[1] Maenicke participated in the war as a German soldier between 1915 and 1918, and then returned to Leipzig where he worked as a freelance sculptor.
Using a draft design from Albin Müller, Maenicke produced his "horse figures" ("Pferdefigur") for the "Pferdetor" entrance to the exhibition.
War ended, formally in May 1945, leaving the central portion of Germany, including Magdeburg, Leipzig and much of Berlin, administered as the Soviet occupation zone.
The other principal focus of his work during these years, in which he was assisted by Heinrich Apel, was an extensive programme of sculptural restoration in Magdeburg Cathedral which had been very badly damaged by bombing during the war.
[4] Over the ensuing years he was also closely involved in a succession of other restoration projects in churches, abbeys and castles in the region now known as Sachsen-Anhalt.
[1] In 1963 Fritz Meinicke received the National Prize of the German Democratic Republic, Class III for Arts and Literature.