At the northeast corner of the Wilhelms Platz is the palace of Prince Friedrich Karl, one of the leaders of the Franco-Prussian War. It was once the temple of the Order of the Knights of Malta, but its sumptuous interior has now for many years been devoted to residence on the upper floor, and to the famous art and bric-à-brac collections of the late prince, on the ground floor. It is not difficult to gain, from the steward, the requisite permission to visit this interesting palace.
Many private houses, interesting for their associations, might be found by the sojourner in Berlin who cares to search them out; but intelligent residents only, and not the guide-books, can facilitate this search. In the Margrafen Strasse, near the Royal Library, is the house where Neander lived and studied and wrote. Near the Dreifaltische Kirche, behind the Kaiserhof, is the old-fashioned parsonage which was the home of Schleiermacher, and in the Oranienburger Strasse is the house in which lived Alexander von Humboldt.
Of the many beautiful parks, the Thiergarten overshadows all the rest, both because of its commanding location, close to Unter den Linden and other busy streets, and its great extent. A combination of park and wild forest, with streams, ponds, bridges, and miles of shaded avenues and riding-paths in perfect condition, its six hundred acres form one of the largest, most beautiful and useful parks in Europe. The elaborate and towering monument to commemorate the victories of recent Prussian and German wars is the centre of a system of grand avenues in the northeastern part. This monument was originally intended to commemorate the Schleswig-Holstein conquest; later, the victories over Austria in 1866 were to be included; and when the Franco-Prussian War was happily ended, it was decided to make of it also a fitting memorial of united Germany. On the third anniversary of the Capitulation of Sedan, Emperor William I. unveiled the colossal statue of Victory on the summit of the monument, which commemorates the chief events of his august reign.
Immense bas-reliefs on the pedestal represent, on one side, events in the Danish campaign; on another is shown the Decoration of the Crown Prince by the Emperor on the field of Sadowa, with Prince Friedrich Karl, Von Moltke, and Bismarck standing by; the third side shows the French General Reille, handing Louis Napoleon's letter of capitulation at Sedan; and the fourth, the triumphal entry of German soldiers into Paris through the Arc de Triomphe. There is also a representation of the scene, on that day when all Berlin went wild with joy and exultation over the return of the Kaiser and his troops from Paris, of their reception at the Brandenburg Gate.
Within the open colonnade of the substructure, a vast mosaic shows, in symbols, the history of the Franco-Prussian War, closing with a representation of Bavaria offering the German Crown to Prussia, and the proclamation of the Kaiser at Versailles. It was King William himself who refused to have his own image placed here as the Victor, and who substituted in the design of the artist the female figure of Borussia with the features of his mother, Queen Louise. The shaft, rising eighty-five feet above the substructure, has three divisions, with twenty perpendicular grooves in each. These grooves are filled with thrice twenty upright cannon, captured from the Danes, the Austrians, and the French, bound to the shaft by gilded wreaths of laurel. The Prussian Eagles surmount the column, forming a capital upwards of one hundred and fifty feet above the pavement; and the great statue soars nearly fifty feet still higher.
In the southeastern portion of the Thiergarten is a colossal statue of Goethe, which shows at its best in the twilight of an early summer evening, framed in the tender greens and browns of the bursting foliage behind it. Not far away are the statues of Queen Louise and King Frederick William III., parents of Emperor William I., surrounded by beautiful flowers, pools, and fountains; and the famous "Lion Group" marks the intersection of much-frequented avenues in the same neighborhood. A wide central avenue traversing the whole length of the Thiergarten from east to west allows space for the tramway to the imposing edifice of the Institute of Technology and to the Zoölogical Gardens, where is one of the largest and best collections of birds and animals in the world, each species with habitations suited to it, several built in showy Oriental style, amid concert-gardens where beautiful music may be heard every day.
A favorite walk of ours on sunny winter mornings was in the West End of Berlin, where are many of the finer aristocratic residences. No city can show, so far as we know, a handsomer residence quarter than portions of that which stretches between the Thiergarten on the north, the Zoölogical Gardens on the west, and the Botanical Garden on the south. The collections of the latter, like those of the Zoölogical Gardens, rank among the first of their kind. The great glass house which shelters the Victoria Regia is attractive chiefly in the summer, when the plants are in blossom, but the cacti and the palm houses are interesting the year round. The palm-house is a Crystal Palace on a small scale. Entering, one finds a tropical atmosphere, hot and moist. All the larger palms and some of the smaller have each a furnace to themselves, from four to six feet in diameter and the same in height. Over this furnace the great tub is set which contains the roots of the tree, over which water is frequently sprinkled. The arrangement of the trees is graceful and beautiful. There are galleries and seats everywhere; and little imagination is required to transport one's self to Oriental and Biblical scenes, with these palm-trees towering overhead. A short walk east of these gardens is the Matthai Cemetery, where repose the brothers Grimm.
The Schiller Platz, so named from the statue before the Schauspielhaus, is fortunate—if not in the life-size statue of the poet—in the fine pedestal, with its allegorical figures of Poetry, History, and Philosophy, which were originally designed to adorn a fountain. In a still more crowded part of Berlin the Donhof Platz has recently been transformed, from a barren square surrounding the statue of that great Prussian, Baron von Stein, into a lovely garden-spot, with flowers and trees and birds for the cheer of the hurrying multitudes.
The old Halle Gate, where several streets converge to the southern extremity of the Friedrich Strasse, is reached through ornamental grounds known as the Belle-Alliance Platz, in the centre of which is a column erected to commemorate the peace which followed the wars of the First Napoleon. Not far to the southwest is the Kreuzberg, the only mountain in this part of Brandenburg,—a modest eminence about two hundred feet above the sea-level. It is crowned by an iron obelisk which affords a good view of the city.
Berlin has no cemetery comparable in extent or beauty to many in the environs of American cities. Three small burial-grounds, separate but adjoining, at the southern edge of the city contain the graves of Neander, with the memorable inscription,—his favorite motto,—"Pectus est quod theologum facit;" of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, his parents and his sister Fanny; of Schleiermacher, and of our countryman, the Rev. Dr. J.P. Thompson, long-beloved pastor of the Broadway Tabernacle Church, New York. Here, also, Bayard Taylor was for a time laid to rest, before being finally removed to his native land. Decorations are not so ostentatious as in Catholic countries; and quiet ivy, simple greensward, and the shadow of trees in which birds may sing, make the quaint Berlin cemeteries attractive places. This was to us especially true of the ancient cemetery connected with the Sophien Kirche and the old Dorotheen-Stadt cemetery, in the northern part of the city, where we went to look upon the graves of Fichte and Hegel, and of several artists famous in Berlin annals. In the Sophien Kirchof lies the philosopher, Moses Mendelssohn; and in that of the Garrison Church, De la Motte Fouqué, the author of "Undine."