POTSDAMER PLATZ: WITNESS OF BERLIN EVOLUTION

Potsdamer Platz in Berlin

The Bonds are spending their last hours in Berlin. The visit has been incredible and the family is preparing their suitcases. Tomorrow, they'll return to Barcelona but today they're visiting Potsdamer Platz.

Potsdamer Platz is an important public square and traffic intersection in the centre of Berlin, Germany, lying about 1 km south of the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag and close to the southeast corner of the Tiergarten park. 

It is named after the city of Potsdam, some 25 km to the south west, and marks the point where the old road from Potsdam passed through the city wall of Berlin at the Potsdam Gate. 

After developing within the space of little over a century from an intersection of rural thoroughfares into the most bustling traffic intersection in Europe, it was totally laid waste during World War II and then left desolate during the Cold War era when the Berlin Wall bisected its former location. Since German reunification, Potsdamer Platz has been the site of major redevelopment projects.

More information: Potsdamer Platz

Potsdamer Platz began as a trading post where several country roads converged just outside Berlin's old customs wall. The history of Potsdamer Platz can probably be traced back to 29 October 1685, when the Tolerance Edict of Potsdam was signed, whereby Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg-Prussia from 1640 to 1688, allowed large numbers of religious refugees, including Jews from Austria and Huguenots expelled from France, to settle on his territory. 

Potsdamer Platz in an old picture

A key motivation behind the Edict was so the Elector could encourage the rapid repopulation, restabilising and economic recovery of his kingdom, following the ravages of the Thirty Years' War (1618–48). Altogether up to 15,000 Huguenots made new homes in the Brandenburg region, some 6,000 of these in its capital, Berlin, indeed, by 1700 and for a while afterwards as much as 20% of Berlin’s population was French-speaking.

As was the case in most of central Berlin, almost all of the buildings around Potsdamer Platz were turned to rubble by air raids and heavy artillery bombardment during the last years of World War II. The three most destructive raids, out of 363 that the city suffered, occurred on 23 November 1943, and 3 February and 26 February 1945. Things were not helped by the very close proximity of Hitler's Reich Chancellery, just one block away in Voßstraße, and many other Nazi government edifices nearby as well, and so Potsdamer Platz was right in a major target area.

More information: Berlin.de

With the construction of the Berlin Wall on 13 August 1961, along the intracity frontier, Potsdamer Platz now found itself physically divided in two. What had once been a busy intersection had become totally desolate. With the clearance of most of the remaining bomb-damaged buildings on both sides, on the eastern side, this was done chiefly to give border guards a clear view of would-be escapees and an uninterrupted line of fire, little was left in an area of dozens of hectares. 

After the initial opening of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989, Potsdamer Platz became one of the earliest locations where the Wall was breached to create a new border crossing between East and West Berlin. 

The future Potsdamer Platz was most definitely outside Berlin, and therefore not subject to the planning guidelines and constraints that would normally be expected in a city keen to show itself off as the capital of an empire. It grew very rapidly in a piecemeal and haphazard way, and came to epitomise wildness and excess in a manner that contributed much to its legendary status.

More information: Berlin Story Museum

 The natural evolution of a well-educated populus is integration. 

And this is not political; it's not theoretical; it's not even partisan. 

Stacey Dash

THE GENDARMENMARKT: GERMAN NEOCLASSICAL STYLE

The Gendarmenmarkt in Berlin

The Bonds are visiting one of the most popular Christmas Markets of Berlin, The Gendarmenmarkt. They're buying some presents and souvenirs because they're their last 72 hours in the city. They're enjoying every moment and trying to catch all of it in their minds. It's a wonderful place with very nice people.

The Gendarmenmarkt is a square and the site of an architectural ensemble including the Konzerthaus, concert hall, and the French and German Churches. In the centre of the square stands a monumental statue of Germany's renowned poet Friedrich Schiller. The square was created by Johann Arnold Nering at the end of the seventeenth century as the Linden-Markt and reconstructed by Georg Christian Unger in 1773. The Gendarmenmarkt is named after the cuirassier regiment Gens d'Armes, which had stables at the square until 1773.

