[2] On the eastern side of the monument under the memorial inscription for the Battle of Großgörschen (aka Lützen) there is the dedication: "The King to the People, which at his call magnanimously offered its wealth and blood for the Fatherland, to the Fallen in memoriam, to the Living with acknowledgement, to Future Generations for emulation.

People who had earlier welcomed and benefited from Napoleon's reforms and who, like those in other nations had been inspired by his earlier "Republican" ideals of emancipating commoners as citizens, started to resist when he betrayed these ideals by making himself Emperor, levying burdensome compulsory contributions for his projects designed to aggrandize himself and his family, impoverishing not only his own people, but those of other nations, and above all bringing about the deaths of thousands in seemingly unending wars.

In early 1813 irregular units, guerrillas lacking royal sanction, began to form, swearing their allegiance to the German Fatherland rather than to the king.

[7] On 7 February 1813 the East Prussian estates unanimously voted for financing, recruiting, and equipping a militia army (Landwehr) of 20,000 men, plus 10,000 in reserve, out of their funds, following a proposal designed by Yorck, Clausewitz, and Stein.

[8][6] However, this civic act of initiating Prussia's participation in the War of the Sixth Coalition was distasteful to the monarch, who again and again delayed implementing his promise of 22 May 1815 to introduce a parliament and a constitution for the entire kingdom.

The monument, topped by an iron cross, became name-giving for the hill it stands on, before mostly called Tempelhofer Berg, but also denoted by many other names in its history.

Hundred years after the inauguration of the monument, the VIth borough of Berlin, established on 1 October 1920 and provisionally named Hallesches Tor, was renamed into Kreuzberg on 27 September 1921.

[10] This is because the monument resembles the spire top of an earlier project by Schinkel, a national memorial church with the working title Nationaldom designed in summer 1814, and a second draft in January 1815.

[17] On 26 June 1818 Schinkel commissioned the Royal Prussian Iron Foundry (Königlich Preußische Eisengießerei) to cast the pieces for the monument, including its statues.

[19] Duke Charles of Mecklenburg arranged the laying of the foundation stone for 19 September 1818, attended - among others - by Tzar Alexander I, Christian Daniel Rauch and Schinkel.

[23] For the inauguration of the monument Frederick William III chose the 30 March 1821, the seventh anniversary of the conquest of the Montmartre in the Battle of Paris.

[24] The inauguration was attended by the royal family, the Prussian generality, the senior pastors of all Protestant congregations of Berlin, and as guests by Grand Duke Nicholas of Russia and his wife Alexandra Feodorovna (Charlotte of Prussia), as well as by thousands of other spectators.

[30] The southerly adjacent land had meanwhile been bought by the Gericke brothers, who planned to develop the area and opened the amusement park Tivoli right south of the monument.

[35] In 1875 Johann Heinrich Strack proposed a socket building to elevate the monument, and King William I of Prussia, in personal union also German Emperor, ordered its realisation in 1878.

[36] The octagonal, 8-metre high (26 ft), crenellated bastion-like socket building is adorned with Silesian granite and sandstone covering the brick substructures.

[37] In 1879 Guido von Madai, president of the royal police, decreed a maximum height of buildings in the adjacent streets to uphold the visibility of the monument.

The ordinance, however, was annulled by the groundbreaking 1882 "Kreuzberg judgement" of the Prussian Royal administrative court, stating that the police had exceeded its authority to ensure public security.

The then planned axis consisting of a promenade and series of waterfalls cascading down the Kreuzberg hill towards the square was never realised, the interjacent block of houses remained untouched.

[41] In 1944 British bombing left behind a wake of devastation leading from one block north up the Großbeerenstraße, over the waterfall to the monument, blasting away the southern edge of the octagonal socket structure then used as a safe place for casts of various sculptures, such as the Quadriga of the Brandenburg Gate.

It is said that due to the influence of Crown Prince Frederick William (IV) Schinkel's design in Gothic Revival style prevailed over another in rather classicist forms.

[27] As a guideline for the designs of the genii Schinkel recommended frescos by Pietro Perugino in the audience hall of the Collegio del Cambio in Perugia.