Berlin is well-known to have an overload of history. In fact, so much that some of it has been cleaned away to the cupboards. One such is in the Spandau Zitadelle, where unwanted statues have found their last resting place. Here we have a whole range of medieval knights, Prussian electors and kings, assorted supporting characters, and a selection of baddies from the DDR times.
The medieval and Prussian statues were created in the early years of the 20th century to glorify Prussia. They used to line the Siegesallee in the Tiergarten in groups (see above), but after 1945 these were not deemed to be fully in line with the times and were buried – only to be unearthed later. Below are two examples from Prussian history, Albrecht I the Bear (left) and Frederick II the Great (right). In later times, there were memorials glorifying the dead of the first World War, but Adolf was into architecture, not statues, so there are few from that period.
The DDR statues of course lost their shine after 1990. The prime examples of worshipping dubous characters include Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the secret service of the USSR (below left) and, of course, the unavoidable Vladimir Ilyich (below right).
But Bismarck still graces his original position in Tiergarten and new monuments have replaced (or are in the process of replacing) the old ones. Hopefully no more scrapheap stuff.
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