2. Kaiser Wilhelm II's VICTORY AVENUE Sculptures Reappear

Don't confuse this with today's Victory Column (Siegessauele)--a close relative. And for those who don't know that both Victory monuments stood in the way of Speer's urban plans, stay tuned. First, the "news."

What remains of some 100 sculptural portraits (32 figural groupings) has begun restoration and is going on public view at Spandau Citadel. At least, a small first installment seems to have appeared August 2010, with a complete, permanent exhibit promised by 2012.

From a  footnote in an English language Wikipedia article. It cites no references/sources for the astonishing back story it tells--which reads like a mystery thriller (Victory Avenue). However, the German language version, Liste der Figurengruppen in der Berliner Siegesallee, includes an exhaustive catalog of the entire Spandau collection.

So, if you live close enough, do track down the exhibition, in Spandau Citadel newsletters (the website was not too helpful). Enthuelt--Berlin und seine Denkmaeler is the exhibition title to look for. This brief snapshot notice of the August 2010 event lists Magui Kampf as Architect Scenographer--I would guess the designer of the exhibit as well as "curator" perhaps.

And, please, I'd ask those closer to the scene and local materials to check the history and post back what you may know. Thanks for any help.

Readers in English speaking areas at some distance from Germany could easily have missed all this--especially those, like myself, whose main connection is via the Nazi plans for Berlin. It's a bit of a reach.

I first worked on captured German documents in the US Library of Congress in the 1970's, as a grad student at Cornell University, and used them as the basis of a dissertation on the Speer Plan, and later book. We know the painstaking fact checks involved--mountains of them.

So I was stunned to find, years later, I had never really accounted for the Victory Avenue--post War. It did not show up on maps inventorying wartime destruction, so, like much else, seemed simply "erased." By 2000, when I visited Berlin, the trail was very dead, though according to Wikipeida, the sculptures had been literally dug up and were languishing in a sewage pumping station turned museum, The Lapidarium.

I was not alone in losing track, I'd guess. By the time Berliners, and others, in the 40's had gotten their bearings, the Victory Avenue had simply disappeared.

According to Wikipedia, all the Victory Avenue sculptures had been buried in the Tiergarten for safe keeping. So "out of sight, out of mind" ruled, for me, and others.

And if the Avenue was missing from its original location, on post-War maps, it seems that Speer had moved it to a NW/SE lying "Grosser Stern Allee" running off the Grosser Stern, and renamed that leg New Victory Avenue (Neue Siegesallee). I have verified that much on Berlin maps of the time.

Speer made this move, since the Victory Avenue lay in the path of his new N/S Boulevard. We know the logic, from the Victory Avenue's now famous cousin, the Victory Column which Speer removed from the then Platz der Republik in front of the Reichstag building, to clear space for his own Great Hall.

So distraction played a role. The Victory Column (Siegessaeule) survived, and has won the hearts of many Berliners, as a perfect  city-wide, outdoor  meeting place (President Obama spoke there in 2008). A riveting visual focus for today's Berlin.

By contrast, the Victory Avenue lay deep sixed under ground, or out of view--until now. At least, that's the tale. Stranger than fiction. I would love to hear if the story is all true, as would anyone who follows Berlin planning generally, or the Speer Plan. Tantalizing. Please help.