In the early 1970’s I was in Berlin; while there, I visited a German memorial to their fallen soldiers.
I vaguely remember that it was located within walking distance of the Brandenburg Gate.
The memorial was a bronze casting, about ten feet long, depicting a German soldier, lying prone on his back, and wearing the characteristic German helmet and great coat. He was holding a rifle in his hands on his chest.
This casting was housed in an open rectangular granite structure.
I have just returned from Berlin; while there I went to visit this memorial again, but was unable to find it.
When I asked some of the locals about it, none of them knew what I was talking about. Google hasn’t yielded anything.
Does anyone know where this memorial is, or what happened to it?
I think I remember seeing that in Berlin a few years ago. Hang on, let me dig a bit.
ETA: It was by the Bavarian government building in Munich, actually. I was only in Germany for about four days and did the grand tour, back in '04, so I got them mixed up. Presuming this is the monument you were talking about. (Scroll down about 1/3 of the page.) According to the article it’s a memorial over the Bavarian soldiers of WWI.
I would be surprised to hear about such a memorial for the fallen soldiers of WWII. The collective guilt debate in post-WWII Germany would have made that type of memorial to armed German soldiers very questionable. There’s plenty of monuments of that sort built between the world wars fór the fallen of WWI, however, so that monument would be likely to date back to the 1920s or 1930s.
Maybe your memory is conflating several things here? Like the Munich memorial Gukumatz mentioned, with something you may have seen in Berlin, such as the Neue Wache, indeed within walking distance from the Brandenburg Gate. That would, of course, have been located in East Berlin.
That said, the photo captions in the site Gukumatz linked to are not reliable. He lists two different buildings as “the Cathedral”, the first of which is the City Hall, the second of which (“on a cloudy day”) is the Theatinerkirche - indeed a church, but not the cathedral. The actual cathedral with its twin towers can be seen in the photo labelled “The streets of Munich”.
I have never heard of “the” German WWI memorial being located in Munich, either. It’s, of course, perfectly possible that the Bavarian government or the Munich city council set up such a monument, but it would not have any official status as “the” German monument.
A couple of days ago I watched a French documentary: “Apocalypse - The Second World War: Aggression”
The opening thirty seconds or so included a couple of seconds showing the particular memorial I am referring to. Since the clip was only filler material behind the opening credits, there was no commentary regarding what it was, or any other details about it.
However, the context would suggest that it was a memorial to soldiers killed in WWI.
But this would not explain why I would have seen it in the 1970’s, and why it now has apparently disappeared.
In recalling my travels of the time, I have no recollection of being in Munich during that period; so I continue to be convinced that it was in Berlin. Also, since I didn’t enter the Soviet sector, it had to be in the Western Sector.
A memorial to German soldiers in WWII? Near the Brandenburg Gate? In the 1970s? Sorry, but I find the notion of such a memorial in Soviet East Berlin quite unbelievable. As there are many photos of this memorial showing up on Google, all labeling it as a WWI memorial in Munich (at the Staatskanzlei), I’m pretty sure that’s what it is. Don’t be misled by the helmet; the stahlhelm replaced the pickelhaube in 1916.
A famous war memorial in central Berlin, close to the Brandenburg Gate, is this. It’s to Soviet soldiers, not German ones, yet it’s located in West Berlin. The Russians built it shortly after the war, before the division of the city, and all throughout the Cold War up to this day this memorial has been taken care of by the (West) German government on the basis of treaties with the Soviet Union and now Russia (the memorial was a great way for the Soviets to show presence in West Berlin during the Cold War - they put guard posts there). I still think, for reasons already mentioned in this thread, that your memory may conflate several different experiences and memorials there, of which this may be one.
No, the memorial I am thinking of was not in the Soviet sector.
I do remember standing by the wall and looking over it at the Brandenburg Gate; then walking along a bit until I came to the memorial. All of this in the Western Sector.
You say there are a number of photos of this memorial showing up in Google? Could you please provide a link to one/some? Thanks.
When I saw the clip of the memorial I jumped up and hit the “record” button, but missed it.
The documentary itself didn’t tell me anything that I didn’t already know; I found it was more or less indistinguishable from the dozens of others covering the same material.
It seems that the posters, above, are correct; time and encroaching senility have confused my memories.
While I have no recollection of being in Munich in the 1970’s, evidently I must have confused my trip to Berlin at that time with one of my trips to Munich on later dates.
I did a search and found this link to the war memorial in Munich:
This is the memorial I have been looking for; clearly it is not in Berlin.
There’s this memorial (google maps link) right by Brandenburg Gates on Strasse des 17. Junis (ie in the West Berlin) but I believe it is a monument to fallen allied soldiers.
Yes, that’s the Tiergarten one I linked to. It’s not to the fallen of all Allied powers, but specifically to the Soviet ones, even though it’s in West Berlin.
