Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
accented with Gothic sculpture and an altar cross made of gilded and enamel-decorated
ivory.
It was Berlin's only Catholic house of worship until 1854. During WWII St Hedwig was
a centre of Catholic resistance led by Bernard Lichtenberg, who died en route to the Dachau
concentration camp in 1943 and is buried in the crypt.
PALACE
KRONPRINZENPALAIS
closed to the public;
100,
200, TXL)
This froufrou baroque palace was blueprinted by Johann Arnold Nering and was the resid-
ence of young Frederick before he became 'the Great'. In the 1920s, the National Gallery
showcased top contemporary artists here until the Nazis deemed them 'degenerate' and
closed down the exhibit. In 1990 the formal German reunification agreement was signed
here on 31 August.
MEMORIAL
NEUE WACHE
This columned, templelike neoclassical structure (1818) was Karl Friedrich Schinkel's first
Berlin commission. Originally a Prussian royal guardhouse, it is now an antiwar memorial
whose austere interior is dominated by Käthe Kollwitz's heart-wrenching sculpture of a
mother cradling her dead soldier son.
Buried beneath are the remains of an unknown soldier, a Nazi resistance fighter and soil
from nine European battlefields and concentration camps.
CHURCH
FRIEDRICHSWERDERSCHE KIRCHE
This perkily turreted church is a rare neo-Gothic design by Schinkel (1830) and cuts a com-
manding presence on the Werderscher Markt. Normally housing a museum of 19th-century
German sculpture, the building was closed in 2014 for structural damage and will remain
closed until further notice.
The postmodern hulk next to the church is the German Foreign Office.
BRIDGE
SCHLOSSBRÜCKE
Marking the transition from Unter den Linden to Museum Island, the Palace Bridge is con-
sidered among Berlin's prettiest. Designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel in the 1820s, it is dec-
