Otto, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg, born Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck, was a Prussian and later German statesman and diplomat. From his origins in the upper class of Junker landowners, Bismarck rose rapidly in Prussian politics, and from 1862 to 1890 he was the minister president and foreign minister of Prussia. Before his rise to the executive, he was the Prussian ambassador to Russia and France and served in both houses of the Prussian parliament. He masterminded the unification of Germany in 1871, and served as the first chancellor of the German Empire until 1890, in which capacity he dominated European affairs. He had served as chancellor of the North German Confederation from 1867 to 1871, alongside his responsibilities in the Kingdom of Prussia. He cooperated with King Wilhelm I of Prussia to unify the various German states, a partnership that would last for the rest of Wilhelm's life. The King granted Bismarck the titles of Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen in 1865 and Prince of Bismarck in 1871. Bismarck provoked three short, decisive wars against Denmark, Austria, and France. Following the victory against Austria, he abolished the supranational German Confederation and instead formed the North German Confederation as the first German national state, aligning the smaller North German states behind Prussia, while excluding Austria. Receiving the support of the independent South German states in the Confederation's defeat of France, he formed the German Empire – which also excluded Austria – and united Germany.
William I or Wilhelm I was King of Prussia from 2 January 1861 and German emperor from 18 January 1871 until his death in 1888. A member of the House of Hohenzollern, he was the first head of state of a united Germany. He was de facto head of state of Prussia from 1858, when he became regent for his brother Frederick William IV. During the reign of his grandson Wilhelm II, he was known as Wilhelm the Great.
Georg Leo Graf von Caprivi de Caprara de Montecuccoli was a German general and statesman who served as the chancellor of the German Empire from March 1890 to October 1894. Caprivi promoted industrial and commercial development, and concluded numerous bilateral treaties for reduction of tariff barriers. However, this movement toward free trade angered the conservative agrarian interests, especially the Junkers. He promised educational reforms to the Catholic Center party which would increase their influence, but failed to deliver. As part of Kaiser Wilhelm's "new course" in foreign policy, Caprivi abandoned Bismarck's military, economic, and ideological cooperation with the Russian Empire, which historians consider a major mistake. Even worse, Caprivi misjudged multiple opportunities to open good relations with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Frustrated, Britain turned to the Empire of Japan and the French Third Republic for agreements. Caprivi's downfall came with trade agreements that favored German industry and urban workers over more powerful agricultural interests. Historians praise his refusal to renew the harsh restrictions on socialists, and his success in the reorganization of the German military.
The North German Confederation was initially a German military alliance established in August 1866 under the leadership of the Kingdom of Prussia, which was transformed in the subsequent year into a confederated state that existed from July 1867 to December 1870. A milestone of the German Unification, it was the earliest continual legal predecessor of the modern German nation-state known today as the Federal Republic of Germany.
Bernhard Heinrich Karl Martin, Prince of Bülow was a German statesman who served as the chancellor of the German Empire and minister-president of Prussia from 1900 to 1909. A fervent supporter of Weltpolitik, Bülow devoted his chancellorship to transforming Germany into a global power. Despite presiding over sustained economic growth and major technological advancement, his government's foreign policy did much to antagonize France and Great Britain, which contributed significantly to Germany's defeat in the First World War.
The Hermannsdenkmal is a monument located southwest of Detmold in the district of Lippe, in Germany. It stands on the densely forested Grotenburg, sometimes also called the Teutberg or Teut, a hill in the Teutoburger Wald range. The monument is located inside the remains of a circular rampart.
Reinhold Begas was a German sculptor.
The Siegesallee was a broad boulevard in Berlin, Germany. In 1895, Kaiser Wilhelm II ordered and financed the expansion of an existing avenue, to be adorned with a variety of marble statues. Work was completed in 1901.