More information: Gendarmenmarkt 

During World War II, most of the buildings were badly damaged or destroyed. Today all of them have been restored.

Gendarmenmarkt was first built in 1688. It was a marketplace and part of the city's Western expansion of Friedrichstadt, one of Berlin's emerging quarters.

The Gendarmenmarkt in Berlin

The French Church or Französischer Dom is the older of the two churches, was built by the Huguenot community between 1701 and 1705. It was modelled after the destroyed Huguenot church in Charenton-Saint-Maurice, France. The tower and porticoes, designed by Carl von Gontard, were added to the building in 1785. 

The French Church has a viewing platform, a restaurant and a Huguenot museum.

The Konzerthaus Berlin is the most recent building on the Gendarmenmarkt. It was built by Karl Friedrich Schinkel in 1821 as the Schauspielhaus. It was based on the ruins of the National Theatre, which had been destroyed by fire in 1817.

More information: Berlin.de

Parts of the building contain columns and some outside walls from the destroyed building. Like the other buildings on the square, it was also badly damaged during World War II. The reconstruction, finished in 1984, turned the theatre into a concert hall. Today, it is the home of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin.

The Gendarmenmarkt hosts one of Berlin's most popular Christmas markets.

 Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, 

everything is softer and more beautiful.  

Norman Vincent Peale

SIEGESSÄULE AND TIERGARTEN: PRUSSIAN STYLE

Siegessäule in Berlin

In Berlin, The Bonds are visiting Tiergarten where Siegessäule stands up. It's a very beautiful part of the city, a huge park where you can walk, rest, listen to music and discover the recent Prussian past of the city.

Siegessäule from Sieg victory and Säule column or The Victory Column is a monument in Berlin, Germany. Designed by Heinrich Strack, after 1864 to commemorate the Prussian victory in the Danish-Prussian War, by the time it was inaugurated on 2 September 1873, Prussia had also defeated Austria and its German allies in the Austro-Prussian War (1866) and France in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), giving the statue a new purpose. Different from the original plans, these later victories in the so-called unification wars inspired the addition of the bronze sculpture of Victoria, 8.3 metres high and weighing 35 tonnes, designed by Friedrich Drake. Berliners have given the statue the nickname Goldelse, meaning something like Golden Lizzy.

More information: Berlin.de

Siegessäule is a major tourist attraction in the city of Berlin. Its viewing platform, for which a ticket is required, offers a view over Berlin.

Built on a base of polished red granite, the column sits on a hall of pillars with a glass mosaic designed by Anton von Werner.

Siegessäule in an old picture

The column itself, inspired to Heinrich Strack by the torre faro of Rodolfo Vantini, which stands in the monumental cemetery of Brescia, consists of four solid blocks of sandstone, three of which are decorated by cannon barrels captured from the enemies of the aforementioned three wars. 

A fourth ring is decorated with golden garlands and was added in 1938–39 as the whole monument has been relocated. The entire column, including the sculpture, is 67 metres tall.

Siegessäule, The Victory Column, originally stood in Königsplatz, now Platz der Republik, at the end of the Siegesallee, Victory Avenue. In 1939, as part of the preparation of the monumental plans to redesign Berlin into Welthauptstadt Germania, the Nazis relocated the column to its present site at the Großer Stern, Great Star, a large intersection on the city axis that leads from the former Berliner Stadtschloss, Berlin City Palace, through the Brandenburg Gate to the western parts of the city. At the same time, the column was augmented by another 7.5 metres, giving it its present height of 66.89 metres. 

More information: The Culture Trip

The monument survived World War II without much damage. The relocation of the monument probably saved it from destruction, as its old site, in front of the Reichstag, at exactly 1500 metres from the proposed new north-south triumphal way of the Nazis in line with the Imperial Victory Avenue in the Tiergarten, was destroyed by American air raids in 1945.

