Hitler wanted to build a triumphal arch
The triumphal arch was part of the reconstruction of Berlin, which Hitler and his architect Albert Speer envisioned as the capital of the world.
As early as 1938, the reconstruction of Berlin into what was to be called Germania began. The idea was that once Germany had defeated its neighbors and created Lebensraum, living space, for the made up “Germanic master race”, the Greater Germanic Reich would be founded.
Berlin was to be the center of the new empire, and London and Paris were to look up to the new world capital.
Therefore, everything had to be torn down. Hitler and Speer had concrete plans for central Berlin and were already underway before the war began.
An east-west axis was established through the Tiergarten park from the Brandenburg Gate to the district of Charlottenburg. The street that already ran through the park was widened, and the Victory Column, commemorating Prussia’s victories over Denmark and France, was moved to the center of the east-west axis.
But the greatest symbol of Germany’s war effort and victory was to be a triumphal arch at the beginning of a south-north axis through Tiergarten.
The triumphal arch was to be about 100 meters (330 ft) high, based on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, only larger. The triumphal arch was to have the names of the 1.8 million Germans who died during World War I engraved on it.
From the triumphal arch, the Prachtallee, Avenue of Splendors, would run with one monument after another to show the greatness of the German people. And at the end would be the Volkshalle, the People’s Hall. A gigantic building with a dome on top, which Hitler himself had designed.
But as we know, it never happened. Germany lost the war.
At the end of Hitler’s planned Prachtallee, the four powers that ended the war decided to create a mass grave for the Soviet soldiers who fought against the Germans in the final weeks of the war before Hitler committed suicide.
On top of the mass grave, they even built a monument with a statue of a Soviet soldier holding a caring hand over his fallen comrades in the mass grave.
As someone who lives in Berlin, I think of Hitler’s plan for a triumphal arch every time I walk past the Soviet war memorial in Tiergarten. And I am grateful that we got another monument in Berlin instead of the triumphal arch.
A monument to the victory over Hitler.