The Soviet War Memorial is a war memorial and military cemetery in Berlin's Treptower Park. It was built to the design of the Soviet architect Yakov Belopolsky to commemorate 7,000 of the 80,000 Red Army soldiers who fell in the Battle of Berlin in April–May 1945. It opened four years after the end of World War II in Europe, on 8 May 1949. The Memorial served as the central war memorial of East Germany.
The Soviet War Memorial is one of several war memorials in Berlin, the capital city of Germany, erected by the Soviet Union to commemorate its war dead, particularly the 80,000 soldiers of the Soviet Armed Forces who died during the Battle of Berlin in April and May 1945.
Wilhelm Hasenclever was a German politician. He was originally a tanner by trade but later became a journalist and author. However, he is most known for his political work in the predecessors of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).
Tiergartenstraße is a street in the Tiergarten district in central Berlin, the capital of Germany. The street runs east-west along the southern edge of the Großer Tiergarten park from Kemperplatz and Ben-Gurion-Straße near Sony Center and Potsdamer Platz in the east to the intersection of Hofjägerallee and Klingelhöferstraße in the west. On the street’s southern side, the street intersects with, Herbert-von-Karajan-Straße, Stauffenbergstraße, Hildebrandstraße, Hiroshimastraße and Clara-Wieck-Straße.
The Motherland Calls is the compositional centre of the monument-ensemble "Heroes of the Battle of Stalingrad" on Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd, Russia. The statue is designed in the Soviet style of socialist realism. It was created by sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich and structural engineer Nikolai Nikitin, and declared the tallest statue in the world in 1967. At 85 m (279 ft), it is the tallest statue in Europe, the tallest in the eastern hemisphere outside of Asia and the tallest statue of a woman in the world. If pedestals are included, that title belongs to the Statue of Liberty in New York.
The Wilhelmine Period comprises the period of German history between 1890 and 1918, embracing the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II in the German Empire from the resignation of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck until the end of World War I and Wilhelm's abdication during the November Revolution. It affected the society, politics, culture, art and architecture of Germany and roughly coincided with the Belle Époque era of Western Europe.
The Tiergarten is Berlin’s most popular inner-city park, located completely in the district of the same name. The park is 210 hectares in size and is among the largest urban gardens of Germany. Only the Tempelhofer Park and Munich's Englischer Garten are larger.
The National Kaiser Wilhelm Monument (Kaiser-Wilhelm-Nationaldenkmal) was a memorial structure in Berlin dedicated to Wilhelm I, first Emperor of Imperial Germany. It stood in front of the Berlin Palace from 1897 to 1950, when both structures were demolished by the German Democratic Republic (GDR) government.
Count Wilhelm Otto Albrecht von Bismarck-Schönhausen was a German counselor, civil servant and politician, who served as a member of the Reichstag from 1880 to 1881 and president of the Regency of Hanover from 1889 to 1890. The youngest son of Otto von Bismarck, he and his brother Herbert von Bismarck both resigned their posts after the elder Bismarck was dismissed as Chancellor of Germany in 1890. Wilhelm subsequently accepted an appointment as Governor of East Prussia in 1894. Mount Wilhelm is the highest mountain in Papua New Guinea at 4,509 metres, part of the Bismarck Range, was named after him by Hugo Zöller.
Platz der Republik is a square in Berlin, Germany. It is located in the Tiergarten, directly in front (west) of the Reichstag building. The square has an area of about 36,900 square meters and is almost completely covered by grass but is decorated with some hedges and a few trees.
The Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims of National Socialism is a memorial in Berlin, Germany. The monument is dedicated to the memory of the 220,000 – 500,000 people murdered in the Porajmos – the Nazi genocide of the European Sinti and Roma peoples. It was designed by Dani Karavan and was officially opened on 24 October 2012 by German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the presence of President Joachim Gauck.
Kneeling Atlas
Siegfried forging the imperial sword
Germania suppressing discord and rebellion
Sibyl reading the book of history
