Palais du Rhin

The Palais du Rhin features a heavy, dome-capped center flanked by two massive wings that stretch toward the Place de la République. Built in the late nineteenth century as the imperial residence for Kaiser Wilhelm the First, it served to solidify German authority over Alsace after the Franco-Prussian War. During the Second World War, the building housed the headquarters for the Nazi secret police, the Gestapo, who burned their files in the basement furnaces as Allied forces closed in on Strasbourg in nineteen forty-four.