 Architect Bruno Schmitz had borrowed romanesque style elements from the Hohenstaufen castles and fortresses of the 12th and 13th centuries for his Monument walls and towers.The roughly hewn stones are reminiscent of the Hohenstaufen hump block masonry, that were also used on the Barbarossa tower.The 1871 founded Prussian-dominated empire, was to be understood as the legitimate successor to the medieval Holy Roman Empire.