The Siegesallee (German: [ˈziːɡəs.aˌleː], Victory Avenue) was a broad boulevard in Berlin, Germany. In 1895, Kaiser Wilhelm II ordered and financed the expansion of an existing avenue, to be adorned with a variety of marble statues. Work was completed in 1901.
About 750m in length, it ran northwards through the Tiergarten park from Kemperplatz (a road junction on the southern edge of the park near Potsdamer Platz), to the former site of the Victory Column at the Königsplatz, close to the Reichstag. Along its length the Siegesallee cut across the Charlottenburger Chaussee (today's Straße des 17. Juni, the main avenue that runs east–west through the park and leads to the Brandenburg Gate).
The marble monuments and the neobaroque ensemble were ridiculed even by its contemporaries. Berlin folklore dubbed the Kaiser Denkmalwilly (Monument Billy) for his excessive historicism.[1] Moves to have the statues demolished were thwarted after the end of the monarchy in 1919.
The Siegessäule and the figures were moved by the Nazi government to the Großer Stern in 1939 to allow for larger military parades[citation needed].
Some of the monuments were lost in the aftermath of the Second World War. The allied forces (the area later belonged to the British sector) had the avenue erased and the area replanted. In a symbolic act, the Soviet War Memorial (Tiergarten) was deliberately built in its path[citation needed] immediately after the end of the war. The remaining figures were repaired in the Spandau Citadel and some form part of the permanent exhibition Enthüllt – Berlin und seine Denkmäler which opened in April 2016.[2] The avenue was reconstructed as a footpath in 2006.
- ^ Helmut Caspar (Hrsg): Die Beine der Hohenzollern, interpretiert an Standbildern der Siegesallee in Primaneraufsätzen aus dem Jahre 1901, versehen mit Randbemerkungen Seiner Majestät Kaiser Wilhelm II.. Berlin Edition, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-8148-0086-9, 128 S., p.22
- ^ "Unveiled". 11 April 2016.