Like the city halls of Hamburg, Munich, and other municipalities in the newly-formed nation of Germany, the Hannover city hall expresses self-confidence, love of magnificence, and reverence for the past. Begun in 1901 and completed in 1913, the new Hannover city hall would be the last great civic structure to be completed before the devastating decades that followed.

To inaugurate its splendid new civic building, Emperor Wilhelm II came to congratulate, and be congratulated by, the mayor of Hamburg:

more to come...