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The Walhalla Hall of Fame and Honor is a hall of fame located on the Danube River 10 km from Regensburg, in Bavaria, Germany.

It was the idea of 20-year-old Crown Prince Ludwig I of Bavaria in 1807, at a time when the German states were defeated and occupied by Napoleon. It was meant as a place for the commemoration of great figures and events in ethnic German history, at the time covering 1,800 years, beginning with the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (9 CE).

Whereas the Valhalla of Norse mythology was home to those gloriously slain in battle, Ludwig's Walhalla was intended not only for warriors but also for scientists, writers, clerics and specifically also for females.

Decades before the German Empire was founded in 1871, "German" was understood as "Germanic," since Gothic, Langobardic, Anglo-Saxon and Swiss German figures were included, as well as persons who had gained fame mainly in other countries or for non-German governments.

By the time of King Ludwig I's coronation in 1825, 60 busts had already been completed. In 1826 he commissioned a temple above the Danube near Regensburg, modelled after the Parthenon in Athens. On the Walhalla's inauguration on October 18, 1842, there were 96 busts, plus 64 plaques for persons or events of which no portrait was available on which to model a sculpture. As being "of the German tongue" was the main selection criterion for the original 160 persons representing the 1,800 years, the King included persons from modern-day Sweden, Austria, Poland, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Russia, Switzerland and the Baltic States.

Wikipedia

www.walhalla-regensburg.de