Bismarck Towers

[Ulrich Rudofsky]

I knew that there were many monuments to Chancellor Bismarck, but I did not know about the phenomenon of the large number of memorial observation towers that were erected in his honor in various parts of the world. Some 200 survived WWII and are still standing. Some are quite elaborate, and many have been renovated.

http://www.bismarcktuerme.de/website/eb ... lisch.html

This reverence to the memory of the Chancellor tells you why there was such an intensified shock in Germany when the ship named after him sank. I may be wrong, but the sinking of Tirpitz or Blücher did not have the same psychological effect, I think.

[RF]

I knew that there were many monuments to Chancellor Bismarck, but I did not know about the phenomenon of the large number of memorial observation towers that were erected in his honor in various parts of the world. Some 200 survived WWII and are still standing. Some are quite elaborate, and many have been renovated.

http://www.bismarcktuerme.de/website/eb ... lisch.html

This reverence to the memory of the Chancellor tells you why there was such an intensified shock in Germany when the ship named after him sank. I may be wrong, but the sinking of Tirpitz or Blücher did not have the same psychological effect, I think.

There is the further irony that Bismarck the Chancellor was dead against naval rivalry with Britain and quite likely would have been horrified at a battleship being named after him in support of a such a policy.

[Ulrich Rudofsky]

There is the further irony that Bismarck the Chancellor was dead against naval rivalry with Britain and quite likely would have been horrified at a battleship being named after him in support of a such a policy

You are right. Even the Battlecruiser Fürst Bismarck was named just before his death, when he probably hardly cared. http://www.german-navy.de/hochseeflotte ... index.html , but the armed corvette Bismarck was named during his lifetime, at the height of his career. http://www.kbismarck.com/otherbis.html