Driver dead after car crashes into Brandenburg Gate

A driver has died after crashing a car into one of Germany's most famous landmarks, the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.

Car crashes into Berlin's Brandenburg Gate

At 11.30pm on Sunday evening, a car crashed into the Brandenburg Gate on Berlin's famous Unter den Linden boulevard. The car crashed between two of the iconic monument's six Doric columns. Shortly after the crash, emergency services announced that "the driver was fatally injured in the crash. Currently, nobody else is known to have been injured." During the evening police removed the driver's body from the wreckage.

Speaking to Tagesspiegel a witness explained that they had been overtaken by the driver on the neighbouring Wilhelmstraße. The witness estimated that the driver had reached more than 200 kilometres per hour, adding that they had "never seen such a speed within a city." 

Driver hit a kerb beside the Brandenburg Gate

According to police in the German city, the Mercedes driver had been driving extremely fast across the largely-pedestrianised Pariser Platz, where the monument sits. Intending to pass through a right-hand walkway in the gate, he hit a kerb, damaging the right wheel of the car and eventually crashed into the column. The impact also led to the monument being damaged.

During the day, the area is largely populated by tourists taking pictures in front of the monument, which was built between 1788 and 1791. In 1973 the city gate was decorated with its now recognisable copper-green quadriga. The famous quadriga was seized by Napoleon in 1806 and eventually returned to Berlin in 1814 after the emperor abdicated.

Thumb image credit: rajasen / Shutterstock.com