Berlin is full of monuments. Many now commemorate people or events that are now distinctly unfashionable.
And in the intrests of history, long may they continue to do so!

This is the Luftbrückendenkmal -- the memorial commemorating the people (mainly Allied airmen) who died during the Berlin Airlift of 1949. It is my favourite -- simple and stark. The three "prongs" symbolise the three air routes from western Germany to Berlin. The memorial is situated outside the main entrance to Tempelhof Airport.

Berlin Airlift Memorial

Treptower Park, by the Spree to the south east of the city centre, contains the enormous Sowjetisches Ehrenmal -- the main memorial to the thousands of Soviet soldiers who died during the conquest of Berlin in 1945. It is grandiose and lacking in any subtlety whatsoever -- but also oddly moving, probably as much for that reason as for the thousands of soldiers actually buried there. The view above shows the newly-restored statue of a Soviet soldier whose sword smashes a swastika while he also holds a rescued child.

View from the base of the statue (its shadow on the right) looking towards the marble representaton of dipped flags. The red marble used was taken from Hitler's New Chancellery building.

The main statue from behind.

The Red Flags again.

One of the carved blocks lining the main open area. There are two rows of blocks, with identical reliefs, except that on the narrow faces of one row, the quotations from Joseph Stalin are carved in Russian,
and in German on the other.

Another Soviet war memorial -- this time opposite the Tiergarten, on Straße des 17. Juni. This area was intended to be where the East-West Axis crossed the North-South Axis in Albert Speer's plan for Hitler's rebuilding of central Berlin. This is also just a few metres from the Reichstag building -- scene of some of the heaviest fighting in the last hours of the war. Ironically, the memorial ended up in the former British zone of occupation, and Soviet soldiers guarding the memorial had themselves to be guarded by British troops!
Below, a Soviet tank and gun stand as a part of the memorial.

The Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand -- Memorial to the German Resistance. This statue, erected in 1953, is in the courtyard of the "Bendlerblock" -- now a part of the Defence Ministry buildings between the Landwehrkanal and the Tiergarten. The plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler on 20 July 1944 was launched -- and foiled -- here. The statue stands where Claus von Stauffenberg and some of the other conspirators were summarily executed that night.

 
The memorial to Ernst Thälmann, on Greifswalder Straße. Ernst Thälmann was the leader of the pre-war German Communist Party, who would very likely have led the DDR if he hadn't been killed
whilst in a concentration camp in1944.

Rosa Luxemburg (1870-1919) was one of the founders and leaders of the German Communist Party (KPD -- Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands). She was murdered by right-wing paramilitaries, and her body thrown into the Landwehrkanal near to where this monument now stands.

Karl Liebknecht (1871-1919) was a close associate of Rosa Luxemburg and a fellow leader of the KPD. He was murdered at the same time as "Red Rosa" and his body dumped in the Tiergarten.

Bebelplatz, just off Unter den Linden. This is where books were burned shortly after the National Socialists came to power in 1933. In the background is the Humboldt University.

The stone structure built out into the river at Schloßplatz is all that remains of the gigantic memorial to Kaiser Wilhelm I constructed by his grandson Wilhelm II. The building in the background, once the seat of the DDR's Council of State, incorporates the only part of the former Royal Palace opposite to have escaped demolition in 1950. This gateway was preserved because the Communist leader Karl Liebknecht proclaimed the abortive socialist Republic from it in November 1918.

 
This is the Kriegsdenkmal -- Memorial to the Wars of Liberation, built by Karl Friedrich Schinkel between 1817 and 1821. The victories commemorated are those of Prussia against Napoleon. The memorial stands in Viktoriapark on the summit of the Kreuzberg -- "Cross Hill". (See also Berlin Panoramas.)

The memorial looking south, silhouetted.

The Siegessäule (Victory Column) was built to commemorate Prussian victories over Denmark and France. Originally it stood in what is now the Platz der Republik, outside the Reichstag building. Albert Speer moved it to its present location on the Straße des 17.Juni in the Tiergarten as part of Adolf Hitler's plans for the rebuilding of central Berlin. Here is one of the mosaics, showing Kaiser Wilhelm I, the future Friedrich III, and -- of course -- Otto von Bismarck, creator of the united German Empire (the "Second Reich") of 1871.

Richard Wagner's memorial in the Tiergarten, now sheltered by plastic and metal.