Neue Wache

Neue Wache was built in 1818 as a royal guardhouse on Unter den Linden and has been repurposed as a war memorial several times since, most recently in 1993 when a large-scale bronze cast of Käthe Kollwitz's sculpture 'Mother with her Dead Son' was placed beneath an oculus left open to the sky, so that rain and snow fall directly onto the statue. The effect, as reviewers repeatedly describe, is a profound simplicity — one figure, one shaft of light, no explanatory clutter — that makes the building one of the more quietly affecting stops on Unter den Linden. It's free, takes only about twenty minutes, and sits directly on the route between Museum Island and the Brandenburg Gate, so it's easy to combine with a longer walk down the boulevard.