From Alexanderplatz to Pariser Platz
Neue Wache
A Roman castrum with corner towers, an inner courtyard, and a hall of Doric columns set in front served as a model for the New Guard House designed by Friedrich Karl Schinkel and constructed from 1816 to 1818. One of his first works in Berlin, it became a significant example of German classicism.
The arrest cells were situated to the left, the guards room and offices to the right of the entrance. They were demolished in 1930/31, when Heinrich Tessenow converted the building into a monument for the soldiers who died in World War I. With the exception of a small circular opening in the middle, the courtyard was roofed over, and a wreath of gold and silver oak leaves placed on a black granite boulder. The Nazis turned the Neue Wache into a 'Reich Memorial' and its sober interior into a crude chamber of the dead.
After the war damage had been repaired, the building was remodelled from 1953 to 1957 and officially opened in 1960 as a "Memorial to the Victims of Fascism and Militarism". Further changes were made in 1969 on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the founding of the GDR. A crystal cube, an eternal flame, a tomb with two urns, and the emblem of the GDR on the rear inner wall were the new features of the memorial.
In 1993, the New Guard House became the "Central Memorial of the Federal Republic of Germany". A radically enlarged cast of Käthe Kollwitz' "Pietà" was placed in the centre of the room at the personal request of the then Federal Chancellor, Helmut Kohl. During renewed refurbishment in the 1990s, architects Heinz Hilmer and Christoph Sattler restored the interior to what it looked like in 1931. The walls were faced with shell limestone slabs and the floor covered with basalt stone.
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Images:
Landesarchiv Berlin
Archiv IRS
Jörg Küster
Landesarchiv Berlin (2)
Jörg Küster
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