Walhalla (memorial)

Walhalla (German pronunciation: [valˈhala] ) is a hall of fame monument in Bavaria that honours laudable and distinguished people in German history – "politicians, sovereigns, scientists and artists of the German tongue"; While all new inductees since 1890 have been Germans or German-speakers, several earlier honorees came from outside modern Germany, which had not yet been established when the monument was built. Their inclusion reflects a 19th-century, still evolving, more loosely defined concept of "Germanness", one that would today be seen as conflating the term "German" with the much broader notion of having spoken a Germanic language or being of partial or supposed German ancestry. The Walhalla memorial is named for the Valhǫll of Norse Paganism. It was conceived in 1807 by Crown Prince Ludwig I of Bavaria in order to support the gathering momentum for the unification of the many German states into the German Empire. Following his accession to the throne of Bavaria, construction took place between 1830 and 1842 under the supervision of the architect Leo von Klenze. The memorial displays some 65 plaques and 130 busts covering 2,000 years of history, beginning with Arminius, victor at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in the year 9 AD. The entire system including the substructure is 125 meters long and 55 meters high, the shape of complex is a Greek temple in the style of a Doric Peripteros. The roof is supported by an iron structure that was ultra-modern for the time. The length of the classicist temple building is 66.7 meters, the width is 31.6 meters, and the height is 20 meters. The fully sculptural gable field on the north side, designed by Christian Daniel Rauch and executed by Ludwig von Schwanthaler, shows on the left the Germanic tribes under Arminius in the battle in the Teutoburg...