Brandenburg Gate

“ The famous Unter den Linden, nearly two hundred feet wide and three fourths of a mile in length, with a double line of lime-trees enclosing an area of greensward along the centre, would be accounted anywhere a handsome street, with the palaces of the Pariser Platz at one end, the Imperial palaces, the Arsenal, the Academy, and the University at the other, and brilliant shop-windows lining both sides of the whole length, while the Brandenburg Gate and the great equestrian statue of Frederick the Great at either extremity close the fine vista. ”

“ The main Jewish synagogue, a fine building in oriental style, erected in 1866, stands in a commanding position in the Oranienburger-strasse and is remarkable for its stained glass. Berlin was a walled city until 1867-1868. Of the former nineteen city gates only one remains, the Brandenburg Gate (1789-1793) , an imitation of the Propylaea at Athens. It is 201 ft. broad and nearly 65 ft. high, and is supported by twelve Doric columns, each 44 ft. in height, and surmounted by a car of victory (Auriga) , which, taken by Napoleon to Paris in 1807, was brought back by the Prussians in 1814. ”

“ Owing to the scarcity of stone the city is mostly built of brick, stuccoed and painted, or colored in a variety of ways, which gives it a light and beautiful appearance. Notwithstanding all its disadvantages of situation Berlin is one of the most splendid cities in Europe. Few can show so much architectural splendor as is seen in the colossal palace, the beautiful colonnade of the new museum, and many other buildings. The Brandenburg Gate, one of the principal ornaments of the city, is probably the most splendid portal in Europe, built after the model of the Propylæum at Athens, but larger. ”

“ The wider streets—such as the Kant Strasse, running downhill from the royal castle to the river, and the Kneiphof'sche Langgasse, leading southward to the Brandenburg gate and the great world—must needs make use of the Kramer Brucke. Here, it may be said, every man in the town must sooner or later pass in the execution of his daily business, whether he go about it on foot or in a sleigh with a pair of horses. ”

“ Then Unter den Linden, Friedrichstrasse and the Tiergarten are one seething mass of gray coats—gray the color of everything and yet the color of nothing. This field gray blends with the streets, the houses, and the walls, and the dark clothes of the civilians stand out conspicuously against this gray mass.
Soldiers Marching Through Brandenburg Gate.
When I first came to Berlin, I thought it was just by chance that so many soldiers were there, but the army seems ever to increase—officers, privates, sailors and men right from the trenches. ”

“ The color of the cottages and farm-houses harmonizes or contrasts beautifully with the landscape. Roofs of brown weather-beaten thatch or of dull red tiles, in the midst of embowering trees and shrubbery, formed for us pictures of beauty long to be remembered. Frienwalde, to the northeast, has mineral springs in the most attractive part of Brandenburg, and is growing as a place of summer resort. The fine old monastery, and the ruined early Gothic abbey-church of Chorin on the Stettin Railway, the burial-place of the Margraves of Brandenburg, are interesting to all students of architecture. ”

“ In a room which opens out into the oleander bushes, the trickling fountains, and the sandstone cupids of that garden, the first four acts ripened during four weeks of work. The fifth act followed on the shores of Lake Como.
Amid surroundings which, by their beauty, bring to mind only the laws of the ideal, to hold fast to those burlesque memories from the history of the sandy Mark Brandenburg was, one may feel sure, possible only to a mind which turned in love to its Prussian home, however "treasonable" its other opinions. ”

“ The country [219] yields plenty of corn, hemp, flax, excellent pasture for numerous flocks of sheep, and a good breed of horses.—New Brandenburg is a neat and thriving town, very agreeably situated. The inhabitants carry on a considerable trade in hops, which grow in great abundance all around.
This country, which seems to be happy in its prince and other particulars, cannot rank among its blessings the neighbourhood of so great and warlike a monarch as the King of Prussia. ”

