This led to the idea of constructing a monument in honour of Bismarck on the Seebuck. The go-ahead was given three years later, during a meeting at the Feldberger Hof Hotel on 1 April 1895. Professor D. Dietsche modelled Bismarck’s image onto the relief. Under direction of the master builder of Freiburg, Thoma, the monument was placed on the highest point of the Seebuck for 18,000 Deutsche Marks (DM).
On 4 December 1896, the monument was inaugurated as the first Bismarck monument in Baden. At the same time, the hiking trail leading from the Feldberger Hof Hotel to the top of the Seebuck – the Kapfererweg – was opened for use.
Since 1890, Bismarck admirers have come together on the Feldberg every year to honour the memory of the “Iron Chancellor”. The celebrations were held until the third year of the war, 1941. On 1 April 1945, a few days before the end of the war, Bismarck’s supporters placed a wreath on the monument on the Seebuck for the last time. The end of the Second World War also caused the disbanding of the association of Bismarck supporters. Nobody cared for the monument in the years after the war, and it fell more and more into disrepair. In 1956, the Black Forest district administration was forced to intervene since the walls were no longer stable. Since the monument had no owner, its fate seemed sealed.
However, it had become a landmark in the same way the Feldberg Tower had become a landmark on the Feldberg mountain peak, and so the Feldberg council decided to preserve it. During the first days of May 1956, the upper part of the monument collapsed due to erosion damage. The Feldberg council carried out its reconstruction in 1966 at a cost of 29,000 DM, mostly through donations; the Black Forest county contributed 15,000 DM.
