Siegessäule
Siegessäule rises on the Alten Garten in Schwerin as a twenty-three-metre monument to Mecklenburg soldiers who died in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 to 1871. Its form recalls the Phokas Column in Rome, giving the square a distinctly Roman architectural reference.
Grand Duke Friedrich Franz II commissioned the monument, and Hermann Willebrand designed it before completion in October 1874. Red Swedish granite forms the column, while blue-grey Saxon granite supports its base, where bronze plaques carry the names of 650 fallen soldiers. Gustav Willgohs created Megalopolis, the figure above, with a Wendish Crown, a sword bearing a laurel wreath, and a shield marked by the Mecklenburg bull's head.
A nearby air-raid-shelter explosion in 1947 left the structure largely intact, and restoration in June 2021 returned the original paint to Megalopolis. That crowned figure remains the clearest detail to look for above Schwerin's Alten Garten.
- City
- Schwerin
- Content updated
Take this page with you
The myTuur app is free, and once you are standing at a spot its story starts by itself.
Spots like this one are the stops myTuur strings into tours through Schwerin. In the app, each story begins where you stand: walk up to a spot and it starts, read it on screen or listen as you go, then follow the route to the next one.
What is myTuur?
myTuur is a free city-guide app. Its tours are built from spots, and each spot carries a story that starts when you get there, to read or to listen to as you like.