“ He munificently welcomed them to Brandenburg; showed really a noble piety and human self-pity, as well as judgment; nor did Brandenburg and he want their reward. Some twenty thousand nimble French souls, evidently of the best French quality, found a home there; made "waste sands about Berlin into pot-herb gardens"; and in the spiritual Brandenburg, too, did something of horticulture, which is still noticeable.
Certainly this Elector was one of the shiftiest of men; not an unjust man either; a pious, God-fearing man rather, stanch to his Protestantism and his Bible ”

“ It is a strange feeling thus to enjoy, thanks to our lofty point of outlook, an extended view far over the level March of Brandenburg with its teeming population all below us, a view which, old as the world is, has been vouchsafed to few mortal men. The city, with all its human life and activity, lies far below us. ”

“ And so we have now reached that point in Brandenburg history when, if some help does not come, Brandenburg will not long be a country, but will either get dissipated in pieces and stuck to the edge of others where some government is, or else go waste again and fall to the bisons and wild bears. ”

“ A Calvinist prince ruled a Lutheran people, and the new Elector, George William (1619–1640) , “of Christ-mild memory” but the weakest of his line, proved to be a puppet in the hands of Schwarzenburg, his Romanist prime-minister. Under such guidance did Brandenburg, ill-knit and ill-armed, become the battle-ground between Swede and Hapsburg in their struggle for faith and empire.
What Brandenburg suffered in the terrible decade 1630–1640, between the landing of Gustavus Adolphus in Germany and the accession of the Great Elector, can never be fully calculated. ”

“ Reasons of another kind, which we leave to the surmise of every one who knows the secrets of his own heart, might also have operated. He therefore went to the high-chancellor, without the guard, and having the farmer’s letters in his hand, stated that if his presence at the court could be dispensed with, as indeed seemed to be the case, he wished to leave the city and go to Brandenburg for eight days or a fortnight, promising to return within that time. ”

“ Two years later, at Turin, they helped to settle the affairs of Italy in the same manner as they had already done in those of Germany; headed by Prince Leopold of Anhalt, they climbed over the enemy's intrenchments, under the full fire of his artillery, shouting the old Brandenburg war-cry of "Gah to" ("Go on") . The warlike enterprise of Brandenburg never spread over a wider field than under Frederick I. Then it was that they first met the Turks in terrible battles; they showed themselves in the South of France at the siege of Toulon ”

“ In the sixteenth century that family embraced the Lutheran doctrines. It obtained from the King of Poland, early in the seventeenth century, the investiture of the duchy of Prussia. Even after this accession of territory, the chiefs of the house of Hohenzollern hardly ranked with the Electors of Saxony and Bavaria. The soil of Brandenburg was for the most part sterile. Even round Berlin, the capital of the province, and round Potsdam, the favourite residence of the Margraves, the country was a desert. ”

“ Throughout the Middle Ages North Germany, which is the region whereof Berlin is the capital, enjoyed relatively little prosperity, because Brandenburg, for example, lay beyond the zone of those main trade routes which, before the advent of railways, served as the arteries of the eastern trade. Not until after the opening of the Industrial Revolution in England, did that condition alter. ”

“ At his accession the greater part of his territory was occupied by strangers and devastated by war, and in European politics Brandenburg was merely an appendage of the empire. Its army was useless; its soil was poor; its revenue was insignificant. At his death the state of Brandenburg-Prussia was a power to be reckoned with in all European combinations. Inferior to Austria alone among the states of the Empire, it was regarded as the head of the German Protestantism; while the fact that one-third of its territory lay outside the Empire added to its importance. ”

“ Many branches of industry were transplanted to Brandenburg, and twenty thousand Frenchmen carried the most refined arts of civilization to the coarse population thinly scattered among the sands and firs of that sombre region. French refugees paid for the hospitality of the Elector Frederick by laying the foundation of the high destinies of Berlin, which on their arrival was still but a small city of twelve or fifteen thousand souls, and which, thenceforth, took a start which nothing was to arrest. ”

