The bronze sculpture depicts Kilia, the antique-style city goddess who once crowned the Kilia Fountain—a 6 m tall gift from Kiel to Prince Heinrich of Prussia for his 1888 wedding. She wears a mural crown and bears Kiel’s coat of arms on her breastplate, holding a laurel wreath in one hand and a rudder (symbolizing wise governance) in the other. The fountain was destroyed in WWII, but Kilia survived: removed in 1918, granted to the prince in 1923, returned to Kiel in 1977, restored in 1977 and again in 2020–2021 (including repair of the broken rudder), and now stands alone in front of the Landeskirchenamt on Dänische Straße—near the public site originally intended but denied—listed as a cultural monument in Kiel’s old town.
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