Kreuzberg Monument

Since the French Revolution, there had been great enthusiasm for monuments of every kind in Germany. Most of the projects for monuments to rulers, national monuments, and many others, remained purely notional, and were either never executed or only realised on a small scale. Effectively, all that came of Schinkel’s large-scale Gothic designs for a German national cathedral was the spire, in the form of a monument on the Kreuzberg in Berlin, carried out 1818-21.

Schinkel’s vision ran on the lines of s classical column, but the royal client demanded a monument made of iron, which was cheap, in the Gothic style, considered the German national style at the time. He took as his models the corner piers of late Gothic tabernacles, or even large-scale buildings like Cologne Cathedral.

The monument consists of a 19-meter tower on the ground plan of a Greek cross, with a socle and a niche level in which 12 winged battle spirits are displayed. Christian Daniel Rauch designed six of the battle spirits, but modeled only two. Christian Friedrich Tieck designed four and likewise modeled only two. The major part of the work was taken over by sculptor Ludwig Wilhelm Wichmann who executed the models by Rauch and Tieck and added two figures of his own design.