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Siegesallee

The Siegesallee (German for "Victory Avenue") was a broad boulevard in Berlin, Germany. in 1895, Kaiser Wilhelm II ordered and financed the construction and expansion of an existing alley with a variety of marble statues, which was finalized in 1901.

About 750 m in length, it ran northwards through the Tiergarten park from Kemperplatz (an intersection of roads on the southern edge of the park near Potsdamer Platz), to the former site of the Berlin Victory Column at the Königsplatz, close to the Reichstag. Along its length the Siegesallee cut across the Charlottenburger Chausee (today's Straße des 17. Juni, the main avenue that runs east-west through the park and leads to the Brandenburg Gate).

The marble monuments and the neobaroque ensemble were ridiculed even by its contemporaries. Berlin folkore dubbed the Kaiser Denkmalwilly (Monument Billy) for his excessive historicism. Moves to have the statues demolished were thwarted after the end of the monarchy in 1919.

The Siegessäule and the figures were moved by the Nazi government to the Große Stern in 1939 to allow for larger military parades and conventions.

Some of the monuments were lost in the aftermath of the Second World War. The allied forces (the area later belonged to the British sector) had the alley erased and the area replanted. The Soviet War Memorial (Tiergarten) was erected there, deliberately crossing the former Victor Avenue of its foes in a symbolic act immediately after the end of the war.

Currently the remaining figures are being repaired and exhibited in Spandau. They will be part of the exhibition Enthüllt – Berlin und seine Denkmäler. The track itself has recently (2006) been reconstructed as a footpath.