Where the Rhine meets the Moselle River....there's a memorial of sorts which went up in 1897 for Wilhelm I (the Kaiser). It's one of those massive displays with the landscape that draws people out.
My general advice....park up near the river front, and take a stroll along the river. Plenty of places to eat and drink. Old Koblenz is only a ten minute walk away from the river.
The display has an odd history. In the last few weeks of the war.....American artillery damaged the large statue. After the war, the French military had responsibility over the region and wanted to remove the memorial entirely.....replacing it with a 'peace-for-all' type of display instead. For some reason.....this idea wasn't really supported by the locals.
So the corner (ecke) was empty for four decades. By the early 1990s.....the idea of putting the old statue back up (in one piece) was supported by the German authorities....so in 1993....it was raised up and put into place.
The inscription with the statue? "Never will the Empire be destroyed, so long as you are united and loyal."
No comments:
Post a Comment