Bismarck Memorial
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The Bismarck Memorial (German: Bismarck-Nationaldenkmal), located in the Tiergarten in Berlin, is a prominent memorial statue dedicated to Prince Otto von Bismarck, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Prussia and the first Chancellor of the German Empire. It was sculpted by Reinhold Begas.
The massive memorial in Berlin portrays Bismarck in his ceremonial garb as Chancellor standing above statues of:
- Atlas, showing Germany's world power status at the end of the 19th century;
- Siegfried, forging a sword to show Germany's strong industrial and military might;
- a woman with a slain panther underfoot, symbolizing the suppression of sedition by the state;
- and another woman atop a sphinx reading a document representing statesmanship.
The statue, along with the famous Berlin victory column, were once located in front of the Reichstag building before they were moved in 1938 by Adolf Hitler in his project to recast Berlin as Welthauptstadt Germania. The colossal statue weathered a marked amount of shrapnel damage during World War II, but has survived largely intact to the present day. In fact, the move probably saved the monument from total destruction, as the old garden in front of the Reichstag was completely obliterated in the war.
