{{no refs, date=December 2017 Koeln Hohenzollernbruecke 10-2017 img1

A large number of monuments were erected in Germany in honour of Emperor William I (known in German as ''Kaiser-Wilhelm-Denkmal''). As early as 1867 the Berlin sculptor,

Friedrich Drake Friedrich Drake (June 23, 1805, Pyrmont – April 6, 1882, Berlin) was a German sculptor, best known for his huge memorial statues. Biography He was the son of a mechanic and served an apprenticeship as a turner in Minden, afterwards being em ...

, had created the first

equestrian statue An equestrian statue is a statue of a rider mounted on a horse, from the Latin ''eques'', meaning 'knight', deriving from ''equus'', meaning 'horse'. A statue of a riderless horse is strictly an equine statue. A full-sized equestrian statue is a d ...

, that portrayed William I as the

King of Prussia The monarchs of Prussia were members of the House of Hohenzollern who were the hereditary rulers of the former German state of Prussia from its founding in 1525 as the Duchy of Prussia. The Duchy had evolved out of the Teutonic Order, a Roman C ...

. To date the Prussian Monument Institute (''Preußische Denkmal-Institut'') has recorded: * 63 equestrian statues * 231 standing statues * 5 seated statues and * 126 busts that were created and erected between 1888 and 1918 in the German-speaking region. In addition there are numerous William I monuments on which the emperor is portrayed in a relief medallion or which commemorates the emperor in a dedicatory inscription. During the " imperial era" 28 Emperor William I towers were also built. They are most commonly known in English sources as Emperor William monuments or Kaiser Wilhelm monuments.

History

A distinction must be made between two groups of monuments: * those erected in honour of

William I William I; ang, WillelmI (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first Norman king of England, reigning from 1066 until his death in 1087 ...

of Prussia (22 March 1797 – 9 March 1888), who was proclaimed

German Emperor The German Emperor (german: Deutscher Kaiser, ) was the official title of the head of state and hereditary ruler of the German Empire. A specifically chosen term, it was introduced with the 1 January 1871 constitution and lasted until the offi ...

during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 in the

Hall of Mirrors The Hall of Mirrors (french: Grande Galerie, Galerie des Glaces, Galerie de Louis XIV) is a grand Baroque style gallery and one of the most emblematic rooms in the royal Palace of Versailles near Paris, France. The grandiose ensemble of the hal ...

Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, u ...

on the initiative of Bismarck, and * those in honour of his grandson, William II (27 January 1859; – 4 June 1941), who had to abdicate at the end of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

in November 1918. Even before the imperial period it was customary in Prussia not to erect monuments to living monarchs. Moreover, before official monuments of members of the royal house, i.e.

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...

, could be built, a so-called 'sovereign approval' had to be sought. As a result, almost all Emperor William monuments appeared only after the death of Emperor William I in 1888. There are very few monuments to the last German Emperor, William II, for the reasons mentioned above. The only two

s are in Cologne (a free-standing monument on the

Hohenzollern Bridge The Hohenzollern Bridge (german: Hohenzollernbrücke) is a bridge crossing the river Rhine in the German city of Cologne (German: ''Köln''). It crosses the Rhine at kilometre 688.5. Originally, the bridge was both a railway and road bridge. ...

) and in Wuppertal's

Elberfeld Elberfeld is a municipal subdivision of the German city of Wuppertal; it was an independent town until 1929. History The first official mentioning of the geographic area on the banks of today's Wupper River as "''elverfelde''" was in a docu ...

district (a 3/4 scale relief). Emperor William monuments were mainly built in

and in larger cities outside of Prussia, usually on the initiative of private individuals. The organization of finance, tendering, planning and unveiling was carried out by memorial committees that were dissolved after completion of the monument. The best known surviving Emperor William monuments today are the 81-metre-high

Kyffhäuser Monument The Kyffhäuser (,''Duden - Das Aussprachewörterbuch, 7. Auflage (German)'', Dudenverlag, sometimes also referred to as ''Kyffhäusergebirge'', is a hill range in Central Germany, shared by Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt, southeast of the Harz mou ...

(1890-1896), The Emperor William Monument at

Porta Westfalica Porta Westfalica () is a town in the district of Minden-Lübbecke, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The name "''Porta Westfalica''" is Latin and means "gate to Westphalia". Coming from the north, the gorge is the entry to the region of West ...

, unveiled in 1896, and the monument at the

Deutsches Eck ''Deutsches Eck'' (, "German Corner") is the name of a promontory in Koblenz, Germany, where the Mosel river joins the Rhine. Named after a local commandry of the Teutonic Order ("Teutonischer Orden"), it became known for a monumental equest ...

Koblenz Koblenz (; Moselle Franconian language, Moselle Franconian: ''Kowelenz''), spelled Coblenz before 1926, is a German city on the banks of the Rhine and the Moselle, a multi-nation tributary. Koblenz was established as a Roman Empire, Roman mili ...

erected in 1897. All three were designed by Berlin architect,

Bruno Schmitz Bruno Schmitz (21 November 1858 – 27 April 1916) was a German architect best known for his monuments in the early 20th century. He worked closely with sculptors such as Emil Hundrieser, Nikolaus Geiger and Franz Metzner for integrated arch ...

. The first (still surviving) monument to William I, which portrays him as

on horseback, stands at the bridgehead of Cologne's

(right bank, i.e. on the Deutz side). The only monument showing Emperor William I in civilian clothes, stands in the spa park at

Bad Ems Bad Ems () is a town in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Rhein-Lahn rural district and is well known as a spa on the river Lahn. Bad Ems is the seat of the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' (administrative community) Bad E ...

. It was unveiled on 7 May 1893 and portrays the monarch as people saw him when he was visiting the spa in the town. One of the 231 statues of Emperor William I was unveiled in 1894 in Wiesbaden. The monument, with a height of 6.8 metres, had been created by Dresden sculptor, Johannes Schilling, and bore the inscription "The grateful city of Wiesbaden" on its base. The last official monument was the equestrian statue "for"

Lübeck Lübeck (; Low German also ), officially the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (german: Hansestadt Lübeck), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 217,000 inhabitants, Lübeck is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast and in the stat ...

: the authorization and contract award were issued in 1914; although the die was ready for casting, no bronze was available because of the First World War. So the statue was only completed in 1919.

Gallery

File:Rheda-Wiedenbrück Kriegerdenkmal Wilhelm I.jpg, William I atop Rheda-Wiedenbrück's three wars' memorial File:Kyffhaeuser Wilhelm.JPG, Statue of William I as part of the

File:Deutsches Eck Koblenz Kaiser Wilhelm I.jpg, The monument at the

("German Corner") in Koblenz File:Kaiser-wilhelm-denkmal-hamburg-planten-un-blomen.jpg, Schilling's version,

Planten un Blomen Planten un Blomen is an urban park with a size of in the inner-city of Hamburg, Germany. The name Planten un Blomen is Low German for "Pflanzen und Blumen" in German or "Plants and Flowers" in English. History The first plant was a Platanus, p ...

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

History

Gallery

See also