Siegesallee
The Siegesallee (German for "Victory Avenue") was a broad boulevard in Berlin, Germany. in 1895, Kaiser Wilhelm II ordered and financed the construction and expansion of an existing alley with a variety of marble statues, which was finalized in 1901.
About 750 m in length, it ran northwards through the Tiergarten park from Kemperplatz (an intersection of roads on the southern edge of the park near Potsdamer Platz), to the former site of the Berlin Victory Column at the Königsplatz, close to the Reichstag. Along its length the Siegesallee cut across the Charlottenburger Chausee (today's Straße des 17. Juni, the main avenue that runs east–west through the park and leads to the Brandenburg Gate).
The marble monuments and the neobaroque ensemble were ridiculed even by its contemporaries. Berlin folkore dubbed the Kaiser Denkmalwilly (Monument Billy) for his excessive historicism. Moves to have the statues demolished were thwarted after the end of the monarchy in 1919.
The Siegessäule and the figures were moved by the Nazi government to the Große Stern in 1939 to allow for larger military parades and conventions.
Some of the monuments were lost in the aftermath of the Second World War. The allied forces (the area later belonged to the British sector) had the alley erased and the area replanted. The Soviet War Memorial (Tiergarten) was erected there, deliberately crossing the former Victor Avenue of its foes in a symbolic act immediately after the end of the war.
Currently the remaining figures are being repaired and exhibited in Spandau. They will be part of the exhibition Enthüllt – Berlin und seine Denkmäler. The track itself has recently (2006) been reconstructed as a footpath.
It was on 27 January 1895, the 36th birthday of William II, German Emperor (1859–1941), that the Siegesallee took on a whole new meaning with the commissioning by the Emperor of almost 100 white marble statues. Intended as a personal gift to the city, supposedly to make it the envy of the world, the statues were created by 27 sculptors under the direction of Reinhold Begas over a period of five years, starting in 1896. Dedicated on 18 December 1901, they consisted firstly of 32 "main" statues, each about 2.75 m tall (4 to 5 m including their pedestals), of former Prussian royal figures of varying historical importance, in two rows of 16, evenly spaced along either side of the boulevard, while behind each one were two busts of associates or advisors mounted on a low semi-circular wall, making 96 sculptures in all.
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