The building of the Neue Wache (new guard-house) was created 1816-1818 and was the first building that Karl Friedrich Schinkel was allowed to build Unter den Linden by Friedrich Wilhelm III. It was used as a guard-house for the crown prince palace in place of the former king's guard. The Neue Wache counts as one of the main works of the German classicism. The architect put, in the style of a Greek temple, a Doric pillar portico at the main front. The relief at the gable stems from August Kiß.

Reich's-president Paul von Hindenburg chose this place for the cenotaph of the dead soldiers of the 1st World War. The recreation followed in 1931 after designs by Heinrich Tessenow. The hall walls clad with sand-lime brick slabs surrounded a high black granite block underneath the roof-light on which lay an oak-leaf wreath made of silver and gold.

The building was redesigned after the war destructions in 1969, in the GDR to the cenotaph for the victims of fascism and militarism with an 'eternal flame' above the urns of an unknown concentration camp prisoner and an unknown soldier.

The central memorial place in the Federal Republic of Germany was inaugurated here at the end of 1993, where now a larger-than-life bronze-Pieta by Käthe Kollwitz stands next to the granite slab, which acts as a reminder for victims of war and tyranny.

Transport Links:
Unter den Linden 4
Berlin-Mitte

S1, S2, S25 Unter den Linden,
S1, S2, S3, S5, S7, S9, S25 Friedrichstraße
U2 - Hausvogteiplatz, Friedrichstraße, U6 - Französische Straße
Am Kupfergraben
100, 147, 157, 200, 257, 348, TXL, N5