The War of the Fifth Coalition in 1809 had ended with another defeat for the joint forces of the Austrian Empire, United Kingdom, Spain, and Portugal against the French and their German allies.

However, due to lack of training in his newly recruited soldiers, Napoleon was unable to take full advantage of his victories, allowing his enemies to regroup.

For liberal thinkers and young, educated students, many of whom had fought in the wars, they resembled a starting point for a potential German unification into a national state.

[10] In Berlin, the capital of the Kingdom of Prussia, the main celebration was organised by the Turner movement, gymnastic clubs led by nationalist Friedrich Ludwig Jahn.

Arndt, together with the painter Caspar David Friedrich, worked on a monument for Gerhard von Scharnhorst, who had died from injuries sustained in the Battle of Großgörschen, but received no support from state officials.

"[19][20] Other people came forward with plans for a large memorial as well, including Karl Sieveking and August von Kotzebue, the latter of whom suggested a 31 m (102 ft) tall Roman column with an Iron Cross on top, symbolising the victory of Germany against France, the "modern Rome".

[18] The architect Friedrich Weinbrenner proposed a fortress to be built outside Leipzig, at the top of which a pyramid was to be placed, with the quadriga that Napoleon had taken from the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin situated on it.

[17][21][22] On the other side of the political spectrum, the nobleman Adolph von Seckendorff put forward the plan for a simple monument to the Saxon government, which would bear an inscription reading "To the liberation of a strong land, Alexander, Franz, and Friedrich Wilhelm", honouring the three monarchs who led the fight against Napoleon.

Designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, it was a miniature of a gothic church tower situated on top of the Kreuzberg, bearing the names of twelve battles fought against the French.

[25] Originally envisioned by both the citizens of Leipzig as well as the Russian military command as the place for annual celebration of the battle, the cross was removed by the winter of the same year, following the division of the Kingdom of Saxony at the Congress of Vienna.

During the same festivities, a cornerstone for a future grand monument was placed by Leipig's mayor Karl Wilhelm Otto Koch,[27] and 23 cities from all around Germany, including Vienna, Hanover, and Dresden, pledged money for its construction.

[22] However, the Unification of Germany and the subsequent foundation of the German Empire temporarily halted plans for a monument, since public conscience turned towards the more recent military victories.

[31] Later that same year, he founded the Deutsche Patriotenbund (Association of German Patriots) which raised, by means of donations and a lottery, the funds necessary to construct the monument for the 100th anniversary.

Proponents in expert literature argued for an iron construction as granting more stability, but the factors of cost and higher creative freedom ultimately led to the use of concrete.

Due to the use of state-of-the-art machineries, such as traction engines, lifts, a concrete mixer, and a cable railway for transporting gravel, construction was finished on schedule, in time for the 100th anniversary of the battle in 1913.

[38] The financing, which had originally been thought to rely solely on donations and a lottery, ran out, leading the city of Leipzig to subsidise the remaining costs.

[45] Thieme, who made frequent adjustments to Schmitz's design, most often under the premise of cutting costs,[46] worked together with the Art Nouveau sculptors Christian Behrens and his apprentice Franz Metzner.

[48] When Behrens died, the sculpture of Archangel Saint Michael, the relief of the battle scene and the heads of Emperor Frederick I, better known as Barbarossa, had been completed and delivered to the building site in 1904.

[52] At the top of the monument, of the outside of the dome roof, stand twelve warrior statues, each composed of 47 granite blocks and 13 m (14 yd) tall, meant to remind of the Germans' will to defend themselves.

[46] In the circle-shaped crypt on the first floor, sixteen statues of warriors (Totenwächter) are present, symbolically standing guard, two each in front of a total of eight 6 m (6.6 yd) high death masks.

While commentators from the völkisch-nationalistic side hailed it as a major artistic achievement, people from the political left, like Social Democrats, described it as a "heap of rocks", which had "nothing to do with art".

[59] At the time of its opening in 1913, the Patriotic Association declared in a publication that the monument symbolized a connection from the Wars of Liberation to "Sedan and Versailles", meaning the foundation of the German Empire in 1870/71.

Ideologically, the Association was most closely linked with the German People's Party, and both institutions held a common October celebration at the monument on the anniversary of the Battle of Leipzig.

The last big event during the Weimar years came from 18 to 20 September 1932, when the Gustav-Adolf-Verein, a society under the Evangelical Church in Germany, celebrated its one-hundredth anniversary with participation of right-wing organisations such as the Nazi Party's Sturmabteilung (SA), the Stahlhelm and others.

[63] Following the rise of the Nazi Party to power and Adolf Hitler's appointment as Chancellor of Germany, the monument was quickly turned into a meeting ground meant to symbolise the völkisch (ethnic) unity of the nation and the subservience of the individual to the collective.

On 10 June 1934, the now state party organised a rally in support of the Territory of the Saar Basin rejoining Germany in advance of the referendum held the following January.

Just one week later, on 17 June 1934, the monument served as the site of a service attended by around 50,000 Christians, who under the lead of Ludwig Müller, Reichsbischof (bishop of the Reich), pledged allegiance to the Nazi movement.

On Christmas Day 1943, the monument was for the first time used to mourn civilian deaths, as the citizens of Leipzig gathered to remember the victims of the bombing of the city on 4 December 1943.

Equally, ten years later, in 1963, the anniversary was marked with a big event, joined by regiments of the Soviet army, highlighting the propaganda value of the monument and the Battle of Leipzig for a German-Russian alliance.

Some stone pieces had moved significantly by ice and frost, while water entering the core had no way to escape, as dampening technology was not available for decades after the construction had finished.