Studio spaces (former 3-room flat)

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About the neighbourhood

Pankow
Berlin’s Pankow district consists of 13 neighbourhoods and is named after its local neighbourhood of the same designation. The name Pankow is derived from Panke (West Slavic for »river with swirls«). The linear village Pankow became part of greater Berlin in 1920. It was joined with other country communities and the district properties of Blankenburg, Blankenfelde, Buch, Französisch (French) Buchholz, Heinersdorf, Karow, Niederschönhausen and Rosenthal along with the Wilhelmsruh / Schönholz colonies to form the independent city district of Pankow. In 2001, the district of Pankow was merged with Prenzlauer Berg and Weißensee to form greater Pankow – to which Malchow, a colony on the outskirts of town, also belongs.
Alt-Buch
Pankow’s Buch neighbourhood was first mentioned in the mid-13th century and in a written document around 1375 as Wendisch-Buch or »Buch slavica «Archaeological sites show that the Bucher Feldmark was inhabited as early as during the Bronze Age. The aristocratic land and property owners of Buch were Wiltberg, Bredow (from 1342), Röbel (from 1450), Pölnitz (from 1669), Viereck (from 1724) and Voß (from 1761). Theodor Fontane (1819 –1898) told of them and the Buch and Malchow areas in his work »Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg.«The Prussian General Gerhard Bernhard Freiherr von Pölnitz (1617 – 1679) had a garden laid out between 1670 and 1672 in Dutch style, the predecessor of the current and newly landscaped Schlosspark (Castle Park). The Freiherr’s mummy could be visited in the castle church’s vault before the vault was sealed in 1925. Minister Adam Otto von Viereck (1684-1758) had the park expanded in French style, the property turned into a castle by Berlin building master Friedrich Wilhelm Diterichs (1702 – 1782), and had the castle church built between 1731 and 1736, and an orangery was added. The burial site (1763) of A. O. von Viereck in the church is the last work of Johann Georg Glume Sr. (1679 – 1765). The memorial building – considered Mark Brandenburg’s loveliest church – is Diterichs sole remaining church in Berlin. Concerts are held there regularly and each autumn the Buch Church Music Days take place there. Family von Voß, in particular Otto von Voß (1755 – 1823), had the castle park enlarged in the form of an English garden. The church burned down in November of 1943 during bombings. It was rebuilt from 1950 to 1953 without a tower and greatly simplified. The orangery was torn down in 1955, as was the only slightly war-damaged castle in 1964. Modern apartment buildings were erected in Buch between 1976 and 1981. All the remained of the historical village center was the castle church, the parish / driver / servants’ building, two former farming buildings, and the estate that was used for farmers through the late 1970s. That estate and the Schlosskrug (pub dating back to 1823) are listed buildings. The estate was turned into an office around 1980 for the East Berlin government’s art relating to architecture and used after 1991 as artists’ complex within which fine art studios and workshops were located. In 1898, the city of Berlin bought the estate and the Buch forest in order to carry out the plans of Berlin’s chief canalisation engineer, James Hobrecht (1815 – 1902), and to build the sewage farms recommended by medical practitioner Rudolph Virchow (1821 – 1902) that were used from 1909 until 1985. The East Berlin government turned the castle into the chief mayor’s summer home. Under the leadership of urban planning and controller Ludwig Hoffmann (1852 –1932), founder of Berlin’s communal buildings, Europe’s then largest hospital complex was built from 1901 to 1916, which included five urban caricative organisations: a senior citizens’ home, two tuberculosis clinics, and two (as they were called then) insane asylums – one of which was used as a hospital and later as a children’s clinic. The insane asylum (III. Städtischen Irrenanstalt Berlins) with its 45 buildings, later called the Hufeland-Klinikum, is where author Alfred Döblin (1878 – 1957) did his medical residency from 1906 to 1908. It is here, at the clinic on Karower Straße that Döblin allows hero Franz Biberkopf of the first urban novel in the German language, »Berlin Alexanderplatz« (1929), to discover a place where he can rest, sort himself out, and receive medical attention. Between 1939 and 1944, academics at the Buch branch of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research were involved in the euthanasia crimes of the Nazi regime. In memory of the victims, a memorial was erected by sculptor Anna Franziska Schwarzbach in 2000. Hoffmann’s buildings were always used for medical purposes. The Buch Clinic existed during GDR times. Some of the buildings have been extensively refurbished during the last few years. Today, the grounds comprise a living memorial. The 108 listed buildings are used for modern hospitals, medical research institutes, pharmacology, biotechnology and genetic engineering, as well as for the die Akademie der Gesundheit Berlin-Brandenburg (Health Academy). The Gesundheitsregion Buch (region focusing on health) is developing into one of the largest biotechnological sites in Germany.
