Remnants of past glories scattered all around the Tier Garten, testimonies of a late 19th Prussia striving to shape the present and embellish its provincial capital with buildings and monuments of a scale proper to its ambitions and vanity.
Large scale bronze statues representing mythological scenes of a Wagner-type gothic past are bordering a bland monumental column on a granite plinth (Siegessaule or Victory Column).
Designed to commemorate the Prussian victory in the Danish – Prussian war, by the time it was inaugurated Prussia had also defeated Austria and France in the so-called “unification wars”, giving the column a new purpose: an 8m high 35 tonnes in weight bronze sculpture of Victoria has been added on top of the column.
The column was originally erected to a smaller height and was located opposite the Reichstag building, in the Konigplatz (Platz der Republik), and subsequently moved by the Nazis as part of their preparation of the monumental plans to redesign Berlin into Welthauptstadt Germania.
Straße des 17. Juni, the 3 mile long avenue running through the Tiergarten was designed to be the great city axis of Welthauptstadt Germania, part of Hitlers’ vision for the future capital after the planned victory in WW II. This avenue would have served as a parade ground, and have been closed off to traffic. Vehicles would have instead been diverted into an underground highway running directly underneath the parade route; sections of this highway's tunnel structure were built, and still exist today.
A newly born large and powerful Germany, whose Reichstag allegedly dates back to the times of the Holy Roman Empire, needed a house of parliament to beat any other European parliaments in size and grandeur.
The iconic words "DEM DEUTSCHEN VOLKE" ("For the German people") were carved above the main facade of the building in 1916, much to the displeasure of the Kaiser who had tried to block the adding of the inscription due to its democratic significance.
Burnt down in a Nazi 1933, the Reichstag followed the faith of entire downtown Berlin and became a virtual ruin after WWII. Moreover, due to the provisions set forth for Berlin by the Allies, the Bundestag (German parliament) was not allowed to assemble formally in Berlin (even though DDR was in violation of this provision since it had declared East Berlin its capital city anyway). After unification, the building has been reopened in 1999 to house the German MPs again.
