Memorial Frederick I of Prussia

The bronze statue of King Friedrich I stands in the courtyard of Schloss Charlottenburg in Berlin. It is a full-scale copy of a lost monument that once stood before Königsberg Castle. Andreas Schlüter designed the original in 1697–98, and its likeness was recreated in 1972 using a surviving plaster cast kept in East Berlin’s Gipsformerei. The initiative came from sculptors Gerhard Marcks and Waldemar Grzimek, who sought to restore the Prussian king’s likeness to the city. Hartwig Schmidt and Fritz Becker reproduced the original pedestal, completing the work that now honours Friedrich I in Charlottenburg’s Schlosshof. The project revived a piece of Prussian art thought lost after the Second World War. Visitors find the statue mounted on its reconstructed pedestal near the palace’s main entrance. The bronze figure shows the king in regal armour, crowned and holding a sceptre. The setting combines royal history with 17th-century craftsmanship, framed by the yellow-and-white façades of Schloss Charlottenburg.