Lessing-Denkmal

On the southeastern edge of the Großer Tiergarten in Berlin, the Lessing Monument commemorates the German poet Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. Created between 1887 and 1890 in the Neo-Baroque style, the work by sculptor Otto Lessing ranks among the major achievements of the Berlin school of sculpture. The 10-foot-tall (3 m) white marble statue rests on a 13-foot-tall (4 m) pedestal of gray and reddish granite, decorated with bronze sculptures and inscription plaques.

On the sides of the base, you can admire reliefs of Moses Mendelssohn, Ewald Christian von Kleist, and Friedrich Nicolai, who were regarded as Lessing's friends and intellectual allies. The front shows the figure of a youth as the Genius of Humanity, accompanied by a plaque with a quotation from Lessing's drama Nathan the Wise. The back depicts an allegory of criticism, shown as a winged boy with a scourge, surrounded by books, a lion's pelt, and an owl. Originally, bronze dolphin heads were also mounted as waterspouts on small fountains.

The history of the monument has been marked by setbacks. After a failed joint project for Goethe, Schiller, and Lessing, a separate competition was announced in 1886. Emperor Wilhelm I demanded changes to the design before construction began. During World War II and the era of the Berlin Wall, parts of the ensemble were lost or put into storage. After extensive restorations, most recently in 2014 and 2015, the monument was cleaned, missing parts were replaced, and the fountains were put back into operation, so that the site now shines in renewed splendor.