Brandenburg Gate

The Brandenburg Gate stands at Pariser Platz in central Berlin, a neoclassical triumphal arch completed in 1791 under King Frederick William II of Prussia. Designed by Carl Gotthard Langhans and modelled on the Propylaea of Athens, the gate measures 26 metres in height and 65 metres in width, formed by twelve Doric columns supporting five passageways. Atop the gate, the Quadriga — a copper sculpture of Victoria, goddess of victory, driving a four-horse chariot — was added in 1793. Napoleon seized the Quadriga during his occupation of Berlin in 1806 and transported it to Paris, where it remained until Prussian forces returned it in 1814, fitted with an iron cross and Prussian eagle to mark the victory. Throughout the nineteenth century the gate served as the ceremonial entrance to the Prussian capital, witnessing military parades, royal processions, and nationalist demonstrations. In January 1933 the newly appointed Chancellor Adolf Hitler orchestrated a torchlit SA parade through its arches on his first night in power. Heavily damaged in World War II, the gate was restored jointly by East and West German authorities in 1957–1958, a rare act of cooperation across the Iron Curtain. When the Berlin Wall was erected in August 1961, the gate found itself stranded in no-man's-land between two armed states, closed to transit from both sides, and it became the most potent visual symbol of Cold War division. On 9 November 1989, as the Wall fell, hundreds of thousands of Germans gathered at the gate in spontaneous celebration; on 22 December that year it reopened to pedestrian traffic for the first time in twenty-eight years. Today the gate anchors the western end of Unter den Linden boulevard and serves as the centrepiece of German national commemorations.