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Fallen off the horse

The pleasure garden in front of the Old Museum was turned into a parade-ground covered with sand during the reign of the “Soldier-King”. As soon as he assumed power in 1713 he cancelled all expenses for the garden and had all rare plants, statues and flower tubs removed. To the dismay of all townspeople 100 years later Napoleon made his troups bivouac on the lawn that in the meantime had covered the place. The garden designer Lenné intervened between 1826 and 1829 and restructured the entire space. After June 16th 1871 the centre of the pleasure garden was dominated by an equestrian sculpture of Friedrich Wilhelm III that commemorating the return of the victorious soldiers from the Franco-German war. During the first years of the GDR not only the city palace was blown up; even earlier the already damaged sculpture was melted down – pragamatic and ideologically correct – as non-ferrous metal scrap.