The Bismarck Tower (german: Bismarckturm) on the 497-metre-high Peterskopf in the Haardt mountains on the eastern edge of the Palatine Forest stands within an exclave of the municipality of Kallstadt in the German state of

Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; german: link=no, Rheinland-Pfalz ; lb, Rheinland-Pfalz ; pfl, Rhoilond-Palz) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the ...

History

Planning for the

monument A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, hist ...

dedicated to

Reich ''Reich'' (; ) is a German noun whose meaning is analogous to the meaning of the English word "realm"; this is not to be confused with the German adjective "reich" which means "rich". The terms ' (literally the "realm of an emperor") and ' (lit ...

chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, began in 1896 by the Drachenfels ClubDrachenfels-Club: ''Chronik''
and it was erected in 1901 - 1903 under the direction of architect, Friedrich Kunst, from

Karlsruhe Karlsruhe ( , , ; South Franconian: ''Kallsruh'') is the third-largest city of the German state (''Land'') of Baden-Württemberg after its capital of Stuttgart and Mannheim, and the 22nd-largest city in the nation, with 308,436 inhabitants. ...

. In 1925 a concrete ceiling collapsed during a school visit to the tower. In 1928 the relief, which had been destroyed by the French, was replaced. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

two bombs hit the tower. Its first restoration was carried out in 1949 by the Drachenfels Club, a local monument conservation society. In 1973/74 further renovation measures were implemented; this included accommodation for the tower keeper. The tower has been protected as a listed monument since 1986.

Design

The tower is made from

bunter sandstone The Buntsandstein (German for ''coloured'' or ''colourful sandstone'') or Bunter sandstone is a lithostratigraphic and allostratigraphic unit (a sequence of rock strata) in the subsurface of large parts of west and central Europe. The Buntsands ...

which was quarried in the vicinity. It has a base area of 16.7 x 14 m² and is divided into three sections. The lower section may be climbed on 15 external steps, from which staircases lead left and right to the lower viewing platform. The second viewing platform follows after a further 20 steps, also external to the tower. An internal staircase then leads to the 30-metre-high third viewing platform. From here, there are extensive views, particularly over the

Upper Rhine Plain The Upper Rhine Plain, Rhine Rift Valley or Upper Rhine Graben ( German: ''Oberrheinische Tiefebene'', ''Oberrheinisches Tiefland'' or ''Oberrheingraben'', French: ''Vallée du Rhin'') is a major rift, about and on average , between Basel in the ...

over 400 metres below.

Bad Dürkheim Hill Run

The Peterskopf and its Bismarck tower is the destination of the annual Bad Dürkheim Hill Run (''Bad Dürkheimer Berglauf'') which takes place in October. The route is 8,700 metres long and the total climb is 510 metres, making it the longest and steepest element of the Palatine Hill Running Cup ((''Pfälzer Berglaufpokal'').

References

External links

Bad Dürkheim's Bismarck tower at bismarcktuerme.de
{{Coord, 49.479111, N, 8.129487, E, type:landmark_region:DE-RP, format=dms, display=title Towers completed in 1903 Kallstadt Culture of Rhineland-Palatinate Palatinate Forest Buildings and structures in Bad Dürkheim (district) Observation towers in Rhineland-Palatinate