Monument to Lessing

The Lessing Monument ( German: Lessing-Denkmal ) is located in Berlin on Lennestrasse Street in the southeastern part of the Greater Tiergarten . It is a sculptural portrait of Lessing in full growth on a pedestal with fountain bowls, bas-reliefs and allegorical bronze sculptures, has a height of seven meters.

In 1863, it was decided to erect a monument in Berlin to three prominent representatives of the German spirit: Friedrich Schiller , Johann Wolfgang Goethe and Gotthold Efraim Lessing . This project has not been implemented. The monument to Schiller , erected on Gendarmenmarkt Square, Reinhold Begas created in 1868-1871, the Goethe monument by Fritz Schaper was inaugurated in Tiergarten in 1880.

In 1886, a committee led by Karl Robert Lessing announced a competition for the design of the monument to Lessing. The initiator was the great-nephew of the poet and the main owner of the newspaper Vossische Zeitung , for which his ancestor wrote in 1751-1755. The competition was attended by 27 sculptors. According to its results, the order for the monument was received by Otto Lessing , the nephew of the chairman of the committee and a successful sculptor. He had to make changes to his project: the pedestal of the monument proposed by Lessing seemed to customers too simple. At the request of Emperor William I , who got acquainted with the sketches, a sculpture of the sphinx was removed from the back of the pedestal. Work on the monument continued in 1887-1890, the opening ceremony took place on October 14, 1890. For successful work, Otto Lessing was awarded the professorship.

The height of the sculpture of the poet in white marble is three meters. The gray pedestal and the red granite pedestal together are four meters high. The sculptures and inscriptions on the pedestal are made of bronze. Four asymmetrically framed cartouches are located in the middle part of the pedestal: on the front side of the monument is the name of Gotthold Efraim Lessing, on the other three sides there are bas-reliefs of the heads of Moses Mendelssohn , Ewald Christian von Kleist and Christoph Friedrich Nikolai . The philosopher, poet and publisher were friends and spiritual associates of Lessing.

Allegorical sculptures carrying additional symbolic meaning are installed under the cartouches on the front and back of the monument. In front of the monument under the name of Lessing, there is a young man in the image of a genius of humanity with a fiery sacrificial bowl, harp and laurel wreath, leaning on a tablet with the most important phrases from the tale of the three rings from "Nathan the Wise". Behind Lessing, an allegory of criticism is established - a winged boy with an owl, a symbol of wisdom, on a lion's skin, waving his whip surrounded by books and scrolls. To the left and to the right of the monument, gargoyles above small bowls housed the bronze heads of dolphins, made in a grotesque form.

The Lessing Monument has repeatedly suffered from vandalism and theft. In 1923, the tail of a bronze lion skin was stolen, and later it was restored ^[1] . During World War II , cast-iron parts were removed and supposedly remelted: fencing, benches and a flower tub. Portrait bas-reliefs and gargoyles disappeared after the war. In 1961, the monument was in close proximity to the Berlin Wall in an abandoned and unguarded territory. The remaining bronze parts were removed and kept in storage until the fall of the Berlin Wall in order to avoid loss.

The restoration of the monument began back in 1987, the main work was carried out in 1991-1992. The monument to Lessing regained its original appearance. After restoration, the monument again became a victim of thieves and lost gargoyles and a whip of criticism. Vandals repeatedly poured paint on the monument and bronze figures at the pedestal ^[1] .