Berlin Victory Column

Berlin Victory Column

The Victory Column (German: Siegessäule) is a monument in Berlin, Germany. Designed by Heinrich Strack after 1864 to commemorate the Prussian victory in the Danish-Prussian War, by the time it was inaugurated on 2 September 1873, Prussia had also defeated Austria in the Austro-Prussian War (1866) and France in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), giving the statue a new purpose. Different from the original plans, these later victories in the so-called unification wars inspired the addition of the bronze sculpture of Victoria, 8.3 metres high and weighing 35 tonnes, designed by Friedrich Drake. Berliners, with their fondness for giving nicknames to buildings, call the statue Goldelse, meaning something like "Golden Lizzy".

The Victory Column is a major tourist attraction to the city of Berlin and opens daily: 9:30 a.m. – 6:30 p.m. (April – October), and 9:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. (November – March).

Read more about Berlin Victory Column:  Cultural References

Famous quotes containing the words berlin, victory and/or column:

    If you will play from a copy of a tune that is choppy,
    You’ll get all my applause.
    —Irving Berlin (1888–1989)

    For by superior energies; more strict
    Affiance in each other; faith more firm
    In their unhallowed principles, the bad
    Have fairly earned a victory o’er the weak,
    The vacillating, inconsistent good.
    William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

    Never have anything to do with the near surviving representatives of anyone whose name appears in the death column of the Times as having “passed away.”
    Samuel Butler (1835–1902)