The Monument to the Battle of Nations: The Biggest Monument in Europe ~ Kuriositas
▻http://www.kuriositas.com/2014/05/the-monument-to-battle-of-nations.html
The shadow of a new war was already casting a long shadow in 1913. Yet it was the year when the people of the city of Leipzig in the German state of Saxony saw the completion of their monument to a battle which had taken place exactly a century before.
The Monument to the Battle of Nations commemorated the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig. However, for almost a century after its inauguration, this remembrance of a battle of the past would be used by one group or another for their own ideological purposes.
In 1813, the coalition armies of Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Sweden had fought against the French army which also contained Polish and Italian troops not to mention Germans from the Confederation of the Rhine. Little wonder it also became known as the Battle of the Nations: involving over 600,000 soldiers, the battle was the largest in Europe preceding World War II. The monument certainly reflects the immensity of the conflict.
Yet the symbolism of this temple of death and freedom has often been misused: the monarchists in the Weimar Republic, the Nazis in the Third Reich and the Stalinists in East Germany have all attempted to use it for their own ends. It is only the last few decades which have seen it returned to its true role in the pantheon of critical commemoration and the European culture of remembrance.