Little of the Humboldts can be seen in Berlin, the city of the Humboldt brothers.
The exhibition in her honor, which the German Historical Museum showed two years ago, has long since been dismantled and a successor is not in sight.
And the rebuilt Hohenzollern Castle is now called the Humboldt Forum, but only a few display boards and printed glass panels remind of its namesake.
But since yesterday there is a new place of Humboldt worship at the zoo, not far from the crammed castle shell.
In his official seat in Bellevue, the Federal President had a room furnished with memorabilia from the two Prussian reconnaissance officers, not in the center, but only in the south wing of the complex, but at least.
Between five showcases with stone samples from Mexico, Italy and Kazakhstan, framed by portraits of the brothers and a copy of Alexander's famous map of the earth's climate zones, a copy of Wilhelm von Humboldt's “Ideas for an attempt that To determine limits to the effectiveness of the state ”from the revolutionary year 1792. In passing, that is perhaps not much;
but it has a whistle.
A salon for Voltaire, Friedrich and Kant
The redesign is part of a historical and political heart project by Frank-Walter Steinmeier, as part of which three rooms in the main wing of the palace were redecorated. The former garden salon is now called "Salon Voltaire" and is decorated with busts of the French philosopher, his patron Frederick the Great and Immanuel Kant and six oil portraits by Anton Graff The women's salon has been transformed into the “Rahel Varnhagen Salon”, in which one of the rare portraits of the legendary Salonnière can be seen.
With this new equipment, Steinmeier wants, as he says, “to sharpen the image of what Prussia was and could have been” in the public eye.
He succeeded.
May other Berlin institutions that adorn themselves with great Prussian names follow this example.