Memorial Church of Emperor William

The Evangelical church at Breitscheidplatz in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin was built by Emperor Wilhelm II as a memorial to his grandfather, Emperor Wilhelm I. The winning design of the competition was created by the historicist architect Franz Schwechten, who was loosely inspired by the basilica in Münster. The neo-Romanesque church was constructed between 1891 and 1895, and its tower, reaching a height of 113 meters, was the tallest in the city.
On the night of November 22 to 23, 1943, the church was damaged during a British air raid, when the roof over the main nave collapsed and the main tower broke. The Nazi leadership assured the residents that after the end of the war, the church would be restored to its original form, as it embodied "German national pride," which, for obvious reasons, did not happen. Even after the war, there was a discussion about whether the church should be saved, but in the end, the church choir was demolished in 1956. In 1957, a competition for a new church was held, in which the design by Egon Eiermann won, which involved the complete demolition of the ruins. However, this intention sparked stormy reactions. Ultimately, a compromise was reached, and the remains of the 71-meter-high tower were retained as an anti-war monument surrounded by a complex of four Eiermann buildings: a rectangular chapel, a hexagonal new bell tower, and an octagonal main church nave with a sacristy. The new tower with the bell tower is 17.5 meters lower than the ruin of the original church tower, in the lower part of which a memorial hall has been located since 1987.
The residents of West Berlin renamed Eiermann’s building to "lipstick with powder compact" and the historical ruin to "hollow tooth." Nevertheless, they value the buildings, and they were long ago declared a cultural monument. All four Eiermann objects have a uniform appearance, characterized by a steel load-bearing structure with an outer shell made of square reinforced concrete panels filled with stained glass. Each of the more than 20,000 small square windows forms a unique motif by the French glassmaker Gabriel Loire, who was inspired by the dark blue light in the cathedral of Chartres (the artist had his workshop in this French city). According to Eiermann's design, a "light shade of water blue" was to be used, but to prevent the interior from being overlit, they ultimately opted for Loire’s shade. The double-skin structure also prevents noise from the busy adjacent roads from entering the interior. In addition to the church, Eiermann also designed most of the interior: the altar, pulpit, baptismal font, candlesticks, lamps, and chairs. Originally, there was supposed to be a simple cross above the altar, but Bishop Otto Dibelius dedicated a statue of Christ (weighing 300 kg and measuring 4.60 m in height) from Karl Hemmeter to the church during the consecration on December 17, 1961.
In the side chapel, there is a bronze plaque commemorating Protestant martyrs from 1933-45, to which a 13th-century crucifix from Spain is attached. The chapel also houses the Stalingrad Madonna, which field doctor Kurt Reuber painted on the back of a map of Russia at Christmas 1942. Unlike Reuber, the painting returned to Germany.