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Neue Wache (New Guard House) - Berlin Hotels .com

Today, the Neue Wache (New Guard House) is a starkly dramatic memorial to victims of all twentieth-century wars. The early nineteenth-century guardhouse for Prussian troops has been hollowed out, and an open circular skylight allows rain, snow, and sunlight to fall directly onto Käthe Kollwitz's powerful sculpture, "Mother with her Dead Son" -- a modern pieta. The remains of an unknown German soldier and of an unknown concentration camp victim from World War II are enshrined in the building. Above the Doric columns, the exterior is decorated with allegories of war, a frieze of military themes, and Nike, the goddess of victory.

The building itself is architecturally significant. In 1816, it was the first public commission by leading neoclassical architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel. The building was redesigned as a memorial to war dead in 1931, when architect Heinrich Tessenow hollowed out the interior to serve as a memorial, and added the circular skylight. The building was heavily damaged during World War II, but was repaired in 1960 by the East German government.

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Unter den Linden 4 10117