page_title: Tannenberg Memorial
section_title: Concept and design
hierarchical_section_title: Tannenberg Memorial / Concept and design
caption_attribution_description: Information added by Wikimedia users.English: In East Prussia 1944, aerial view of the Monument to the Battle of Tannenberg, from a Junkers Ju 52. Français&#160;: Prusse-Orientale 1944, un Junkers Ju 52 (ombre visible au sol) de la Luftwaffe survole le mémorial de Tannenberg.
context_page_description: The Tannenberg Memorial was a monument to the German soldiers of the Battle of Tannenberg, the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes and the medieval Battle of Tannenberg. The victorious German commander, Generalfeldmarschall Paul von Hindenburg, became a national hero and was later interred at the site.
  Dedicated by Hindenburg on the 10th anniversary of the Battle of Tannenberg in 1924 near Hohenstein, the structure, which was financed by donations, was built by the architects Johannes and Walter Krüger of Berlin and completed in 1927. The octagonal layout with eight towers, each 20 metres high, was influenced by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II's Castel del Monte and Stonehenge.
  When Reichspräsident Hindenburg died in 1934, his coffin and that of his wife, who had died in 1921, were placed there despite his wishes to be buried at his family plot in Hanover. Adolf Hitler ordered the monument to be redesigned and renamed "Reichsehrenmal Tannenberg". As the Red Army approached in 1945, German troops removed Hindenburg's remains and partly demolished key structures. In 1949, Polish authorities razed the site, leaving few traces.
context_section_description: The memorial embraced the Anglo/French concept of the Unknown Soldier. In doing so, the architects anticipated the concept of Totenburgen (Fortresses of the Dead) housing mass graves of soldiers. This ideology was mooted in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. The architects imagined the memorial to be a new volkish "community of the dead" and incorporated the burial of 20 unknown German soldiers from the Eastern Front into the project concept.
  The memorial was built in a prominent place in a shape reminiscent of the castles of the Teutonic Knights. The monument's location on a hilltop was accentuated by massive earthworks and landscaping designed to look as if nature alone had shaped the site. The design influenced other projects undertaken by architects and builders during the era.
caption: Aerial view 1944, from a Luftwaffe plane.
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