'' by
Franz Krüger, 1830. The Neue Wache is on the right. and
von Bülow, 1938 ) in 1987 King
Frederick William III of Prussia ordered the construction of the Neue Wache as a guardhouse for the
Königliches Palais (Royal Palace), his palace across the road, to replace the old Artillery Guardhouse. He commissioned Schinkel, the leading exponent of
Neoclassical architecture, to design the building: this was Schinkel's first major commission in Berlin. The Neue Wache was inaugurated on 18 September 1818 by the Prussian
1st Guards Grenadiers on occasion of the official visit of Tsar
Alexander I of Russia. Located between the
Zeughaus and the
Humboldt University, the plain building is characterised by four massive corner
risalits and a portico of
Doric columns, of the original Greek form, without bases. Schinkel wrote of his design: "The plan of this completely exposed building, free on all sides, is approximately the shape of a Roman castrum, thus the four sturdier corner towers and the inner courtyard." The statuary in the
tympanum is intended as a memorial to Prussia's role in the
Napoleonic Wars, whose final stage is known in Germany as the
Wars of Liberation. It shows
Nike, the goddess of victory, deciding a battle. The
triglyphs and
guttae of the Doric order are omitted. The Jewish architect
Salomo Sachs (1772–1855) describes in his autobiography that his architectural designs for the Neue Wache, submitted in 1806 for the Academy Exhibition in Berlin, served as the basis for Schinkel's executed plans. {{blockquote|text= ''Here I cannot fail to point out how the basic features of the building complex up to the new guardhouse, as it stands there now, correspond to mine. At first I had put this building on aligned, not with the armoury but with the university. The peculiarity of my construction was that the façade was actually formed by the rear front (high wall), in that the roof was to have its waste only towards the rear. In addition, two short side wings, connected by a Blinding-Masonry at the back and enclosing a small courtyard, were placed in such a way that the whole was a closed square. Finally, the façade was decorated with 6 Doric columns and two pavilions on each side. I hope that nobody will take offence at the comparison I am making here between Schinkel's design and my earlier project of one and the same building, because I am not talking about Schinkel's elaborate decoration of the building, but only about the adaptation of the execution and the construction.'' 's statue
Mother with her dead son The building served as a royal guard house until the end of
World War I and the fall of the monarchy in the
German Revolution of 1918–19. In 1931 the architect
Heinrich Tessenow was commissioned by the
Free State of Prussia to redesign the building as a
war memorial to commemorate those who died in the Great War. Tessenow converted the interior into a memorial hall centered around a black
granite block with an oak wreath designed by the sculptor
Ludwig Gies, situated under an
oculus (circular skylight). The Neue Wache was then known as the
Memorial of the Prussian State Government. After the
Nazi Party took power, the building played a vital role as the site of the annual
Heroes' Memorial Day celebrations held by the Nazis and the
Nazi German armed forces. The Neue Wache was heavily damaged by
bombing and by artillery fire during the
Battle of Berlin in the last months of
World War II. After the war, the Mitte district was located within the
Soviet sector of
Allied-occupied Berlin and from 1949 was part of
East Berlin, the de facto, but not de jure, capital of
East Germany. Prior to the 1951
communist World Festival of Youth and Students, the East German leader
Walter Ulbricht had two neoclassical
marble statues of
Gerhard von Scharnhorst and
Friedrich Wilhelm Bülow by
Christian Daniel Rauch removed from the sides of the portico (positioned on the south side of Unter den Linden since 2002). From 1957 the East German authorities had the Neue Wache rebuilt and reopened in 1960 as a
Memorial to the Victims of Fascism and Militarism. In 1969, the 20th anniversary of the East German state, a glass prism structure with an
eternal flame was placed in the centre of the hall. The remains of an
Unknown Soldier and of a nameless
Nazi concentration camp victim were enshrined in the building. Two soldiers of the
Friedrich Engels Guard Regiment served as permanent
honor guards and a
guard mounting ceremony was held every Wednesday and Saturday, becoming a major tourist attraction. After
German reunification, the Neue Wache was again rededicated in 1993 as the
Central Memorial of the Federal Republic of Germany for the Victims of War and Tyranny. At the personal suggestion of the
Federal Chancellor of Germany Helmut Kohl, the East German memorial piece was removed and replaced by an enlarged version of
Käthe Kollwitz's sculpture
Mother with her Dead Son. The
pietà-style sculpture is directly placed under the
oculus, and so is exposed to the rain, snow and cold of the Berlin climate, symbolizing the suffering of civilians during and after both World Wars. In addition, there has also been discussion about returning the neoclassical statues back to their original places (next to and opposite the Neue Wache) from where they had been removed by order of
Walter Ulbricht. ==See also==