Old Parish Church
Pankow’s town center, with its church, market place, and surrounding streets, is recognisably a typical Mark Brandenburg village built around a village green. Upon the Pankower green, there used to be cemetery next to the church, a village pond that was filled in 1870, as well as several community buildings – such as the community school and a fire station with five prison cells. The green was surrounded by houses belonging to farmers who owned land, small farmers and daily wage workers. A November 1943 bomb attack partially destroyed the village green. The Old Parish Church »Zu den Vier Evangelisten« on Breite Straße is located at the eastern end of the former village green and dates back to the 13th century. It is named after the four New Testament evangelists. In the year 1230, Cistercian monks erected a small village chapel made of granite field stones at this site. A church bell is first mentioned in 1475. The wooden tower from the same era was destroyed during a storm in 1737 and the new bell tower had to be removed in 1812. In 1539, Pankow and its house of prayer became Lutheran. A second bell was added in 1556 in honour of the Peace of Augsburg. In 1832, Karl Wilhelm Redtel – supported by Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781 – 1841) – renovated the church. The windows on the eastern wall were enlarged. Between 1857 and 1859, a student of Schinkel’s, Friedrich August Stüler (1800-1865), expanded the west side of the church on royal order to include a triple-nave Neo-Gothic extension and two octagonal towers. The western façade done by master building Stüler is no longer visible, as an entrance hall and portal were added to its front in 1908. The church towers were heavily damaged during the Battle of Berlin in April 1945; they were replaced in 1956, though not at their original height. The four glass windows portraying the evangelists were created in 1959 by artist Inge Pape. The chancel, a replica of Berlin’s Bartholomäuskirche (church), displays imager of Philipp Melanchthon, Martin Luther, Nikolaus Graf von Zinzendorf and Johannes Calvin. An oven heater wasn’t added to the church until 1892. The interior of the church has been renovated a number of times. The current organ (the fourth since 1859), was dedicated in 1972. The altar table was done in 1971 by Wolfgang Heger. The altar cross made of copper and enamel with a bronze corpus depicting Christ both crucified and rising was created in 1972 by Herbert Reinhold, who also made the candelabra and the bible chancel. The Cross of Nails from Coventry is a symbol of death and forgiveness. It is a reminder of the destruction of the English city of Coventry by the German Air Force on November 14, 1940. The Cross of Nails in the parish church is a replica of the much smaller, silver-plated original given to it by the pastor of the Cathedral of Coventry, which was then stolen in the 1960s. The Parish Church Community Alt-Pankow belongs to the German association of »nailcross communities« that strives for contact and reconciliation with communities in other countries.
With the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship in 1933, the National Social German Christiana (DC) gained influence in church community life. From 1935 until 1945, the Protestant Pankow church community remained a bastion of the Confessional Church, which rejected and resisted National Socialist church policy. The Friedenskreis Pankow (Pankow Peace Circle) is still active today and was founded in 1981 during the period of NATO nuclear armament and the Warsaw Pact. In keeping with the motto »Peace, Justice and the Protection of Creation«, the Friedenskreis was open towards cooperation between Christians and atheists. Focal points of cooperation ranged from questions of militarisation, to destruction of nature, to concepts of alternative education. As a centre of opposition in the GDR (former East Germany), the Friedenskreis was particularly intensely observed by State officials. Many members of the Friedenskreis took on political positions during the peaceful revolution of 1989 / 90 in the GDR as well as political positions in the newly founded parties and citizen’s movements.
