Bismarck Memorial

Listen first to the traffic. It circles the Great Star, the wide roundabout at the heart of the Tiergarten, Berlin's great city park, in a steady rush of tyres and engines. Then look up, past the trees, at a dark bronze man standing on a tall block of polished red granite. He wears a soldier's helmet and a long military coat. His face is calm, almost stern. This is Otto von Bismarck, and he has been watching Berlin's traffic for a very long time.

Bismarck is one of the largest figures in German history. In the 1860s and 1870s, as chief minister of the Kingdom of Prussia, he led a series of short wars. Those wars ended with a new, united German Empire, proclaimed in January 1871 in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, outside Paris. Bismarck became its first chancellor, the head of government. For almost twenty years, he shaped how Europe balanced its powers.

His career did not end gracefully. In 1890 the young emperor, Wilhelm the Second, forced him out of office. The two men disagreed about almost everything. Bismarck retired to his country estate and spent his last years writing his memoirs and criticising the new government. He died in 1898. Almost at once, Germany began to build monuments to him. Towers, statues and fountains appeared in towns across the country.

This memorial is the grandest of the Berlin tributes. It was created by the sculptor Reinhold Begas, the leading monument maker of imperial Berlin. Begas also made the Neptune Fountain near the Red Town Hall, so you may already know his style. He liked drama, movement and crowded scenes. Here, the monument was unveiled in 1901, only a few years after Bismarck's death.

Now for the first surprise. The statue does not stand where Begas designed it to stand. It was originally placed in front of the Reichstag, the parliament building, on what was then the King's Square. Bismarck looked across the square toward the building where he had so often argued with members of parliament. The setting was chosen with care, and it made a clear political statement.

In 1938, the Nazi government moved the entire monument here. Adolf Hitler and his architect Albert Speer planned to rebuild Berlin as a gigantic capital they called Germania. Their plans included huge new avenues, and the old square in front of the Reichstag stood in the way. So the statue, its base and all its figures were taken apart and rebuilt at the Great Star. The Victory Column moved here at the same time. Two other monuments came with them, to the generals Moltke and Roon, and they now stand nearby in the park.

Walk slowly around the base. Bismarck is not alone. Four groups of figures surround him, and each one tells part of the story Begas wanted to tell. At the front, a powerful, muscled man carries a huge globe on his back. This is Atlas, the giant from Greek myth who held up the heavens. Here, he suggests the weight of world affairs that Bismarck carried.

On one side sits a young man at an anvil, forging a sword. He is Siegfried, the hero of old German legend. In nineteenth-century Germany, Siegfried was a symbol of national strength and of a nation still being shaped. The forging of the sword matches the idea of an empire forged in war. Look closely at his arms and at the tools around him. Begas worked hard to make the bronze look like real effort.

On another side, a woman sits on a sphinx and reads from a large book. She is a sibyl, a prophetess from the ancient world. Her book is the book of history. The message is simple: history will remember this man. The fourth group shows a woman with a big cat, a figure for the power of the state holding down rebellion. It is the least comfortable of the four, and it is worth a moment of thought.

Here is the second surprise. Bismarck himself holds his hand on a document. That paper stands for the founding of the empire, the work that made him famous. He does not raise a sword or point into the distance. The pose is quiet. Around him, the allegorical figures are full of muscle and motion. In the centre, the man himself simply stands and waits.

Today, the memorial carries more than one meaning. For some visitors, it shows the man who united Germany. For others, it recalls an empire built through war, and a nationalism that later took darker forms. The memorial's own journey adds a third layer. It was made to honour an empire, and then moved by a dictatorship that wanted an even larger stage. Berlin has chosen to keep it, and to let people decide for themselves.

Look at the surface of the stone and bronze. You can see traces of weather and age, and in places, signs of later repair. The city around this spot was heavily damaged in the Second World War, and the Tiergarten itself was almost stripped of trees in the hard winters after it. The park you see now grew back slowly. The tall trees behind the monument are younger than the statue in front of them.

Before you leave, stand back from the base and let the whole scene settle. Bismarck in front, the golden figure on the Victory Column behind you, the long avenue running toward the Brandenburg Gate. Joggers pass. Cyclists ring their bells. Leaves move in the wind. The man in bronze still keeps his hand on his paper, and the city keeps moving around him, the way it always has.