The Bonds in Großer Tiergarten

Via a steep spiral staircase of 285 steps, the physically fit may, for a fee, climb almost to the top of the column, to just under the statue and take in the spectacular views over the Tiergarten including the Soviet War Memorial, 1946, in line with the Nazi proposed north-south triumphal way by Speer and Adolf Hitler.

Großer Tiergarten, The Tiergarten, is Berlin’s most popular inner-city park, located completely in the district of the same name. The park is 210 hectares in size and is among the largest urban gardens of Germany.

The beginnings of the Tiergarten can be traced back to 1527. It was founded as a hunting area for the Elector of Brandenburg, and was situated to the west of the Cölln city wall, which was the sister town of Old Berlin.

More information: Berlin.de

At the end of the 18th century, Knobelsdorff's late-baroque form had been all but replaced by ideas for a new, scenic garden ideal. The castle park Bellevue and Rousseau Island were laid out by court gardener Justus Ehrenreich Sello in the late 18th century.

The Nazi Party took control of Germany in 1933, causing a dramatic change of idealism. This change was not just social; in fact, Adolf Hitler had planned the complete renovation of the city of Berlin. Welthauptstadt Germania or World Capital Germania, was the idea the Nazis wanted to bring to fruition. 

On June 2, 1945, the Berlin Magistrate decided they would restore the Greater Tiergarten. The Tiergarten's culture began to stagnate until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. After the reunification of East and West Berlin in 1990, many of the outskirts of the park changed drastically.  

 People never lie so much as after a hunt, 

during a war or before an election.

Otto von Bismarck

MEMORIAL TO THE MURDERED JEWS OF EUROPE

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas, also known as the Holocaust Memorial or Holocaust-Mahnmal, is a memorial in Berlin to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, designed by architect Peter Eisenman and engineer Buro Happold. It consists of a 19,000 m2  site covered with 2,711 concrete slabs or "stelae", arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field. The stelae are 2.38 m long, 0.95 m wide and vary in height from 0.2 to 4.7 m. They are organized in rows, 54 of them going north–south, and 87 heading east–west at right angles but set slightly askew. 

More information: Stiftung-Denkmal

An attached underground Place of Information, Ort der Information, holds the names of approximately 3 million Jewish Holocaust victims, obtained from the Israeli museum Yad Vashem. Building began on April 1, 2003, and was finished on December 15, 2004. It was inaugurated on May 10, 2005, sixty years after the end of World War II, and opened to the public two days later. 

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

It is located in the Friedrichstadt neighborhood in Berlin, a city that had one of the largest Jewish populations in Europe before World War 2. 

Nestled next to the Tiergarten, it has a central location in the Friedrichstadt district of Berlin. The memorial is close to the Reichstag building and the Brandenburg Gate. The monument is located on the former location of the Berlin Wall, where the death strip once divided the city.

More information: Berlin.de

It acts as a focal point, connecting the various holocaust monuments spread across the city and the country; the monument provides a central reference point for visitors. The center represents a central focus on the diverse memorial sites across Germany which stress the living memory aspect of remembrance. In Berlin an example of this is the Stolpersteine, tripping stones, initiative plaques on street pavements, usually outside the house's main entrance, commemorating deported Jewish residents. 

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

The monument is composed of 2711 rectangular concrete blocks, laid out in agrid formation, the monument is organized into a rectangle-like array covering 4.7 acres. This lets for long, straight, and narrow alleys between them, along which the ground undulates. The installation is a living experiment in montage, a Kuleshov of the juxtaposition of image and text. 

People have applauded the location of the memorial. During the war, the area acted as the administrative center of Hitler's killing machine. His chancellery building, designed by Albert Speer and since demolished, was a few hundred yards away just to the south; his bunker lies beneath a nearby parking lot. The memorial is also located near Berlin’s foreign embassies. Allowing political diplomats and leaders from around the world to observe how Germany acknowledges its past while continuing to move forward.

