Tannenberg Memorial - Dismantling

Dismantling

In the spring of 1949, the Polish government ordered the dismantling of the remains of the monument—although enough remained for scavengers to continue recycling into local projects. Removal of the ruins continued until the 1980s, by which time virtually all traces of the memorial had gone. Today, only a protruding island in an isolated field remains to mark the extensive 120-acre (0.49 km2) site. The Court of Honour (which measured slightly larger than a football field) has been reduced to little more than an overgrown pit of scattered debris and rubble.

Several significant remnants of the structure can still be seen elsewhere. Among these is the perfectly preserved sculpted lion, which once topped a twenty-foot pillar at the entrance to the monument and now is displayed in the town square in nearby Olsztynek.

After the Second World War, much of the fabric of the stone-and-granite memorial was used to build both the Soviet war memorial in Olsztyn, the monument commemorating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and for the new Communist Party headquarters in Warsaw.