The Bismarck Monument stands in the St. Pauli quarter of Hamburg, on the Elbhöhe near the port jetties. Johann Emil Schaudt was the architect and Hugo Lederer the sculptor. A citizens' commission set up by Mayor Johann Georg Mönckeberg commissioned it. The site had held the Elbpavillon restaurant, removed in 1901, and the monument opened on June 2, 1906.
The granite monument is 115 feet (35 meters) tall and weighs 660 tons (600 metric tons). It cost 500,000 gold marks. It is one of 240 Bismarck memorials worldwide, and the article calls it the largest and best known of the Bismarck towers.
The designers built a large network of catacombs beneath it. Their intended purpose is unknown. In 1939 and 1940 they served as an air-raid shelter for up to 650 people. In the 1970s authorities sealed a tunnel beneath the memorial after a former British soldier reported it. The interior is closed for safety reasons.
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