Statues of liability

At the ancient citadel of Spandau in Berlin, German historyis redefined witha near-secret exhibition of rejected sculptures, from Kant and Lenin to Hitler

- John Kampfner

Housed in a former munitions depot in a fortress on the outskirts of Berlin is an exhibition like no other: a veritable car boot sale of statues - damaged, dismantled or dumped - dating from medieval times to the Nazis to communism. Unveiled: Berlin and Its Monuments has for the past eight years cast an unvarnished light on German history. Yet almost no Berliners have heard of it.

I am standing in the courtyard of the citadel at Spandau, a place that has had many purposes since its first recorded mention in 1197, few of them reassuring. From the late 16th century, it became a garrison city. During the Third Reich it housed research into the nerve gases tabun and sarin. After the Second World War, Spandau became synonymous with the detention of one man: Rudolf Hess. On his death in 1987, the prison was demolished. The spot where it sat is now a supermarket.

The citadel's director, Urte Evert, has been hoovering up statues nobody wants, hidden or left in warehouses. A touchscreen map shows where the monuments were originally located. Many were in Berlin's central park, Tiergarten: among them, statues of Friedrich Wilhelm III and his wife, Queen Luise (the only woman on display), generals, or thinkers such as Immanuel Kant, and the naturalist Alexander von Humboldt.