This is the Siegesgöttin (Goddess of Victory) Viktoria on the Siegessäule (Victory Column), a monument in the center of the big traffic circle Grosser Stern (Great Star) in the heart of Berlin near the Reichstag. The column is 67 meters high, and was originally erected on the old Königsplatz (King's Plaza, which is now called the Platz der Republik, or Plaza of the Republic), a memorial to Prussia's war victories and the founding of the united German Empire (the second Reich) in 1871 after the Franco-Prussian war. The column has been located here on the Grosser Stern since 1938/39.

Again with the nicknames (like those they invented for the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche) native Berliners call the golden Victory Goddess statue "Gold Else". There is a closeup of her on the next page.

I must note that I really lucked out when I came to get this photo. I hadn't had a chance to get one earlier so I took the bus back here in the evening from our hotel. The statue faces west, down the broad avenue Straße des 17. Juni (Street of the 17th of June, another section of the same road that is elsewhere called Unter den Linden -- it changes names every few blocks because of all the special events it is named to commemorate. In this case the 17th of June refers to a date when a number of people were shot trying to escape Communist East Berlin.) With the sun setting late in the day at the other end of the avenue, the column and statue were lit absolutely perfectly! There were a number of times on this trip where we would arrive at a great landmark but find that the sun was in just the wrong place to get a really good picture, so this was a welcome change!

(Besides being a cool looking monument, I was also amused by the name of the statue in light of my interest in the Japanese animated science fiction series Legend of the Galactic Heroes, because there is a scene in that show where one of the spacefleet commanders urges on his troops by saying, "Come on men! The Goddess of Victory is waving her skirts in your faces!" I was amused to learn the Germans really did have a Goddess of Victory!)

Victory Column