More information: History.com

The Holocaust illustrates the consequences of prejudice, 

racism and stereotyping on a society. It forces us to examine 

the responsibilities of citizenship and confront the powerful ramifications of indifference and inaction. 

Tim Holden

CHECKPOINT CHARLIE: CROSSING THE RECENT HISTORY

Checkpoint Charlie in the 50's.

Checkpoint Charlie or Checkpoint C was the name given by the Western Allies to the best-known Berlin Wall crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War (1947–1991).

GDR leader Walter Ulbricht agitated and maneuvered to get the Soviet Union's permission to construct the Berlin Wall in 1961 to stop Eastern Bloc emigration westward through the Soviet border system, preventing escape across the city sector border from communist East Berlin into West Berlin. Checkpoint Charlie became a symbol of the Cold War, representing the separation of East and West. Soviet and American tanks briefly faced each other at the location during the Berlin Crisis of 1961.

More information: Mauer Museum

On August 13, 1961, a barbed-wire barrier that would become the Berlin Wall separating East and West Berlin was erected by the East Germans. Two days later, police and army engineers began to construct a more permanent concrete wall. Along with the wall, the 830 mile zonal border became 3.5 miles wide on its East German side in some parts of Germany with a tall steel-mesh fence running along a death strip bordered by bands of ploughed earth, to slow and to reveal the prints of those trying to escape, and mined fields.

American sector of Checkpoint Charlie

The name Charlie came from the letter C in the NATO phonetic alphabet; similarly for other Allied checkpoints on the Autobahn from the West: Checkpoint Alpha at Helmstedt and its counterpart Checkpoint Bravo at Dreilinden, Wannsee in the south-west corner of Berlin. The Soviets simply called it the Friedrichstraße Crossing Point, КПП Фридрихштрассе or KPP Fridrikhshtrasse. The East Germans referred officially to Checkpoint Charlie as the Grenzübergangsstelle, Border Crossing Point.

On 17 August 1962, a teenaged East German, Peter Fechter, was shot in the pelvis by East German guards while trying to escape from East Berlin. His body lay tangled in a barbed wire fence, and he bled to death, in full view of the world's media. American soldiers could not rescue him because he was a few metres inside the Soviet sector. East German border guards were reluctant to approach him for fear of provoking Western soldiers, one of whom had shot an East German border guard just days earlier. More than an hour later, Fechter's body was removed by the East German guards. A spontaneous demonstration formed on the American side of the checkpoint, protesting the action of the East and the inaction of the West.

More information: History.com

Although the wall was opened in November 1989 and the checkpoint booth removed on June 22, 1990, the checkpoint remained an official crossing for foreigners and diplomats until German reunification during October 1990 when the guard house was removed; it is now on display in the open-air museum of the Allied Museum in Berlin-Zehlendorf. 

The Bonds ready to cross Checkpoint Charlie

The course of the former wall and border is now marked in the street with a line of cobblestones. A copy of the guard house and sign that once marked the border crossing was later built where Checkpoint Charlie once was. It resembles the first guard house erected during 1961, behind a sandbag barrier towards the border. Over the years it was replaced several times by guard houses of different sizes and layouts. The one removed during 1990 was considerably larger than the first one and did not have sandbags.

After the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc and the reunification of Germany, the building at Checkpoint Charlie became a tourist attraction. It is now located in the Allied Museum in the Dahlem neighborhood of Berlin.

More information:  The Guardian

 The horrors of the Second World War, 

the chilling winds of the Cold War and the crushing weight 

of the Iron Curtain are little more than fading memories. 

Ideals that once commanded great loyalty are now taken for granted.

Jan Peter Balkenende

CHARLOTTEENBURG PALACE: IN HONOUR OF SOPHIE

The Charlottenburg Palace Entrance

Charlottenburg Palace is the largest palace in Berlin, Germany.

The palace was built at the end of the 17th century and was greatly expanded during the 18th century. 

