Berolina is the female personification of

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

and the

allegorical As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory t ...

female figure symbolizing the city. One of the best-known portraits of Berolina is the statue that once stood in Alexanderplatz.

Statue

Berlin Heimkehr d Heeres 16-06-1871 (H Scherenberg IZ 57)

In 1871, emperor

William I William I; ang, WillelmI (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first Norman king of England, reigning from 1066 until his death in 10 ...

ordered an Berolina statue in Belle-Alliance-Platz (today's Mehringplatz), to glorify the homecoming victorious troops of the Franco-Prussian War. Another statue was designed in 1889 by the sculptors (1846–1911) and Michel Lock (1848–1898) as a decorative element for the state visit of King Umberto I of Italy. The Berolina figure was produced in plaster and was placed on Potsdamer Platz. The statue of showed a woman with a crown of oak leaves. The inspiration allegedly was from a painting in the ''

Rotes Rathaus The Rotes Rathaus (, ''Red City Hall'') is the town hall of Berlin, located in the Mitte district on Rathausstraße near Alexanderplatz. It is the home to the governing mayor and the government (the Senate of Berlin) of the state of Berlin. The ...

'' city hall that featured cobbler's daughter Anna Sasse. Later, in 1895, the gypsum figure by Hundrieser was copper-melted and unveiled in Alexanderplatz on December 17. Weighing five tonnes, it was placed in front of the site where

Hermann Tietz Hermann Tietz (born 29 April 1837, in Birnbaum an der Warthe near Posen (today Międzychód, Poland), died on 3 May 1907 in Berlin) was a German-Jewish merchant, co-founder of the Tietz Department Store. He was buried in the Weißensee Cemet ...

erected his department store in 1904. Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R94716, Berlin, die

The statue was damaged in the barricade fights of the German Revolution of 1918–19. It had to be removed during the construction of the U5 underground line in 1927, but was set up again in 1933. The nearby ''Berolinahaus'', built in 1929–32 according to plans by Peter Behrens, was named after the statue. Finally dismantled on 26 August 1942, it was probably melted down in 1944 for war purposes. A model is preserved at the Märkisches Museum. In 2000, an association named "Wiedererstellung und Pflege der Berolina e.V." (''Recreation and Maintenance of Berolina eV'') was created with the aim to rebuild the statue.

Name

Many Berliner companies are named "Berolina". A leading German film studio of the 1950s was called Berolina Film. In the past, there were several radio and television broadcasts in which references were made to the city's personification. Today, it is the popular name of central Berlin Police radio. In 1980s, the "Berolina" music awards were organized, sponsored by the TV networks ARD, ZDF and ORF, and hosted on television by

Thomas Gottschalk Thomas Johannes Gottschalk (born 18 May 1950) is a German radio and television host and entertainer. He is best known for hosting '' Wetten, dass..?'', for many years Europe's biggest television show, which he steered to huge success in Germany, ...

on 27 August 1987 with a total of 15 musicians and bands. Several songs, poems, and plays are named "Berolina"; as for example, works by Kurt Tucholsky,''Berolina'' by Kurt Tucholsky
/ref> Günter Neumann, Ulli Herzog, and Alexander von Bentheim. The

Main belt The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, located roughly between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies, of many sizes, but much smaller than planets, called ...

asteroid 422 Berolina, is also named after the city.

Photogallery

File:1889 Berolina.jpg, Berolina in Potsdamer Platz, 1889 File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R75280, Berlin, "Berolina" am Alexanderplatz.jpg, Berolina in Alexanderplatz, 1900 File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-J03164, Berlin, Abtragen der Berolina-Statue.jpg, The statue in 1942 File:Berlin, Hausvogteiplatz, Tanzende Berolina von Axel Anklam.jpg, ''Dancing Berolina'', sculpture of Axel Anklam, in Hausvogteiplatz (2004)

Notes

References

External links

Berolina Statue website
of

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

{{coord missing, Berlin Culture in Berlin History of Berlin Buildings and structures in Mitte Civic personifications