The story of this place
Unveiled in 1851 on Unter den Linden, Christian Daniel Rauch's 13.5-metre bronze of Frederick the Great on horseback is one of Germany's great monuments, its ornate base ringed with statues of the generals, statesmen and thinkers of his age, including Kant and Lessing. During World War II it was walled up for protection and survived. The East German regime, uneasy with a Prussian militarist king, removed the statue in 1950 and banished it to the park at Sanssouci. As attitudes softened, it was quietly returned to its original spot on Unter den Linden in 1980 — a small sign that even the Communist state could not fully disown Prussia's most famous king.