The construction of the church was part of a Protestant church-building programme initiated by Kaiser Wilhelm II and his consort Augusta Victoria to counter the German labour movement and socialist movement by a return to traditional religious values.

Schwechten, a native Rhinelander, planned for a large church to be built in a Neo-Romanesque style modelled on the Bonn Minster with a Tuff stone facade.

At that time, the entrance hall in the lower section had not yet been completed; that part of the church was not opened and consecrated until 22 February 1906.

In World War II, on the night of 23 November 1943, the church was extensively damaged in an air raid.

[4] After the war, in 1947, the curatorium of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche foundation (Stiftung) decided in favor of rebuilding the church, but the manner in which this should be done was contentiously debated until the late 1950s.

[5] In a two-phased design competition in 1956, the question of whether the secured remnant of the spire should be torn down or preserved was left open.

[5] The winner of the competition, architect Egon Eiermann, initially proposed, in both his submissions, for the remnant of the old spire to be torn down, in favor of a completely new construction.

[5] He had most of the remaining structure pulled down, in order to build the modern church that now occupies most of the site.

The predominant colour is blue, with small areas of ruby red, emerald green and yellow.

[8] Because of the distinctive appearance of the new buildings, it is sometimes nicknamed Lippenstift und Puderdose (the lipstick and the powder box) by Berliners.

To the left of the altar is the baptismal font on a stand filled with Carrara marble which contains a majolica bowl for the holy water.

This is a charcoal drawing made by Kurt Reuber during the time he was trapped inside Stalingrad at Christmas 1942.

[2] In 1894, Kaiser Wilhelm II donated 50,000 pounds of bronze from captured cannons to cast a new bell for the church.

The largest bell or bourdon is named Queen Luise & Kaiser Wilhelm I and it weighs 13,230 kg.

Different bells are rung on different occasions: The entrance hall in the base of the damaged spire was reopened to visitors, having been consecrated on 7 January 1987.

To the left of the statue of Christ is an icon cross[clarification needed] which was given by the Russian Orthodox Church and handed over in 1988.

[17] In December 2007, Charles Jeffrey Gray, a former British pilot who carried out World War II bombing raids over Germany, joined a campaign to rescue the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church from decay.