It includes much exotic internal decoration in baroque and rococo styles. A large formal garden surrounded by woodland was added behind the palace, including a belvedere, a mausoleum, a theatre and a pavilion. During the Second World War, the palace was badly damaged but has since been reconstructed. The palace with its gardens are a major tourist attraction.

More information: Berlin.de

The original palace was commissioned by Sophie Charlotte, the wife of Friedrich III, Elector of Brandenburg in what was then the village of Lietzow. Originally named Lietzenburg, the palace was designed by Johann Arnold Nering in baroque style. It consisted of one wing and was built in  2 1⁄2 storeys with a central cupola. The façade was decorated with Corinthian pilasters. On the top was a cornice on which were statues. At the rear in the centre of the palace were two oval halls, the upper one being a ceremonial hall and the lower giving access to the gardens. Nering died during the construction of the palace and the work was completed by Martin Grünberg and Andreas Schlüter. The inauguration of the palace was celebrated on 11 July 1699, Frederick's 42nd birthday.

The Bonds arriving to Charlottenburg Palace

Friedrich crowned himself as King Friedrich I in Prussia in 1701. Two years previously, he had appointed Johann Friedrich von Eosander as the royal architect and sent him to study architectural developments in Italy and France, particularly the Palace of Versailles. On his return in 1702, Eosander began to extend the palace, starting with two side wings to enclose a large courtyard, and the main palace was extended on both sides. Sophie Charlotte died in 1705 and Friedrich named the palace and its estate Charlottenburg in her memory. In the following years, the Orangery was built on the west of the palace and the central area was extended with a large domed tower and a larger vestibule. On top of the dome is a wind vane in the form of a gilded statue representing Fortune designed by Andreas Heidt. The Orangery was originally used to overwinter rare plants. During the summer months, when over 500 orange, citrus and sour orange trees decorated the baroque garden, the Orangery regularly was the gorgeous scene of courtly festivities.

More information: Sofia Charlotte of Hannover

Inside the palace, was a room described as the eighth wonder of the world, the Amber Room Bernsteinzimmer, a room with its walls surfaced in decorative amber. It was designed by Andreas Schlüter and its construction by the Danish amber craftsman Gottfried Wolfram started in 1701. Friedrich Wilhelm I gave the Amber Room to Tsar Peter the Great as a present in 1716.

When Friedrich I died in 1713, he was succeeded by his son, Friedrich Wilhelm I whose building plans were less ambitious, although he did ensure that the building was properly maintained. Building was resumed after his son Friedrich II The Great came to the throne in 1740. During that year, stables for his personal guard regiment were completed to the south of the Orangery wing and work was started on the east wing. 

The Bonds visiting Charlottenburg Palace

The building of the new wing was supervised by Georg Wenzeslaus, who largely followed Eosander's design. The decoration of the exterior was relatively simple but the interior furnishings were lavish. 

The ground floor was intended for Frederick's wife Elisabeth Christine, who, preferring Schönhausen Palace, was only an occasional visitor. The decoration of the upper floor, which included the White Hall, the Banqueting Hall, the Throne Room and the Golden Gallery, was lavish and was designed mainly by Johann August Nahl. In 1747, a second apartment for the king was prepared in the distant eastern part of the wing. During this time, Sanssouci was being built at Potsdam and once this was completed Frederick was only an occasional visitor to Charlottenburg.

More information: Berlin Journal

In 1786, Frederick was succeeded by his nephew Friedrich Wilhelm II who transformed five rooms on the ground floor of the east wing into his summer quarters and part of the upper floor into Winter Chambers, although he did not live long enough to use them. His son, Friedrich Wilhelm III came to the throne in 1797 and reigned with his wife, Queen Luise for 43 years. They spent much of this time living in the east wing of Charlottenburg. Their eldest son, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, who reigned from 1840 to 1861, lived in the upper storey of the central palace building. After Friedrich Wilhelm IV died, the only other royal resident of the palace was Friedrich III who reigned for 99 days in 1888.

