The Most Beautiful Squares, Streets and Monuments in Germany
7 places · updated 14 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful squares, streets and monuments in Germany are Fernsehturm Berlin, Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and Walhalla, Donaustauf. The list covers 7 squares, streets and monuments. Last updated 14 October 2026.
Germany's monuments carry the weight of its history more openly than almost any other country's. Nineteenth-century kings and patriots built grand temples and towers to a national idea that did not yet exist as a state; the twentieth century added memorials to war, division and genocide; and the old towns that survived preserved streets and squares from long before any of it. Together they make a record in stone of how Germany has tried to remember itself.
Walhalla, built by Leo von Klenze for King Ludwig I of Bavaria and opened in 1842, is a marble temple modelled on the Parthenon high above the Danube, filled with busts of figures from German history. The Monument to the Battle of the Nations in Leipzig, unveiled in 1913 for the centenary of the battle against Napoleon, is a massive stone tower with colossal guardian figures inside its crypt and dome.
In Berlin, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe by Peter Eisenman, opened in 2005, is a field of grey concrete stelae of varying heights across which the ground gently rises and falls. The Soviet War Memorial in Treptower Park culminates in a statue of a soldier holding a rescued child, and the Fernsehturm, completed in 1969, rises 368 metres over the city with a steel sphere near its top. In Rothenburg ob der Tauber, the Plönlein is a small fork of cobbled streets framed by a half-timbered house and two gate towers.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fernsehturm Berlin | Observation tower | |
| 2 | Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe | War memorial | |
| 3 | Walhalla, Donaustauf | Monument | |
| 4 | Monument to the Battle of the Nations | Monument | |
| 5 | Igel Column | Archaeological site | ✓ |
| 6 | Soviet War Memorial | War memorial | |
| 7 | Plönlein | Pedestrian street |
01 Fernsehturm Berlin
Berliner Fernsehturm
Germany · 0.7 km from Berlin52.521° N 13.409° E
Image by BernardoUPloud from Pixabay The sphere produced an unintended joke. When the sun strikes its tiled stainless-steel skin, the reflection forms a bright Greek cross, and Berliners nicknamed it the "Pope's Revenge", a divine answer to a state that had stripped crosses from churches.
Did you know? A new antenna tip fitted in 1997 added three metres to the tower, bringing it from 365 to its present 368 metres.
02 Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas
Germany · 1.8 km from Berlin52.514° N 13.379° E
Dietmar Rabich · CC BY-SA 4.0 The design is by the New York architect Peter Eisenman. It grew out of a second competition in 1997, originally as a joint entry with the sculptor Richard Serra, who later withdrew. The Bundestag voted for it in June 1999 after a decade of public argument that began with a citizens' initiative led by the journalist Lea Rosh and the historian Eberhard Jäckel.
Did you know? Construction cost roughly 25 million euros, and over 3.5 million people visited in the first year.
03 Walhalla, Donaustauf
Walhalla
Germany · 7.7 km from Regensburg49.031° N 12.224° E
SimonWaldherr · CC BY-SA 4.0 The name comes from Norse myth, where Valhalla is the hall of fallen heroes, and the interior carries the idea through. The hall, clad in marble inside and out, holds about 130 busts and 65 plaques commemorating figures spanning two thousand years, beginning with Arminius, victor over the Roman legions in the Teutoburg Forest.
Did you know? At the opening on 18 October 1842 there were 96 busts plus 64 plaques for people of whom no reliable likeness survived.
04 Monument to the Battle of the Nations
Völkerschlachtdenkmal
Germany · 2.6 km from Leipzig51.312° N 12.413° E
Image by lapping from Pixabay The design is by the Berlin architect Bruno Schmitz, already the author of the Kyffhäuser Monument and the Deutsches Eck, with Clemens Thieme shaping much of the final form, and it deliberately turns away from the classical idiom of its day towards something older and heavier, closer to Mesopotamian and Egyptian models. The shell is concrete dressed in some 26,500 granite blocks.
Did you know? As early as 1814 the poet Ernst Moritz Arndt called for a colossal memorial on the battlefield, imagining an earth mound crowned by a cross among oak groves.
05 Igel Column
Igeler Säule
Germany · 9.5 km from Grevenmacher49.709° N 6.549° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Enyavar · Public domain What makes it extraordinary is how much of everyday Roman business it shows. Above a stepped base and podium, framed by flat Corinthian pilasters, carved panels cover every face. Mythological scenes sit alongside episodes from the family's own trade: cloth being delivered and inspected, bales on the move, a covered travelling carriage, tenants arriving at the house with gifts of a hare, fish, an eel, a kid, a rooster and a basket of fruit.
Did you know? Goethe saw the column during the 1792 campaign in France and later wrote about it.
06 Soviet War Memorial
Sowjetisches Ehrenmal
Germany · 6.4 km from Berlin52.486° N 13.472° E
Marek Śliwecki · CC BY-SA 4.0 The whole ten-hectare site is laid out along a single axis, and walking it is the experience the designers intended. You come in through a grey granite gateway to a statue of the grieving Motherland. From there an avenue of weeping birches climbs gently to two huge stylised banners of red granite, dipped towards the path, with a kneeling soldier at the foot of each, one older and one younger.
Did you know? The design competition drew 33 entries before the winning team was chosen.
07 Plönlein
Germany49.374° N 10.180° E
Image by maxmann from Pixabay The name comes from the Latin "planellum", a small level place, and the spot once served as a landing place for fish. Its picture-book composition is the product of the town's growth. Rothenburg received town rights from Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1172, and when the first ring of walls became too tight, the citizens began a second, much larger circuit in 1204; the Kobolzeller gate and the Siebers tower both belong to that phase.
Did you know? Aerial footage of the town was filmed for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 but did not make it into the finished film.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful squares, streets and monuments in Germany?
- On our list, Fernsehturm Berlin ranks first, followed by Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and Walhalla, Donaustauf.
- How many stelae are there in Berlin's Holocaust Memorial?
- The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe consists of 2,711 concrete stelae arranged in a grid on a sloping site near the Brandenburg Gate. An underground information centre lies beneath the field.
- Why was Walhalla built?
- King Ludwig I of Bavaria commissioned Walhalla as a hall of fame honouring distinguished figures of German history and culture. It was designed by Leo von Klenze after the Parthenon and opened in 1842.
- How tall is the Berlin TV Tower?
- The Fernsehturm on Alexanderplatz is 368 metres tall, making it the tallest structure in Germany. It was built by the German Democratic Republic and completed in 1969.
- How many squares, streets and monuments are on this list in Germany?
- The list covers 7 squares, streets and monuments.