The Eiffel Tower almost destroyed

If you’ve ever stood beneath the iron lattice of the Eiffel Tower and craned your neck upwards, thinking, “Blimey, how did this steely marvel survive two world wars, countless revolutions, and millions of teenagers with chewing gum?”—you’re not alone. The Eiffel Tower almost destroyed isn’t just a dramatic thought experiment for architecture buffs. It’s real. The poor thing has had more close calls than a cat with a curiosity addiction. And yet there it stands, sassy and sparkling, as if none of it ever happened. Parisians sip their wine under its twinkling gaze, utterly unaware that this icon came within a whisker of nonexistence more than once.

Let’s rewind to 1889, when the Eiffel Tower first sprouted above the Parisian skyline like a massive, metallic asparagus. It wasn’t exactly adored. Parisians moaned, artists revolted, and critics branded it an eyesore. Guy de Maupassant supposedly dined in the tower’s restaurant because it was the only place in Paris where he didn’t have to look at the thing. Now that’s passive-aggressive dining if there ever was one. The Parisian elite launched a petition calling it a “monstrous carbuncle,” or something similarly poetic and scathing. Classic French solution: if you can’t love it, at least eat near it and complain with flair. Yet despite all the jeers, Gustave Eiffel stood by his brainchild like a stubborn parent defending a particularly noisy child at a piano recital.

He didn’t just throw iron into the sky for fun. Eiffel had grand visions—scientific ones. He imagined the tower as a laboratory in the clouds, a playground for meteorological experiments, aerodynamics, and communications. Little did he know that this steel beanstalk would go from reviled eyesore to indispensable wartime asset in just a few short decades.

Now, fast forward to World War I. Paris held its breath like a grand dame anticipating an unpleasant guest. The tower, being the tallest structure in Europe at the time, could’ve been the perfect target for aerial attacks or sabotage. But instead of getting bombed into oblivion, it turned into a wartime communications hub. Gustave Eiffel had envisioned just such a scenario, and engineers installed a radio antenna atop it, turning the tower into a communications lifeline. French military used it to intercept German transmissions, most notably playing a role in the First Battle of the Marne. You could argue, with only slight dramatic exaggeration, that the Eiffel Tower helped save France. Not bad for something people once compared to a factory chimney.

Then came World War II, and the stakes got even higher. In 1940, Hitler pranced into Paris with all the subtlety of a marching band and a photographer’s entourage. And as the Nazis swarmed in, someone—allegedly the French resistance or a very brave civil servant—snipped the lift cables. A petty but poetic sabotage. If Hitler wanted to go up the Eiffel Tower, he’d have to take the stairs. All 1,665 of them. Spoiler: he didn’t. Rumour has it he preferred the drama of the tower looming behind him in photos rather than the sweaty, undignified hike to the top. One imagines his boots weren’t made for cardio.

But let’s not get too cosy. Hitler had other plans. According to multiple reports, he considered demolishing the Eiffel Tower altogether. It was too modern, too French, too defiant. A thorn in the side of his vision for a subdued and obedient Paris. But even Nazi logistics had their limits. Dismantling a 300-metre iron structure during wartime, in a city already overloaded with military operations, was just too much. Even evil needs a budget. Demolishing it would’ve meant robbing Paris of its most iconic structure—and let’s be honest, it would’ve been a PR disaster of baroque proportions. So the Eiffel Tower was spared again, thanks to a mix of inconvenience, arrogance, and a dash of procrastination.

Wars weren’t the only threats. Bureaucrats, urban planners, and real estate dreamers all took turns plotting the tower’s demise. The original permit? A 20-year lease. Gustave Eiffel built this giant iron diva on a temporary contract, like some avant-garde pop-up shop in the middle of Paris. By 1909, the lease expired. The city planned to dismantle it. Cut it up. Sell the iron. Say au revoir. Scrap dealers probably licked their lips at the thought. But once again, usefulness came to the rescue. That radio antenna kept proving its worth, not just in wartime but for civilian communications too. Suddenly, the very thing Parisians once loathed became essential infrastructure. Irony, anyone?

There were even serious discussions about melting it down and turning it into more “practical” things—bridges, railway tracks, beams for housing. But dismantling a structure of that size? Astronomically expensive. Plus, who wants to be the mayor who tore down the Eiffel Tower? Even if you weren’t fond of the thing, you’d have to be daft to take that gamble. Business owners near Champ de Mars certainly thought so—they lobbied hard to keep it. Their cafes, shops, and hotels thrived thanks to the foot traffic it drew. No tower meant no tourists. No tourists meant no croissants at 6 euros a pop. You can imagine how persuasive their arguments became.

Now let’s tiptoe into the delightful absurdity of the 1960s, when Charles de Gaulle supposedly considered relocating the Eiffel Tower. To the suburbs. Perhaps to make way for something more “in line with the modern spirit of the capital.” Or perhaps he just didn’t want it blocking his view. The rumour is that someone drew up preliminary plans, before realising that moving a 10,000-tonne, riveted iron colossus isn’t quite as simple as calling a removal van. The plan, unsurprisingly, faded like a bad dream. Or maybe just ended up in a filing cabinet labelled “Monumental Mistakes to Avoid.”

Then comes the tale so outrageous it belongs in a spy film. In the 1920s, Victor Lustig, the con artist to end all con artists, managed to convince a scrap metal dealer that the Eiffel Tower was going to be dismantled. He posed as a French government official, complete with fake documents and charming nonsense. Not only did he convince the dealer to pay a bribe to secure the “contract,” he pulled the same scam twice. It’s the kind of bold dishonesty that makes you almost admire the audacity—if not the ethics. The Eiffel Tower survived that scam not by intention, but by sheer luck and disbelief.

As the decades rolled on, the tower remained under threat—not physically, but symbolically. In the 2000s, a rumour swept the internet: France, burdened by debt, would sell the Eiffel Tower to a private buyer. Some said it would be relocated to Las Vegas. Others claimed it would be auctioned off piece by piece as luxury souvenirs. None of it was true, of course, but it says a lot about the world’s obsession with the Eiffel Tower. It’s no longer just a structure. It’s a cultural hologram. A meme. A marketing symbol. A backdrop for everything from perfume adverts to marriage proposals.

And so we arrive in 2025. The Eiffel Tower still stands, as photogenic and stubborn as ever. It poses for Instagram influencers, presides over overpriced crepes, sparkles on the hour like it’s got a backstage crew of lighting techs. It has survived more threats than most cities. Bombs, bureaucracy, scams, and satire—all weathered with iron resolve. Most people have no idea how close it came to vanishing, which makes its continued presence feel like a minor miracle.

It’s not just a tower; it’s a survivor. A defiant iron grandma with a thousand stories and a wicked sense of irony. She’s been mocked, sabotaged, nearly melted, nearly moved, and nearly sold off by a con man with too much charm and not enough conscience. And yet there she is. Solid. Elegant. Slightly smug.

Next time you find yourself staring up at her girders, maybe offer a quiet thank-you to all the twists of history, accidents of timing, and wonderfully flawed human decisions that kept her standing. Because if even one plan had gone a bit differently, the Paris skyline would be missing its most famous resident—and the world would be short one spectacularly photogenic, gloriously impractical miracle of iron and imagination.