Bismarck tower

A Bismarck tower (German: Bismarckturm) is a specific type of monument built according to a more or less standard model across the Germany to honour its first chancellor, Otto von Bismarck (d. 1898). A total of 234 of these towers were inventoried by Kloss and Seele in 2007 but more have been discovered since making the total around 240. These towers were built between 1869 and 1934 and some 173 remain today. Quite a few of these towers, including all 47 based on Wilhelm Kreis's Götterdämmerung design, were built as so-called Bismarck Columns (Bismarcksäulen) or were converted into them. This description goes back to the Student Union's competition held in 1899, which was to encourage the erection of as many beacons as possible (and not observation towers). But other Bismarck towers, e. g. those which were purely beacons with no observation function, were often called Bismarck columns.

The world's first Bismarck tower now stands in Poland. It was erected by private initiative in 1869 in the village of Ober-Johnsdorf, Silesia, then part of Prussia (now Janówek, Poland). It stands on top of the hill now called Jańska Góra (German: Johnsberg), 253 m above sea level. The tower itself is 23 m in height. The sponsor was a retired Prussian officer (1820–1888), a wealthy landowner in nearby Wättrisch.

One year after Bismarck's death, German Studentenverbindung fraternities chose one of the designs submitted by the architect Wilhelm Kreis in an 1899 architecture competition. The award-winning Götterdämmerung fire column design of granite or sandstone was selected as a standard model for all Bismarck towers. The massive and squat design could be built to different heights and widths depending on the amount of money donated for the particular monument.

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