Topic

Prussia & the Kaiserreich

Royal and imperial Berlin, and the painters who drew it.

Prussia & the Kaiserreich1834 In 1834 Eduard Gaertner painted Berlin all the way round from a church roof. The palace, the cathedral and the Bauakademie in it are gone.

Prussia & the Kaiserreich1887–1931 Berlin thought Lesser Ury’s night streets “crazy”. He died 20 days before the Nationalgalerie’s show of 158 of his pictures

Prussia & the Kaiserreich1711–1915 Anton von Werner painted a war minister who was off sick into the German Empire’s founding picture

Prussia & the Kaiserreich1896 Berlin’s 1896 exhibition drew 7.4 million visitors — 14,000 a day short of the number it was built for

Prussia & the Kaiserreich1812–2013 A Prussian king built a Russian village for the last twelve singers of his choir. In 2013, three of its thirteen log houses were still home to their descendants

Prussia & the Kaiserreich1881–1930 Berlin turned Siemens down. So the world’s first public electric tramway ran in Lichterfelde

Prussia & the Kaiserreich1824–2026 Schinkel’s brick church has been shut for 49 of its 195 years

Prussia & the Kaiserreich1613–1817 A Reformed dynasty ruled Lutheran Brandenburg for 204 years

Prussia & the Kaiserreich1845–1878 Prussia loved Menzel’s Frederick the Great. Menzel said the king in it “stands there like a shop clerk”

Prussia & the Kaiserreich1685–1809 By 1700, roughly one Berliner in five was a French refugee

Prussia & the Kaiserreich1871–2024 Eighty-five years on, Berlin still has 653,000 fewer people than in 1939

Prussia & the Kaiserreich1733–1771 Potsdam’s three surviving gates span 37 years — its Brandenburg Gate came eighteen years before Berlin’s

Prussia & the Kaiserreich1701–1918 Nine Hohenzollerns ruled Prussia for 217 years. In 1888, three of them wore the crown within 99 days.

Prussia & the Kaiserreich1840–1861 The king’s 21-year building programme changed hands twice in five years

Prussia & the Kaiserreich1831–1888 He waited 27 years to be emperor. He reigned for 99 days — and could not speak

Prussia & the Kaiserreich1848 Over 900 barricades forced the King of Prussia to pull his army back

Prussia & the Kaiserreich1906 An ex-convict shoemaker bought a captain’s uniform piece by piece and took over a town hall with real soldiers

Prussia & the Kaiserreichlate 16th – early 20th century Under the Berliner Dom lie 91 Hohenzollern burials. Frederick the Great’s queen is one of them. Frederick is not.

Prussia & the Kaiserreich1417–1918 Twenty Hohenzollerns ruled for 501 years. They began as electors of Brandenburg and ended as German emperors.

Prussia & the Kaiserreich1415–1918 One family ruled Brandenburg for 503 years. It ended with an abdication announced without the Kaiser’s consent.

Prussia & the Kaiserreich1746–1886 Fifteen of Friedrich II’s potato orders survive. The first, in 1746, was a measure against famine

Prussia & the Kaiserreich1756–1763 After 1,955 days of war, a death — not a battle — saved Prussia

Prussia & the Kaiserreich1859–1941 Fourteen members of one family sat on or beside nine European thrones in 1914. The kinship set none of the sides.

Prussia & the Kaiserreich1788–2002 For 28 years, Berlin’s defining gate was made inaccessible