Amalienpark
Pankow received its first written mention in 1311, was purchased in 1370 by Berlin / Cölln and acquired in 1691 by Elector Friedrich III. In 1688, Huguenots founded the colony of French Buchholz in a village near Pankow. In the 19th century, the village developed into an outing destination. Wealthy Berliners had villas built for their summer homes that re- Kaufmain a part of contemporary Pankow’s cityscape. In 1895, investors purchased the grounds of the former Stosch estate. The »Landhaus-Baugesellschaft Pankow,« directed by Otto March, erected the Amalienpark building complex on this same site during 1896 / 97. The property company planned and financed rental apartments belonging to various owners. Nine villa-like semi-detached houses resembling English country manors are grouped around a tree-filled park plaza. This representative building complex is named after Princess Anna Amalia von Preußen (1723 – 1787), the youngest sister of King Friedrich II (1712 – 1786). The complex was restored to its original state beginning in 1990. Some of the 80 apartments consisting of four to five and half rooms are laid out over two floors. They are rented out by the non-profit foundation »Walter und Margarete Cajewitz Stiftung«, which administers property for the good of senior care in Pankow (www.cajewitz-stiftung.de). Rental profits are put toward four different homes for seniors. The association Verein »Kunst und Literatur Forum Amalienpark« (www.amalienpark.de) with its gallery, literary forum, art studio and hand press Pankow offers artists, literary figures and enthusiasts, and art fans as well an inspiring place to meet and exchange ideas in the heart of Pankow. Otto March was born in Charlottenburg in 1845 and passed away there in 1913. The family owned from 1836 until 1902 in what was still the independent community of Charlottenburg a ceramic wares factory, for which Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781 – 1841) had created models. After passing final exams at the Friedrichwerderschen Gymnasium in 1866, Otto March began training as a mason, studied at Vienna’s Building Academy and Polytechnic from 1868 to 1876 (pausing to serve in the army 1870 / 71), passed his building master exams, was employed by the governmental building commission and became self-employed as an architect from 1880 on. As a member of the Commission for Greater Berlin (from 1907 on), the Academy of Building and Construction (from 1899 on) and the Academy of the Arts (from 1908 on; member of the academy senate beginning 1912), he worked toward the timely urban planning of greater Berlin. The architect is also known for his interior design of the French Cathedral on the Gendarmenmarkt (1905) and for the »German Stadium« (1913). His sons Werner (1894 – 1976) and Walter March (1898 – 1969) also worked as architects in Berlin. Werner March was commissioned to modernise the »German Stadium.« He had it torn down in 1934 and built the new Olympic Stadium in time for the 1936 Games. The Kavalierhaus (Breite Straße 45) from the period of Frederician Rococo is one of the oldest listed buildings in Pankow. The seven-aisled building with slanted hipped room and baroque flight of steps resembles the homes of the courtiers, the so-called »Kavalierhäuser,« which was however built around 1770 as the summer home of a business man. Homeowners included salesman Carl Philipp Möring (1753 – 1837), who installed in the orangery from 1814 (architect: Ludwig Friedrich Catel, 1776 – 1819) one of the first steam heaters in Germany, and the founder of the Hohenzollern private library, Charles Duvinage (1804 – 1871). From 1866 until 1939, the building belonged to chocolate factory owner Richard Hildebrand (thus called the Hildebrandsche Villa). From 1947 on it was used by Sozialhilfe Groß- Berlin (Greater Berlin Social Assistance), and it became an after school day care in 1953. In 1998, the Kavalierhaus was acquired by the Caritas-Krankenhilfe Berlin e.V. and historically restored. An exhibit documents the development of the building. The copies of the four Putti statues in the front garden symbolise the temperament of the human psyche. The originals were created in the 18th century by Dresdner court sculptor Gottfried Knöffler (1715 – 1779) and are part of the Bode Museum (Berlin Museum Island) sculpture collection. Pankow’s Outdoor Swimming Pool (Freibad Pankow) on Wolfshagener Straße north of the Amalienpark was built from 1958 to 1960 (architects: Walter Hinkefuß, Heinz Graffunder, and Joachim Streichhahn) and expanded in 1973/74 to include an indoor pool (architects: Karl Ernst
Swora, Gunter Derdau).
