| Original caption: “Germans prepare for British offensive by covering monuments – Here King Frederic of Prussia is surrounded by concrete walls.” Reiterstandbild Friedrichs des Großen (“The Equestrian statue of Frederick II ‘the Great,’” January 24, 1712 – August 17, 1786) on Unter den Linden, was designed by Christian Daniel Rauch (January 2, 1777 – December 3, 1857) who spent 20 years of his life on the project. It was unveiled on May 31, 1851. The Nazi German regime could not expend the effort necessary to save monuments and building complexes given the sparse teams available even for the protection of life and limb. So protection of stone remained limited to memorabilia. Portals, figures, monuments, Roland’s columns, and fountains were wrapped up and enclosed in walls. The Bamberg Horseman was surrounded at 1st by a wooden structure filled with sandbags and later replaced by an octagonal brick tower, encased in plaster, and covered with a conical block of reinforced concrete. Angled, broken channels were cut for ventilation purposes. The tomb of Saint Sebald in Nuremberg received a similar shell. A 46 foot (14 meter) high stamped concrete wall protected the west portal of Nuremberg’s Saint Lorenz Church. Relics were thought to have a perpetual guarantee, such as that provided by steel mattresses in front of the Tiepolo frescoes in the Würzberg residential palace. But such coverings could no longer be supplied by as early as mid-1942. The burlap for sandbags was in short supply, and there was no wood for the formwork for concrete screens. Paper sacks with lean concrete were used instead to pack the portals of the cathedrals in Cologne, Freiburg, Xanten, Münster, and Paderborn, as well as for the Beautiful Fountain in Nuremberg and the equestrian statue of Frederick the Great along the boulevard Unter den Linden in Berlin. If an explosive entered such a casing, the protective effect became destructive instead. Pieces of stone were hurled like shells into the artworks. The stone remained ambivalent. Church windows that were walled up warded off flying sparks, but it hindered the air circulation that the frescoes needed to keep mold from destroying them. Church paintings faded away gruesomely. Without any packing materials, it was also hard to help the sculpture and relief ornamentation. Improved explosives made it necessary to have secure encasements shaped like the objects to be protected, with reinforced concrete. There was nothing of the sort available. At their last meeting in Eger, the Luftwaffe and police representatives could not offer the curators of the monuments any blastproof, fragment-proof walls. By the summer of 1944, the immovable cultural assets were virtually undefended in face of the finale of fire. They had been abandoned. On July 19, 1950, the Communist authorities decided to remove Reiterstandbild Friedrichs des Großen to Postdam. Metal thieves took parts when the concrete was removed. By 1962 it was erected at Charlottenhof Palace in Sanssouci Park, Potsdam. Discussion resolved around melting it down. But by 1980, Frederick the Great’s reputation had been rehabilitated by the East Germans. The statue was renovated and returned to the Unter den Linden, about 20 feet from its original position. After reunification in 1991, Reiterstandbild Friedrichs des Großen was returned to its original location. It was defaced in 2006 and restored again with an anti-graffiti coating. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0843.jpg |
| Image Size | 456.79 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2195 x 2856 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | United States Army Signal Corps |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | January 1, 1942 |
| Location | Unter den Linden |
| City | Berlin |
| State or Province | Berlin |
| Country | Germany |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | NLR-PHOCO-A-72188(11) |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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