Memorial Gerhard von Scharnhorst, Military memorial in Berlin-Mitte, Germany.
The Scharnhorst Memorial is a 5.73-metre-tall marble monument on Unter den Linden in Berlin-Mitte, created by Christian Daniel Rauch after a design by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. The 2.67-metre statue shows Gerhard von Scharnhorst leaning on a tree stump, his right hand raised in thought and his left holding a rolled document. The 3.06-metre base carries four reliefs of his army reforms.
Prussian General Gerhard von Scharnhorst died in 1813 and received this marble monument a few years later, created between 1819 and 1822. King Friedrich Wilhelm III commissioned the work to honor one of his key military reformers.
The memorial's base carries four reliefs showing Scharnhorst's army reforms: Minerva teaching two boys the science of war at the front, weapons manufacture at the back and combat on the left, with an eagle and the dedication inscription above. The figure leans on a tree stump, right hand raised in thought, left hand holding a rolled document.
The original marble was moved to the Zitadelle Spandau in June 2021, following a 2017 recommendation by the Landesdenkmalamt, and a copy is to replace it. The empty site faces the Neue Wache on Unter den Linden; the Bülow Memorial opposite was only re-erected there in 2002. Preservationists such as Gabi Dolff-Bonekämper argue for returning the copies to the spots Schinkel and Rauch designed them for.
The inscription on the base features the Prussian king's name and the year of dedication, showing direct royal recognition of the reformer. This dedicatory plaque documents how rulers used public monuments to acknowledge their political allies.
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