The holes were patched, but were visible for many years. : 452 Cold War Īfter Germany's surrender at the end of the war, the governments of East Berlin and West Berlin restored it in a joint effort. Efforts to disguise the government district of Berlin and confuse Allied bombers had included the construction of a replica Brandenburg Gate located away from the city centre. One horse's head from the original quadriga survived, and is today kept in the collection of the Märkisches Museum. The gate was badly damaged with holes in the columns from bullets and nearby explosions. The gate survived World War II and was one of the damaged structures still standing in the Pariser Platz ruins in 1945 (another being the Academy of Fine Arts). When the Nazis ascended to power, they used the gate as a party symbol. īernard Montgomery and Soviet marshals Georgy Zhukov and Konstantin Rokossovsky leave the Brandenburg Gate on 12 July 1945 after being decorated by Montgomery. The goddess, now definitely Victoria, was equipped with the Prussian eagle and Iron Cross on her lance with a wreath of oak leaves. It was now redesigned by Karl Friedrich Schinkel for the new role of the Brandenburg Gate as a Prussian triumphal arch. Īfter Napoleon's defeat in 1814 and the Prussian occupation of Paris by General Ernst von Pfuel, the quadriga was restored to Berlin. After the 1806 Prussian defeat at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt, Napoleon was the first to use the Brandenburg Gate for a triumphal procession, and took its quadriga to Paris. The Brandenburg Gate has played different political roles in German history. Atop the gate is a sculpture by Johann Gottfried Schadow of a quadriga - a chariot drawn by four horses - driven by Victoria, the Roman goddess of victory. The gate was the first element of a 'new Athens on the River Spree' by architect Langhans. Its design is based on the Propylaea, the gateway to the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, and is consistent with Berlin's history of architectural classicism (first, Baroque, and then neo-Palladian). Citizens were originally allowed to use only the outermost two on each side. The gate consists of twelve Doric columns, six to each side, forming five passageways. It was designed by Carl Gotthard Langhans, the Court Superintendent of Buildings, and built between 17, replacing the earlier simple guardhouses which flanked the original gate in the Customs Wall. The new gate was commissioned by Frederick William II of Prussia to represent peace and was originally named the Peace Gate (German: Friedenstor). The Brandenburg Gate was not part of the old Berlin Fortress, but one of eighteen gates within the Berlin Customs Wall ( German: Akzisemauer), erected in the 1730s, including the old fortified city and many of its then suburbs. The Berlin Customs Wall with its eighteen gates Throughout its existence, the Brandenburg Gate was often a site for major historical events and is today considered not only as a symbol of the tumultuous histories of Germany and Europe, but also of European unity and peace. The gate is the monumental entry to Unter den Linden, a boulevard of linden trees which led directly to the royal City Palace of the Prussian monarchs. One block to the north stands the Reichstag building, which houses the German parliament ( Bundestag). It is located in the western part of the city centre of Berlin within Mitte, at the junction of Unter den Linden and Ebertstraße, immediately west of the Pariser Platz. One of the best-known landmarks of Germany, it was built on the site of a former city gate that marked the start of the road from Berlin to the town of Brandenburg an der Havel, which used to be the capital of the Margraviate of Brandenburg. The Brandenburg Gate ( German: Brandenburger Tor ( listen)) is an 18th-century neoclassical monument in Berlin, built on the orders of Prussian king Frederick William II after restoring the Orangist power by suppressing the Dutch popular unrest.

Der brandenburger tor