One of the three Czech towers that were built to commemorate the Chancellor of the German Reich, Otto von Bismarck, is the Bismarck Lookout Tower on Zelená Hill near Cheb. The lookout tower was ceremoniously opened in 1909 and became one of the mysterious sites of the Iron Curtain - as it stood in the forbidden, closed-off borderlands.
This lookout tower was erected by the local German patriots from the Cheb Beautifying Society as their own contribution to the contemporary cult of the so-called Bismarck Lookout Towers and Columns. In various parts of Germany, but also all over the globe, a total of 270 of them were built. In the Czech Republic, we can find Bismarck Towers not only in Cheb and Aš, but also in Mikulášovice.
The Cheb Lookout Tower on Zelená Hill was originally a wooden lookout platform that was 14-metres high. A stone tower was built in 1909, which was reconstructed in 2005. The freely accessible lookout platform offers a view of the hills of the Bohemian and Slavkovský Forest, the Fichtel Mountains, and the Ore Mountains.
