On May 21, 1889, the 100th anniversary of the founding of "Christian Zimmermann & Sohn", the foundation stone for this Zimmermann memorial was laid during an anniversary celebration.

A committee elected from among the city's well-known citizens entrusted the design, execution and installation to the Dresden sculptor Ernst Paul.

The memorial, inaugurated on November 10, 1892, shows the publisher Christian Zimmermann (1759-1842) cast in bronze on a sandstone pedestal.

The site on the old Karlsplatz (today: Alexander-Puschkin-Platz) was framed by a flower-bedecked area with ornamental railings.

This fulfilled the wish of many Apolda business people who had long been calling for this deserving son of the town to be honored. After all, he is regarded as a symbolic figure of the economic rise of the local textile industry. Together with his brother Samuel, he founded the first trading company here. The resulting company "Christian Zimmermann & Sohn", which later became a company recognized all over the world and also made Apolda widely known, was the result of his commercial skills and progressive thinking.

After being moved several times, the monument returned to its original location on November 1, 1997.

The many stores located here, above all the Becker & Salinger department store, gave the square a certain reputation, but it was the Christian Zimmermann monument erected in 1892 that made it unmistakable.

To mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin on June 6, 1950, the city councillors decided to rename Karlsplatz to Alexander Pushkin Square on June 7.

In 1970, the monument was moved to Herressener Promenade because it stood in the way of a redesign of the square. A concrete fountain was to give the area in front of the Kontakt department store a more modern, contemporary look.

Since the reconstruction of the area and Christian Zimmermann's return in 1997, the square has once again become the focal point of our pedestrian passageway.