Citizens’ Park
The Bürgerpark on Wilhelm-Kuhr-Straße (until 1915 Spandauer Straße) has been one of the most popular recreational areas for Pankow residents for more than 100 years. In 1856, the founder of the newspaper »Berliner Börsenzeitung « (1855), Dr. Hermann Killisch von Horn (1821 – 1886), purchased the property on the Panke River near the village Pankow upon which a mill had been located since the 16th century. The mill house was turned into a family home. In 1863 / 64, Killisch von Horn purchased additional property. Spandauer Straße, which traversed the grounds, was rerouted along the southern border. In 1868, Killisch von Horn hired Wilhelm Perring (1838 – 1907) as chief gardener, who later became the technical head of the Botanical Gardens. Through 1871, he created a landscaped park with rare trees, plants, and man-made hills – in between which an animal compound is located. Highlights included a manor house, an orangery, pavilions, green houses, a viewing tower with flag, ponds, a peacock house, an Indian pagoda, an underground cave with access to the Panke River, and a variety of statues.
Near the old cemetery, the three-part Italianstyle main entrance gate has become a Pankow symbol. Its wrought iron gate grating dates back to the park’s founding. The gate house (also called the »castellan house«) to the right of the entrance was created in the same style as the manor house. From 1876 on, Killisch von Horn began spending a greater portion of the year in Reuthen (Niederlausitz). Laid out in 1841, Pankow’s first community cemetery on Wilhelm-Kuhr-Straße is the final resting place of distinguished Pankow citizens such as Wilhelm Perring (– grave no longer extant). Hermann Killisch von Horn was buried here in 1904 in a mausoleum created by Pankow mason Christian Friedrich Malingriaux. In February of 1907, the Pankow community bought the private park under the auspices of its governing mayor from 1906 until 1914, Wilhelm Kuhr (1865 – 1914). A restaurant was opened the same year in the former gardener’s house. On August 25, 1907, the Bürgerpark opened and was expanded upon during the years to come. The restaurant was enlarged, a music pavilion built, playgrounds and tennis courts set up and a public loo installed. During World War I, the restaurant was used as a reserve hospital. In 1923, the Park was expanded on the northern side of the Panke River. Both park and buildings were hit by bombs in 1945. In 1955, Berlin’s only park library was opened. The manor house was torn down in 1961, the chief gardener’s house followed in 1965, and the park redesigned between 1965 and 1967 by landscape architect Erwin Stein. On Wilhelm-Kuhr-Straße 3, a glass instrument factory by Reinhold Burger (1866 – 1954) was located from 1927 on that had been founded by the creator of the thermos in 1894 and which he headed up until his death. The patent was registered in 1903 and »thermos bottle« became a registered trademark in 1904. He sold the patent and trademark by 1909 for a high price, including the foreign rights in the United States – from whence the thermos bottle began its victory march around the world. Wollankstraße was named in 1883 after Pankow’s long term department head Adolf Friedrich Wollank (1833 – 1877). The street had been priorly called Prinzenweg until 1703, from 1876 on Prinzenstraße. Large estates north of Berlin also belong to the family of the estate owners. Created in 1860, the courtyard of the Alte Bäckerei Hartmann (Old Bakery / Wollankstraße 130) was historically restored in 2001 and is a reminder of Pankow’s village origins. The Hartmann family ran the bakery from 1875 until 1964. Today it is a meeting place, the Museum of Childhood in Pankow, and an exhibit on traditional craft trades. The estate of the Franciscan Monastary (Wollankstraße 18 / 19) has been in the possession of the Franciscans since 1921. It is the only cloister that belongs to the »Schlesischen Ordensprovinz« (Silesian Religious Order) which remained German. In the apartments in the front buildings which became vacant after the political change in East Germany, the monks set up a soup kitchen for the needy in 1991 providing lunch to up to 500 guests per day. S-Bahnhof Wollankstraße (S-Bahn station) became one of a kind since the building of the Berlin Wall on August 13, 1961: It was located directly on the sector border on East Berlin territory and was only freely accessible from the West Berlin side. It belonged to the western part of the S-Bahn system and was closed to East German citizens during the division of the city. In January of 1962 an underground escape tunnel was discovered under the train station in the condition it had been in as it was built from the West Berlin side immediately following the erection of the Berlin Wall.
