statues, representing characters from the Old and New Covenant, which are added to the tower. The dome was topped by a statue symbolising the victorious virtue (now a post-war replica). The gable relief depicts the Conversion of Sha'ul Paul of Tarsus. In 1817, the two congregations of the German Church, like most Prussian Reformed and Lutheran congregations joined the common umbrella organisation named Evangelical Church in Prussia (under this name since 1821), with each congregation maintaining its former denomination or adopting the new united denomination. The New Church became famous as a place of Prussian history. On 22 March 1848, the coffins of 183 Berliners, who had been killed during the March Revolution, were shown on the northern side of the church. After an Evangelical service within the prayer hall outside an Evangelical pastor, a Catholic priest and a rabbi, one after the other, shortly addressed the audience, before the throng accompanied the coffins to the graves. In 1881, the dilapidated prayer hall was torn down and Hermann von der Hude and Julius Hennicke replaced it with a new one on a pentagonal groundplan, according to the neobaroque design of Johann Wilhelm Schwedler. Otto Lessing designed the six statues on the attic of the new prayer hall. On 17 December 1882, the new prayer hall was inaugurated. In 1934, the congregations of the New Church had united with that of Jerusalem's Church and have become - after further mergers - today's Evangelical Congregation in the Friedrichstadt (as of 2001). For services it uses the French Church on the opposite side of Gendarmenmarkt and Luke's Church in Berlin-Kreuzberg. In 1943, the New Church was almost completely destroyed in the bombing of Berlin in World War II and was subsequently rebuilt from 1977 to 1988. Meanwhile, the German government acquired the building and the site. The church building was updated, deconsecrated and reopened in 1996 as the Bundestag's museum on German parliamentary history (Milestones - Setbacks - Sidetracks, The Path to Parliamentary Democracy in Germany). The two congregations of the New Church maintained cemeteries with the two congregations of the neighbouring Jerusalem's Church (another simultaneum), three of which are comprised - with cemeteries of other congregations - in a compound of six cemeteries altogether, which are among the most important historical cemeteries of Berlin. They are located in Berlin-Kreuzberg south of Hallesches Tor (Berlin U-Bahn) (Friedhöfe vor dem Halleschen Tor). Noteworthy parishioners