Brandenburg Gate
The Brandenburg Gate (German: Brandenburger Tor) is a structure in Berlin, Germany. It is the only remaining gate through which people used to enter Berlin. It was built between 1788 and 1791. It is located between the Platz des 18. März and the Pariser Platz. Nearby to the north is the Reichstag building. During the Cold War, the Reichstag was in West Berlin, and the Brandenburger Tor in East Berlin.
The Brandenburg Gate has twelve columns, six on the entrance side and six on the exit. The columns form five roadways, citizens originally were allowed to use only the outer two. This is rather like Admiralty Arch in London, the central roadway is reserved so that royal and important traffic is not delayed. On top of the gate is the Quadriga. This is Viktoria, the goddess of victory driving a Quadriga, a type of horse-drawn chariot.
After 1806, when Prussia was defeated at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt, Napoleon stole the Quadriga and took it to Paris. When Napoleon was beaten in 1814 Prussian General Ernst von Pfuel occupied Paris and took the Quadriga back to Berlin, the olive wreath was changed to an Iron Cross. The Goddess Viktoria became Nike, goddess of victory.
When the Nazis came to power, they used the gate as their symbol. The gate was damaged but not destroyed during World War II. The governments of East Berlin and West Berlin restored it but it was closed when the Berlin Wall was built in 1961. The gate was in the middle of the death strip.
In 1963, U.S. President John F. Kennedy visited the Brandenburg Gate. The Soviets hung large banners across it to prevent him from looking into the East. In the 1980s West Berlin mayor Richard von Weizsäcker said:
The German question will remain open as long as the Brandenburg Gate is closed.
In 1987, U.S. President Ronald Reagan gave his famous speech "Tear down this wall!" outside of the gate.[1]
Von Weizsäcker was the President of Germany at the reunification.
The Gate then symbolized the freedom to unite the City of Berlin. On the 22nd of December 1989, the Brandenburg Gate re-opened when Helmut Kohl, the West German Chancellor, walked through to be greeted by Hans Modrow, the East German Prime Minister.
On December 21, 2000, the Brandenburg Gate was privately refurbished at a cost of US$3 million.
Photo gallery
Napoleon entering Berlin through the Gate
The Brandenburg Gate in 1871
The Brandenburg Gate in 1982 seen from the East Berlin side. Behind the gate is the Berlin Wall. In front is the rail that was accessible from East Berlin.
United States President Ronald Reagan giving a speech on June 12, 1987
The Quadriga atop the Brandenbrug Gate (August 2003)
Brandeburg Gate (May 2015)
Brandenburg Gate Media
An early 19th-century engraving comparing the recently constructed Brandenburg Gate to (an imagined restoration of) its historical model: the Propylaea of the Acropolis of Athens
The Berlin Customs Wall with its eighteen gates, around 1855. The Brandenburger Thor (Brandenburg Gate) is on the left.
The old Brandenburg Gate in a 1764 engraving, 30 years before its neoclassical reconstruction
Soldiers firing round the quadriga in the Spartacist uprising, 7 January 1919
View from Pariser Platz in June 1945, after the fall of Berlin
In 1945, damaged state just after the end of World War II
The Berlin Wall in front of the gate, shortly before its fall in 1989
Ronald Reagan speaking at the gate section of the Berlin Wall on 12 June 1987, challenging Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!"
Soiled by Last Generation activists with orange paint, 17 September 2023
Frontal view with the Pariser Platz looking west towards Straße des 17. Juni
References
- ↑ "President Ronald Reagan: Speech at the Brandenburg Gate". www.au.af.mil. United States Air Force. 12 June 1987. Archived from the original on 17 July 2019. Retrieved 6 September 2016.
Other websites
- Brandenburg Gate Website
- Street map of the Brandenburg Gate's location Archived 2022-04-24 at the Wayback Machine – GlobalGuide
- Brandenburg Gate described in its historic context Archived 2004-04-07 at the Wayback Machine
- Panorama Brandenburg Gate - Panoramic view from the Pariser Platz
- Webcam: Live-View of the Street "Unter den Linden" with Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany
- Germany, Berlin, Brandenburger Tor Virtual tour with map and compass effect by Tolomeus
- Panorama Brandenburg Gate 1945 Archived 2023-06-05 at the Wayback Machine - Panoramic view into the past, 60 years after WWII