Today in History – 28 August

Afyon Victory Monument

During the Great Offensive, Mustafa Kemal, İsmet and Fevzi Pashas entered Afyon on August 28, 1922, set up their headquarters, and planned the next stage of the war there. The famous Victory Monument depicting Mustafa Kemal and his comrades in arms as they planned the attack on the map and symbolizing the eradication of the enemy was inaugurated on March 24, 1936 by Prime Minister İsmet İnönü.

The Victory Monument was erected on the skirts of the Citadel of Afyon at the place Mustafa Kemal and his fellow soldiers used as their headquarters. Austrian sculptor Heinrich Krippel designed the monument.

Apart from the Victory Monument of Afyon, Krippel, who was invited to Turkey by the government and lived there between 1925 and 1938, designed the Sarayburnu Atatürk Monument, Konya Atatürk Monument, Ankara Atatürk Monument, Samsun Atatürk Monument, and the Seated Atatürk Monument inside Sümerbank, Ankara.

During a visit to Afyon in 1937, Atatürk described it as “the monument that best depicts the Great Victory,” upon seeing it on site.