"Bismarckturm" (Tower)

The Bismarck Tower in Bad Ems was built in honour of the first German Chancellor, Prince Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898). The tower, designed by architect Wilhelm Kreis (1873-1955), is located directly east of the town centre on Bismarckhöhe, is twelve and a half metres high and was inaugurated in 1901. The foundation stone was laid on 26 June 1900 and construction began. The construction work was not supervised by the architect Wilhelm Kreis himself, but was carried out by the Bad Ems building contractor Wilhelm Jacob Balzer. The main building materials used were quartzite from a nearby quarry near Kemmenau and basalt from a quarry in Niedermendig in the Eastern Eifel. There is a restaurant-café with a panoramic terrace right next to the tower. Both the restaurant and the tower can be easily reached via the nearby mountain station of the Kurwald railway. Beautiful walks or hikes can be undertaken from up here.