Charlottenburg Palace frontal view

The palace was badly damaged in 1943 during the Second World War. 

In 1951, the war-damaged Stadtschloss in East Berlin was demolished and, as the damage to Charlottenburg was at least as serious, it was feared that it would also be demolished. However, following the efforts of Margarete Kühn, the Director of the State Palaces and Gardens, it was rebuilt to its former condition, with gigantic modern ceiling paintings by Hann Trier. From 2004 till early 2006, Charlottenburg Palace was the seat of the President of Germany, whilst Schloss Bellevue was being renovated.

The garden was designed in 1697 in baroque style by Simeon Godeau who had been influenced by André Le Nôtre, designer of the gardens at Versailles. Godeau's design consisted of geometric patterns, with avenues and moats, which separated the garden from its natural surroundings. Beyond the formal gardens was the Carp Pond. Towards the end of the 18th century, a less formal, more natural-looking garden design became fashionable. In 1787 the Royal Gardener Georg Steiner redesigned the garden in the English landscape style for Friedrich Wilhelm II, the work being directed by Peter Joseph Lenné. After the Second World War, the centre of the garden was restored to its previous baroque style.

More information: Ancient Origins

In 1788, Friedrich Wilhelm II arranged for the building of the Belvedere, designed by Carl Gotthard Langhans, in the grounds beyond the Carp Pond. The building was used as a teahouse and as a viewing-tower. Langhans also designed the Palace Theatre, which was built between 1788 and 1791 to the west of the Orangery wing. The Mausoleum was built as a tomb for Queen Luise between 1810 and 1812 in neoclassical style to a design by Heinrich Gentz. After the death of Friedrich Wilhelm III, it was extended; this design being by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. It was extended again in 1890–91 by Albert Geyer to accommodate the graves of Wilhelm I and his wife Augusta. 

In 1825, Friedrich Wilhelm III added the Neuer Pavilion, an Italianate villa designed by Schinkel, to the north of the palace. This was damaged in the war in 1943 and was reconstructed between 1957 and 1970.

While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings. 

Henry David Thoreau

THE KAISER WILHELM MEMORIAL CHURCH: SACRED RUINS

The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.

The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church is a Protestant church affilliated with the Evangelical Church in Berlin, Brandenburg and Silesian Upper Lusatia, a regional body of the Evangelical Church in Germany. 

It is located in Berlin on the Kurfürstendamm in the centre of the Breitscheidplatz.

The original church on the site was built in the 1890s. It was badly damaged in a bombing raid in 1943. The present building, which consists of a church with an attached foyer and a separate belfry with an attached chapel, was built between 1959 and 1963. The damaged spire of the old church has been retained and its ground floor has been made into a memorial hall.

More info: Evangelische Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtnis-Kirchengemeinde

The Memorial Church today is a famous landmark of western Berlin, and is nicknamed by Berliners Der hohle Zahn, meaning the hollow tooth.

The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in 1930

The construction of the church was part of a Protestant church-building programme initiated by Kaiser Wilhelm II and his consort Augusta Victoria to counter the German labour movement and socialist movement by a return to traditional religious values. Wilhelm II decided to name the church in honor of his grandfather Kaiser Wilhelm I. The competition for the design was won by Franz Schwechten, member of the Bauakademie who had distinguished himself with the design of the Anhalter Bahnhof. Schwechten, a native Rhinelander, planned for a large church to be built in a Neo-Romanesque style modelled on the Bonn Minster with a Tuff stone facade. His design included 2,740 square metres of wall mosaic, a 113 metres-high spire, now 71 metres and a nave which seated over 2,000 people.

The foundation stone was laid on 22 March 1891, which was Wilhelm I's birthday. The church was dedicated on 1 September 1895, the eve of Day of Sedan. At that time, the entrance hall in the lower section had not yet been completed; that part of the church was not opened and consecrated until 22 February 1906. Construction costs mounted to 6.8 million gold mark, raised primarily through donations. The church design, quite unfamiliar in the Brandenburg region, inspired several architectural projects in the surrounding area, like the Romanisches Café building, also designed by Schwechten.

