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