The story of this place
Completed in 1791 as a gate of peace, the Brandenburg Gate became Prussia's stage for triumph and humiliation. Napoleon marched through it in 1806 and looted its bronze Quadriga chariot to Paris; Prussia recaptured it in 1814 and crowned the goddess with an iron cross. Nazi torchlight parades poured through in 1933. After 1961 the Berlin Wall sealed it into a desolate no-man's-land, visible from both sides but reachable from neither. When the Wall fell in November 1989, crowds danced atop it before the gate, and on 22 December 1989 the crossing reopened. It is now the emblem of German reunification.