Berlin Victory Column

Listen first. All around you, cars circle without pause. Engines rise and fall like a tide. Above that noise, the wind moves through the old trees of the Tiergarten. And above everything, a gilded figure catches the light. On a bright day she flashes gold against the sky. On a grey Berlin afternoon she glows softly, like a lamp left on. This is the Berlin Victory Column, standing at the centre of a vast roundabout called the Great Star.

The column was built to celebrate war. More precisely, three wars. In the 1860s and early 1870s, Prussia fought Denmark, then Austria, then France. Each victory pushed Prussia closer to its goal — the creation of a unified German Empire, led from Berlin. The monument was first planned after the war with Denmark. By the time it was finished, two more victories had been added to the story. It was unveiled in 1873, just two years after the German Empire was declared.

The architect was Heinrich Strack, a leading Prussian architect of his day. His design is simple in outline. There is a heavy square base, then a ring of columns, then a tall shaft of stone sections, and finally the statue. But look closely at the shaft. The grooves running up the stone hold rows of golden objects. These are cannon barrels. Tradition holds that they came from guns captured in the wars the monument celebrates. They were gilded and set into the stone like trophies.

Now look up at the figure on top. She is Victoria, the Roman goddess of victory. The sculptor was Friedrich Drake. She holds a laurel wreath high in one hand, and her wings spread behind her. Berliners have a nickname for her — Goldelse, which means something like Golden Lizzie. The name is affectionate, a little cheeky, and very Berlin. A city that builds a monument to military glory will also, sooner or later, give it a friendly nickname.

Here is something many visitors do not know. The column did not always stand here. It was first built in front of the Reichstag, the parliament building, on a square then called Königsplatz. In the late 1930s, the Nazi government moved it. Their planners imagined a huge new axis running through Berlin, and the column became part of that plan. It was taken apart, carried here, and rebuilt on the Great Star. During the move, an extra stone section was added to the shaft. So the column you see today is taller than the one Strack designed.

The column did not travel alone. Statues of three Prussian leaders came with it. Otto von Bismarck, the chancellor who guided unification, now stands at the edge of the Great Star. Nearby are figures of the generals Moltke and Roon. If you walk around the circle, you will find them among the trees. Together they form a group of men and memory, moved here as a set piece for a regime that wanted to borrow their glory.

This move also explains a strange fact. Much of central Berlin was destroyed in the Second World War. Yet the Victory Column survived largely intact. Its new position, away from the government quarter, may have helped. After the war, Berlin was divided among the Allied powers. The column stood in the British sector. Some voices called for it to be torn down as a symbol of German militarism. In the end, it stayed.

The column did lose something, though. The bronze reliefs around the base were removed by the French after the war. These panels showed scenes from the wars of unification. For decades, the base stood with empty spaces. The reliefs were finally returned to Berlin in the 1980s, around the time the city celebrated its 750th anniversary. Look at the base now. Those battle scenes in bronze spent years far from home.

Just above the base, behind the ring of columns, there is a hall with a large mosaic. It was designed by Anton von Werner, a painter closely linked to the imperial court. The mosaic tells the story of unification in glittering colour. It is a piece of political storytelling, made to show the new empire as fate and triumph. Seen today, it is a window into how a nation wanted to see itself in that moment.

If you have the energy, you can climb to the viewing platform just below Victoria's feet. The staircase winds up inside the column — nearly three hundred steps, narrow and steady. There is no lift. At the top, the city opens around you. Long avenues run out from the Great Star like the spokes of a wheel. To the east, the road leads toward the Brandenburg Gate. All around, the green canopy of the Tiergarten spreads out, the city's great park.

In later decades, the column found new roles. In 1987, the film director Wim Wenders placed angels on Victoria's shoulders in his film Wings of Desire. Those angels watched over a divided city. After the fall of the Wall, the column became a gathering point for huge crowds. The Love Parade, a giant techno festival, filled these avenues in the 1990s. In 2008, Barack Obama, then a presidential candidate, gave a speech here to a vast audience.

So the monument carries many layers. It was built for an empire. It was moved by a dictatorship. It survived a war and a division. Then it became a backdrop for music, film, and public celebration. The same golden figure has looked down on soldiers, on ravers, and on crowds waving flags of many kinds. Few objects in Berlin have meant so many different things to so many people.

Before you leave, stand for a moment and look up again. Notice how the gold changes as clouds pass. Notice the steady loop of traffic, and the quiet of the trees just beyond it. When you walk away along one of the avenues, turn back once. From a distance, Victoria seems to float above the park. She was raised to celebrate victory. Today, she simply marks the place where Berlin's roads, and its stories, meet.