DON'T LOSE YOUR HEAD: BERLIN'S QUADRIGA FROM BRANDENBURGER TOR
By the end of the Battle for Berlin in 1945 the city’s most recognisable landmark, Brandenburg Gate’s Quadriga, was damaged beyond recognition. Hardly anything was left of the horses and the goddess driving the four-span. Painful as it was, they had to go. But several years had to pass before that happened - there was enough work to do cleaning up the surroundings.
On May 1, 1950 the wrecked remains were finally removed from the Brandenburg Gate by an FDJ or Freie Deutsche Jugend (Free German Youth) brigade. The man in charge of the operation? The future "SED Generalissimo" (SED was East Germany’s ruling party) Erich Honecker (he co-founded Freie Deutsche Jugend in 1946).
The remains of the whole Quadriga - created by Johann Gottfried Schadow and installed on Berlin’s most famous city gate in 1793 and already repaired once after the 1918/1919 revolution in Berlin - were melted.
All elements but for one horse’s head (the man on the left is looking at it in appraisal) - today this head is part of the collection of Berliner Stadtmuseum (Berlin City Museum).