More information: The Bells & The Towers

In World War II, on the night of 23 November 1943, the church was extensively damaged in an air raid. Yet it was by no means beyond repair. A remnant of the spire and much of the entrance hall survived intact, as did the altar and the baptistry. 

The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church

After the war, in 1947, the curatorium of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche foundation, Stiftung, decided in favor of rebuilding the church, but the manner in which this should be done was contentiously debated until the late 1950s. In a two-phased design competition in 1956, the question of whether the secured remnant of the spire should be torn down or preserved was left open. 

The winner of the competition, architect Egon Eiermann, initially proposed, in both his submissions, for the remnant of the old spire to be torn down, in favor of a completely new construction. But that plan provoked a public outcry in which the ruined tower was characterized as the heart of Berlin; as a result Eiermann revised the design to preserve the tower. He had most of the remaining structure pulled down, in order to build the modern church that now occupies most of the site.

More information: The adjoining buildings

The new church was designed by Eiermann and consists of four buildings grouped around the remaining ruins of the old church. The initial design included the demolition of the spire of the old church but following pressure from the public, it was decided to incorporate it into the new design. The four buildings comprise, on the west of the ruins, the new church with a foyer to its west, and to the east of the ruins, a tower with a chapel to its northeast. The plan of the church is octagonal while the plan of the tower is hexagonal. These components are sited on a plateau measuring 100 metres long and 40 metres wide. 

The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church façade

The new buildings are constructed of concrete, steel and glass. The walls of the church are made of a concrete honeycomb containing 21,292 stained glass inlays. The glass, designed by Gabriel Loire, was inspired by the colours of the glass in Chartres Cathedral. The predominant colour is blue, with small areas of ruby red, emerald green and yellow. The church is 35 metres in diameter and 20.5 metres high with a capacity of over 1,000. Because of the distinctive appearance of the new buildings, it is sometimes nicknamed Lippenstift und Puderdose, the lipstick and the powder box, by Berliners. 

Inside the church, opposite the entrance, is a figure of the crucifixus which is suspended above the altar. This is made from tombak and was designed by Karl Hemmeter. The cross on the altar, by Peter Tauchnitz, is of gilt silver with 37 rock crystals. To the left of the altar is the baptismal font on a stand filled with Carrara marble which contains a majolica bowl for the holy water. To the right of the altar is an octagonal pulpit. Opposite the altar on a gallery is an organ containing about 5,000 pipes, which was built by Schuke. Plexiglas panels have been installed over the organ gallery to improve the acoustics.

More information: The New Church

The Stalingrad Madonna

By the northeast wall of the church are three works of art. The first is a bronze plaque commemorating the Protestant martyrs who died during the Nazi regime between 1933 and 1945. It incorporates a Spanish wooden crucifix dating from the 13th century. The plaque was placed in the church on 20 July 1964, the 20th anniversary of an attempt to assassinate Hitler. 

Next to this is the Stalingrad Madonna, a symbol of hope and reconciliation. This is a charcoal drawing made by Kurt Reuber during the time he was trapped inside Stalingrad at Christmas 1942. 

Copies of this drawing have been sent to Coventry Cathedral and the Russian Orthodox Church in Stalingrad, now Volgograd. The third item of art is an icon of the Virgin Mary from Volgograd.

The tower is 12 metres in diameter and 53.5 metres high with a flat roof. Atop the tower is a pole carrying a gilded sphere above which is a gilded cross. It contains a belfry with six bronze bells cast from French cannon, booty from the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71. 

The foundation stone of the new church was laid on 9 May 1959, its roofing ceremony was carried out on 16 December 1960, the new bells were consecrated on 19 July 1961, the new church was consecrated on 17 December 1961 and the foyer and chapel were completed in December 1963.

More information: Liberation Route

You are not only responsible for what you say, 

but also for what you do not say.

Martin Luther