Tannenberg Memorial

The Tannenberg Memorial (German: Tannenberg-Nationaldenkmal, from 1935: Reichsehrenmal-Tannenberg) was a monument to the German soldiers of the Battle of Tannenberg and the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes during World War I, as well as the medieval Battle of Tannenberg of 1410. The victorious German commander Generalfeldmarschall Paul von Hindenburg became a national hero and was later interred at the site. Dedicated by Hindenburg in 1924, on the tenth anniversary of the Battle of Tannenberg near Hohenstein (now Olsztynek, Poland), 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 that the monument 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, the Polish authorities razed the site, leaving few traces.