the Grey Castle as the seat of the knightly family von Harstall in March 1848.

 The revolution of the time, originating in France, had also reached Thuringia. In mid-March, the first riots broke out in Mihla, directed against the levies and feudal charges imposed by the von Harstall family. A popular assembly was finally held on the Anger, from where the call went out to revoke the Harstall family's levies.

The bells in the nearby bell house were rung and several hundred Mihla residents forced their way into the Grey Castle, forcing the Lord of Harstall, who had just arrived from Eisenach, to sign a written waiver of all demands at the judge's table on the Anger. A great and too easily won success, because two days later the army arrived in the village and dashed all hopes of improvement. Everything remained the same and a number of Mihla residents were arrested.

Eckhard Mater took a creative approach to these events and worked them into concrete in keeping with the GDR's understanding of tradition at the time.

 Thus we see the (exaggerated) power of the Lords of Harstall in front of the Grey Castle with dogs and soldiers, facing them are the defenceless, therefore naked, peasants making their demands. A strong man from Mihla rings the storm bell and thus brings momentum to the proceedings. While the outcome of the uprising is open here, and should perhaps be understood to mean that the demands of the Mihla peasants of 1848 were fulfilled in our time, the actual outcome of the events in 1848 was much clearer.

Even if this view of tradition no longer exists today and seems exaggerated, the artistic realization remains interesting to this day. This is another reason why the area around the monument was preserved and renovated by the municipality in 2011. It is a reminder of an important chapter in Mihla's history