William I Monument, Coblenz: Overall view

Located at the tip of Deutsches Eck ('German Corner'), the name of a headland in Koblenz where the Moselle joins the Rhine River. In 1897, a monument to German Emperor William I of Germany (Kaiser Wilhelm I), mounted on a 14 meter high horse, was inaugurated by his grandson William II. The architect was Bruno Schmitz, who was responsible for a number of nationalistic German monuments and memorials. During World War II, the statue was destroyed by US artillery and taken down. In 1993 a copy of the statue, donated by a local couple, was reinstalled. The D\u00FCsseldorf sculptor, Raymond Kittl, was commissioned to produce a replica of the original sculpture and the remodelled statue was created from durable cast bronze unlike the original which had been made from copper plates.