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The equestrian statue of Frederick the Great stands once again in its historical place in the middle of the road Unter den Linden. It forms the official entrée to the Forum Fridericianum. The gaze of the bronzed Old Fritz faces the Prince-Heinrich-Palace, today's Humboldt-University.
Frederick the Great planned at that time his Forum Fridericianum Unter den Linden as a centre for culture. These buildings and the ones constructed by his successors, form Berlin's historical heart today.
The 13,5m high monument, built 1842-1851 after a design by Christian Daniel Rauch, was ceremonially unveiled on the 31st of May 1851 on the occasion of the 111th anniversary of the throne ascension of Frederick II. This equestrian monument is one of the most important equestrian statues of the 19th century. The "Old Fritz" is here depicted as a rider on his favourite horse in historical uniform with tricorn and cane.
Above the inscription zone at the main tablets of the multi-storey pedestal field-marshals, civil servants, scholars and artists are being depicted, in front the king's generals, in the back the contemporary Prussian poets and thinkers with Lessing and Kant. On relief-tablets at the upper part of the pedestal, virtues and scenes from the life of Frederick the Great, are being portrayed.
It consists mainly of individual bronze parts, which were originally put together by means of plug, screw and twist connections. The statue landed in GDR-times dismantled into single parts at the Potsdamer Palace Park of Sanssouci. Only with the glorification of Friedrich's life as well as the return to Berlin's Prussian traditions by the GDR-leadership, did the statue return in 1980, to Unter die Linden. The statue was restored in 1997 at Ross' Restoration workshop1997 and corrosion damage at the pedestal removed. The Deutsche Stiftung Denkmalschutz (German Foundation for Monumental Protection) participated with 1 million Marks at the restoration work.
Transport Links:
S1, S2, S25 Unter den Linden,
S1, S2, S3, S5, S7, S9, S25 Friedrichstraße 
U2 - Hausvogteiplatz, Friedrichstraße, U6 - Französische Straße 
Am Kupfergraben 
100, 147, 157, 200, 257, 348, TXL, N5