Garrison Church ( Potsdam ) The Garrison Church ( ) was a Baroque church in Potsdam , eastern Germany . It was built under the second Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm I . between 1730 and 1735 . During World War II , the church burned down on 14 April 1945 . The ruin was demolished on 23 June 1968 by the SED leadership under Walter Ulbricht . A reconstruction society aims to rebuild the Garrison Church by 2017 , financed with donations . History . From 1720 to 1722 , the first Potsdam Garrison Church was built as a square half - timbered building on the plantation between the roads Dortustrasse and Yorckstrasse . After the completion the military community and the German Reformed Church moved in . Regular church services were held . The swampy land in Potsdam and the inadequate foundation of the building required demolition plans a few years later as the building began to sag . The king Friedrich Wilhelm I commissioned the architect Philipp Gerlach to build a new church . Fascinated by the high church towers he had seen on a visit to Holland , he decided , that the garrison church should also receive a high tower . Constructions began in 1731 and were completed in 1735 . In 1740 , Frederick Wilhelm I , who built the church , was interred there , as was his son Frederick the Great in 1786 . Their coffins were removed prior to the church ' s destruction . On September 27 , 1817 , King Frederick William III announced that on the 300th anniversary of the Reformation Potsdam ' s Reformed court and garrison congregation , led by Court Preacher Rulemann Friedrich Eylert , and the Lutheran garrison congregation , then both using the Calvinist Garrison Church would unite into one Evangelical Christian congregation on Reformation Day , October 31 . Frederick William expressed his desire to see the Protestant congregations around Prussia follow this example , and become Union congregations . Both , Calvinist and Lutheran church , were then subject to state supervision , carried out by the newly created " " ( , est . in 1817 ) . Karl vom Stein zum Altenstein was appointed as minister . In the years that followed , many Lutheran and Reformed congregations did follow the example of Potsdam , and became single merged congregations , while others maintained their former Lutheran or Reformed denomination . On 21 March 1933 , which became known as the ' Day of Potsdam ' , after a sermon held by Otto Dibelius , the competent pastor , the new Chancellor Adolf Hitler and Reich President Paul von Hindenburg ceremonially opened the first Reichstag of the Third Reich . This event served as a propaganda pitch to the old aristocratic and conservative class , to demonstrate that the new regime appreciated the sacredness of old Prussia . This venue was chosen for both its historical significance with connections to Frederick the Great and beyond , and the fact that the Reichstag in Berlin had been burned in an alleged Communist plot to seize the government . In a bomb attack on 14 April 1945 the Church seemed to remain intact . Then , however , the adjacent " Long Barn " began to burn and the fire reached the church . Walter Ulbricht , first secretary of the SED Central Committee , visited the city in 1967 and decided that the garrison church , as well as the other ruins of war , must be demolished . This was done in 1968 . Planned reconstruction . The tower and steeple are planned to be reconstructed as a first step , followed by the whole building . The groundbreaking ceremony , at which numerous celebrities such as Richard von Weizsäcker and Manfred Stolpe participated , was held on 14 April 2005 . There has been some opposition to the reconstruction of the Garrison Church , both from members of the Lutheran church and also from left wing political groups , due to fears of it being seen as a glorification of Prussian militarism and a rallying point for Neo - Nazis . The church was even labelled the " Yasukuni Shrine of Germany " . A citizen ' s group opposing the reconstruction was formally founded in May 2011 . Description . The tower of the garrison church , with a total height of 88 . 43 metres , extended into the street and thus formed their appearance . The spire was an oak engineered floor on which a weather vane was installed . The side walls of the tower were broken on either side with narrow longitudinal windows with decorative figures at the corners . Above the main portal was an inscription in golden letters , which read : " Friedrich Wilhelm , King of Prussia built this tower along with the garrison church for the glory of God in 1735 . " Some of the letters still exist . The carillon . A carillon of 35 bells was installed in a small tower on the roof of the first Garrison Church of Potsdam in 1722 . It was cast in 1721 by the Dutch bell - founder Jan Albert de Grave from Amsterdam . In 1721 , de Grave was the only bell founder in the north of the Netherlands who could cast and tune bells . He was married to the widow of Claude Fremy . Claude Fremy was a pupil of the famous Hemony brothers in the city bell - foundry in Amsterdam . In 1733 , the carillon was enlarged with 5 bass bells cast and installed by Paul Meurer . During its first years , the carillon only played automatically although , as can be seen on the picture , there also was a baton keyboard , probably installed with the bells in 1733 . The hammers on the outside of the bells were used by the automatic mechanism of the carillon with a large playing drum . The drum was set with new melodies twelve times a year . The instrument was non transposing carillon of 40 bells tuned in meantone temperament with a bourdon of C of approximately 1900 kg . Ellerhorst states that the complete carillon weight was 10 , 180 kg . Daily , the carillon daily played " " from the opening lines of the poem " " ( " The Old Farmer to His Son " ) by Ludwig Christoph Heinrich Hölty ( 1748 – 1776 ) . The text read as follows : " " Translation : " Use always fidelity and honesty / Up to your cold grave ; / And stray not one inch / From the ways of the Lord . " To many , these lines are the very embodiment of all Prussian virtues . The carillon was destroyed by fire resulting from the bombings sustained at the end of the war in 1945 . Reconstruction . In 1987 , a group from the " " ( Iserlohn Paratroopers ) formed the " ( TPG ) " to support the reconstruction of the church ' s bells . They commissioned a new carillon to be hung in the new tower of the Garrison church . For 470 , 000 Deutsche Mark they ordered 40 new bells which have the names of the sponsors ( private and militarily regiments ) . Some of the new bells have names of lost parts of Germany , such as : East Prussia , Königsberg , Silesia , Breslau ( Wrocław ) , Pomerania ( Pommern ) , Stettin ( Szczecin ) and West Prussia . On 14 April 1991 , the new bells were given to the city of Potsdam and mounted temporarily in a steel framework . In the future , the TPG , in the words of its chairman Max Klaar , hopes to rebuild the Garrison Church tower as a symbol of peace and the formal reunification of the two Germanys .