Berlin Victory Column: history, architecture and the symbols of the Siegessäule

The Victory Column is a nineteenth-century commemorative monument on Großer Stern, the large roundabout in Tiergarten, within Berlin’s Mitte borough. Its German name literally means “victory column”. The sculpture at the top represents Victoria, the Roman goddess of victory, although her attributes also refer to the Prussian state.

Today the monument measures approximately 67 metres, compared with about 60.5 metres in its original configuration. This difference captures a central fact: what we see combines a work of the German Empire with twentieth-century alterations. Its familiar silhouette does not belong to a single date.^S1

1864: from victory over Denmark to a monumental project

The commission followed the war of 1864 between Denmark and an alliance of Prussia and Austria, concerning the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. That victory supplied the initial reason for building a column in Berlin. Johann Heinrich Strack began developing the design when it was still intended to commemorate this particular conflict.

Choosing a column employed an established political language. Since antiquity, height, a pedestal and a crowning sculpture had presented power as something that should dominate public space. The Prussian project reused that tradition to tell a recent history.

1866: Austria changes from ally to opponent

Two years later, Prussia and Austria fought over leadership within the German-speaking world. Prussia’s victory, whose decisive episode was Königgrätz, also known as Sadowa, strengthened Berlin’s position and excluded Austria from the subsequent imperial settlement.

The column incorporated this second war into its commemorative programme. The change matters: the monument did not simply illustrate a fixed political plan. Its meaning expanded during the design process, following successive conflicts and the ambitions of the state financing it.

1870–1871: France and the proclamation of the Empire

The Franco-Prussian War added a third victory. On 18 January 1871, Wilhelm I was proclaimed German Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. The unity celebrated by the column was unity under Prussian leadership, with Austria outside the new Empire.

The inauguration took place on 2 September 1873, the anniversary of the Battle of Sedan. The date explicitly linked the ceremony with victory over France. The original three shaft sections referred to the three conflicts subsequently known as the Wars of German Unification.^S2

That name describes their political role without making the process inevitable or harmless. The column selects an interpretation: military victories become a story of national legitimacy. A reader can recognise that argument without accepting it as a neutral account of German history.

Strack and the commemorative column tradition

Johann Heinrich Strack arranged an ascending composition: a substantial pedestal, a circular hall surrounded by columns, the shaft and the gilded figure. The eye moves from narrative scenes at the base to an allegory raised above the city.

The classical reference does not make the structure a literal copy of a Roman column. It belongs to a European tradition of military monuments, including the Vendôme Column in Paris and Nelson’s Column in London. In each case, a vertical structure turns the memory of conflict into a dominant feature of the urban landscape.

In Berlin this operation connected monarchy, army and nation. Architecture did more than support a statue: it organised the way the political story was seen.

Granite, the shaft and gilded artillery

The pedestal, faced with red granite, contains the bronze reliefs. Above it, the colonnade allows a closer encounter with the mosaic. The shaft then directs attention towards the vertical repetition of its sections and the gilded artillery elements linking decoration to military trophies.

The materials distinguish different registers. At the base, bronze recounts episodes; in the circular hall, mosaic introduces allegorical figures; at the summit, Victoria condenses the message into a silhouette recognisable from afar. This organisation explains how the monument communicates at several distances.

The reliefs are not photographs of the wars. They select protagonists and episodes to turn complex events into public memory. Each occupies a face of the pedestal; together they lead from the battlefield to celebration in the capital.

The war of 1864: Alexander Calandrelli

Calandrelli represented the campaign against Denmark and the assault on the fortifications at Dybbøl, known in German as Düppel. His composition combines figures, movement and military action in a continuous narrative. Looking at a detail reveals how groups are arranged to present the campaign as a collective achievement worthy of commemoration.

In the circular hall above the pedestal, the glass mosaic designed by Anton von Werner and executed by Antonio Salviati’s workshop combines historical references with personifications. Germania represents the German nation; other figures and emblems turn political relationships into a visual narrative.

The distinction from the reliefs matters. Allegory does not show only identifiable individuals or specific episodes. It makes abstract ideas —nation, threat, unity, triumph— visible through bodies, attributes and symbols. Reading it requires asking what each figure means within the imperial argument, rather than assuming every image corresponds to a literal event.

Friedrich Drake’s statue, approximately 8.3 metres high, is made of gilded bronze. Wings and a laurel wreath identify Victoria; the standard bearing the Iron Cross and the eagle-adorned helmet place her within Prussian imagery. The figure combines classical victory with characteristics of Borussia, the personification of Prussia.

She is therefore neither a Christian angel nor an original representation of peace. Precision matters because familiarity can soften an image’s historical meaning. The nickname Goldelse belongs to the monument’s popular appropriation but does not erase the military intention of the commission.

Over time, Goldelse also became an everyday sign of Berlin. This popular familiarity shows that public sculpture does not remain confined to the meaning intended by its commissioners.

The original setting at Königsplatz

The column was inaugurated at Königsplatz, now Platz der Republik. It is often described as having stood “in front of the Reichstag”, a useful geographical reference requiring context: the present Reichstag building was constructed after the column’s inauguration. The historical image shows a relationship the buildings later acquired, not a scene from 1873.

The column survived the Second World War, but its continued existence could no longer be taken for granted. Demolition was proposed and its military meaning became a matter of debate. Three reliefs were taken to France; the panel commemorating the war against Austria remained in Berlin.

Their returns in 1984 and 1987 were associated with Franco-German reconciliation. The reliefs were reinstalled in their fragmentary condition. This decision changed the base’s meaning: damage was no longer simply a loss to conceal but a visible part of its history.

Not every break should be treated as evidence of the same cause without documentation. What can be said is that the original triumphal programme and the consequences of the twentieth century now coexist in the monument’s material. The scenes celebrate victory; their condition recalls that they also became objects of dispute.

The present location makes the column a reference point among the major avenues crossing the park. Trees frame its silhouette while the road arrangement reinforces its centrality. Ignoring those axes leaves out part of its planning history.

The Bismarck monument, also photographed during the visit, broadens the reading of the surroundings. Bismarck is not the figure on top of the column: his nearby memorial introduces the statesman associated with unification into Großer Stern’s collection of national heroes and symbols. Both works belong to the monumental construction of Prussian memory, but they are separate monuments.

The observation platform, reached by a staircase of approximately 285 steps, relates the column to the avenues and the political centre. More than a panorama, it offers a way of reading how different periods organised Berlin’s space. During division, the monument stood in West Berlin; after 1990, it again belonged to a reunited capital.^S5

Celebrations and gatherings around the column brought other uses to the space. The Love Parade and LGBTQ+ Pride events belong to this cultural history; Barack Obama’s public address in 2008 shows that the surroundings continued to function as a political stage.

These uses do not erase imperial intentions or Nazi intervention. They add a productive tension between what the monument said and what the city does around it today. Preserving it as a historical document means keeping those differences readable, avoiding both uncritical celebration and an account in which the past disappears behind a tourist icon.