“ So that to our distressed imagination those poor "Markgraves of Witekind descent," our first set in Brandenburg, become altogether shadowy, intermittent, enigmatic, painfully actual as they once were. Take one instance, omitting others; which happily proves to be the finish of that first shadowy line, and introduces us to a new set very slightly more substantial. ”

“ Brandenburg saw its towns sieged and sacked, its country populations driven to despair, by the one party and the other. Three times,—first in the Wallenstein Mecklenburg period, while fire and sword were the weapons, and again, twice over, in the ultimate stages of the struggle, when starvation had become the method—Brandenburg fell to be the principal theatre of conflict, where all forms of the dismal were at their height. ”

“ Sure enough, some Markgraf must take charge of Brannibor,—he of the Lausitz eastward, for example, or he of Salzwedel westward:—that Brannibor, in time, will itself be found the fit place, and have its own Markgraf of Brandenburg; this, and what in the next nine centuries Brandenburg will grow to, Henry is far from surmising. Brandenburg is fairly captured across the frozen bogs, and has got a warden and ninth-man garrison settled in it: Brandenburg, like other things, will grow to what it can. ”

“ And since the King has transferr'd the Regency of the Country hither from Hall, the Town grows every day finer, so that it may now be reckon'd one of the most beautiful Towns in the two Circles of Saxony.
From Magdebourg in my Way to Berlin I pass'd thro' Brandenburg, which is a City on the River Havel, that was built by M. Branden, a Prince of Franconia. 'Twas heretofore a Bishopric, but now the whole Country is seculariz'd,229 and makes a part of the Marquisate of Brandenburg. Here is a considerable Trade, and the King keeps a Garison in it, consisting of a Battalion of the tall Grenadiers. ”

“ The lord of Brandenburg now became a condottiere of ever-increasing reputation. His regiments brought security to his dominions and gold to his exchequer. In every European struggle their aid was welcome. On the frozen lagoons by the Baltic and on the shores of Torbay, on the torrid plain of Warsaw, and in the vine-clad valley of the Rhine—everywhere the men of the Mark approved themselves good soldiers and punctual allies. In 1660 the Great Elector netted his profit from the Northern war by receiving Ost-Preussen free from Polish suzerainty. ”

“ The margravate of Brandenburg has grown from as small beginnings to a formidable power; and though it is late in the day to try adventurous policies, and the age of war seems ended, Fortune, we must not forget, still blindly turns her wheel for men and nations. ”

“ There hardly ever came to sovereign power a young man of twenty under more distressing, hopeless-looking circumstances. Political significance Brandenburg had none—a mere Protestant appendage dragged about by a Papist Kaiser. His Father's Prime Minister was in the interest of his enemies; not Brandenburg's servant, but Austria's. The very Commandants of his Fortresses, Commandant of Spandau more especially, refused to obey Friedrich Wilhelm on his accession—"were bound to obey the Kaiser in the first place." ”

“ In Germany the mark of Brandenburg is especially rich in buildings enriched with modelled terracotta. The church of St Catherine in the town of Brandenburg is decorated in the most lavish way with delicate tracery and elaborate string-courses and cornices enriched with foliage all modelled in clay; the town-hall of Brandenburg is another instance of the same use of terracotta. At Tangermiinde, the church of St Stephen and other buildings of the beginning of the 15th centur are wonderful examples of this method of decoration ”

“ His success in founding and organizing the army of Brandenburg-Prussia was amply demonstrated by the great victory which he gained over the Swedes at Fehrbellin in June 1675, and by the eagerness with which foreign powers sought his support. He was also the founder of the Prussian navy. The elector assisted trade in every possible way. He made the canal which still bears his name between the Oder and the Spree; established a trading company; and founded colonies on the west coast of Africa. ”

“ I need not tell you that the house of Brandenburg is a rising house. The economy of the late king, the spirit of discipline he introduced into his army, the ambition, talents, and active genius of the present monarch, must render that house a powerful friend or formidable enemy."
He gives an equally decisive opinion of the Austrian policy—
"I apprehend that the principal object of the court of Vienna will be to distract, divide, and devour the Prussian dominions. ”