The "Kösener Gefallenendenkmal" (Pillar to the Fallen) was erected at Pentecost in 1872 in honour of the members of the students’ corps who had fallen in the 1870-1871 Franco-Prussian War. The students put up this monument without the help of the “old men”, whose federation had not yet been founded, and the Pillar was in fact the first monument ever erected by students in Germany. It consisted of a base with stairs, a platform with balustrade, a four-metre tall pedestal and a pillar topped by an imperial eagle with a crown. The monument was destroyed in 1953, under the GDR.