Jewish Orphanage
Jewish life existed in Pankow from the middle of the 19th century on. In the 1920s, the Pankow Jewish Community claimed several synagogues, a senior citizen’s home for the deaf and mute, separate homes for infants, female pupils and interns, as well as the orphanage on Berliner Straße 120 / 121. Predecessor to the »II. Waisenhauses der Jüdischen Gemeinde zu Berlin in Pankow« (2nd Orphanage of the Berlin Jewish Community in Pankow), as it was called from 1890 on, was the approved school opened in Pankow in 1882 for Jewish orphan boys. A fire in 1911 destroyed the roof of the building, which was then torn down. A prestigious new neo-baroque building was begun in 1912 under the auspices of community master builder Alexander Beer (1873 – 1944 Theresienstadt) and dedicated in 1913. The spacious orphanage was also home to a school and a prayer room that boasts an elaborate and newly restored coffered ceiling that had been sponsored by cigarette producer Josef Garbáty-Rosenthal (1851 – 1939). In 1906, the entrepreneur moved his factory from Schönhauser Allee to the parcel of land next door to the Jewish Orphanage. In 1938, the Nazis forced the Garbáty family to sell their property, after which they emigrated to the United States in 1939. Josef Garbáty-Rosenthal himself died the same year in Berlin. The villa on Berliner Straße 126 / 127 that Garbáty had resided in since 1901 was also aryanized. Bulgaria used the villa as its embassy from 1945 to 1989. The plaza in front of the S- and U-Bahn (opened in 1914 and 2000) was named after the socially active firm founder Garbáty; in 2002 a memorial was dedicated at Garbátyplatz and in 2003 a memorial plate was inlaid into the ground. The orphanage, in which up to 100 children had lived, was forced to close down in 1940, taken over by the SS in 1942, and used from 1943 on by the SS-Reich’s Security Main Office as central endorsement center. Nearly half of all of the children, teachers, and employees who lived and work at the orphanage were murdered in the death camps. A few orphans were able to escape with the help of their teachers. A memorial wall in the library of the former orphanage recalls the approximately 600 Jewish residents of Pankow who were deported and murdered during the Nazi dictatorship. After the end of World War II in 1945, the local Pankow authorities were housed in the building. The following institutions were located in the building thereafter: the German Sports Association (from 1950 on), the Polish Embassy (from 1952 on), followed by the Cuban Embassy (from 1971 until 1991). The non-profit foundation »Dr. Walter und Margarete Cajewitz Stiftung«, which administers real estate used for care of seniors in Pankow, bought the empty building in 1999 and had it renovated based on its historical plans. It was re-opened in 2001 as a modern meeting and cultural center, which now includes an events hall (in the former synagogue prayer room) and the public Janusz-Korczak-Bibliothek (library with 90 000 media units), as well as offices for social institutions. The organisation Förderverein Jüdisches Waisenhaus e. V. supports sites of Jewish culture and researches Jewish life in Pankow, and has a memorial inside the building. The inscription across the building was reconstructed in 2002 thanks to a donation by Thomas Garbáty, grandson of Josef Garbáty. The granite sculpture »Der Steinhändler« (stone peddler) – whose name was coined in a word play in German with »stone« and »hands« by author Thomas Brasch (1945 – 2001) – was created by Berliner sculptor and painter Alexander Polzin in Israel. The Hauptpostamt Pankow (Pankow Main Post Office) is located across from the former orphanage; it was erected on a former parish field by the Deutsche Reichspost in 1919 for the then still independent community of Pankow. The prestigious post building, plans for which are attributed to the Pankow architect and master mason Carl Schmidt, was opened amongst festivities in 1923.
Town Hall
Pankow’s town centre, with its church, market place, and surrounding streets, is recognisably a typical Mark Brandenburg village built around a village green. The Rathaus (Town Hall) on Breite Straße is located at the western end of the former Pankow village green. Until 1871, Breite Straße was simply called Dorfstraße (village street). From 1971 to 1991, it was named after the first GDR Cultural Affairs Minister and GDR national anthem (»Auferstanden aus Ruinen«/Arisen from the Ruins) composer and poet Johannes R. Becher
(1891 – 1958), who lived at Majakowskiring. During the 19th century, the village Pankow developed into a popular place to go for an outing and resort area. The villas built during that era still shape the look of the neighbourhood. An example of how a family that owned a factory lived is exemplified in the permanent exhibit »Bürgerliches Wohnen um 1900 am Beispiel der Familie Heyn« on Heynstraße 8 (Directions: take Neue Schönholzer Straße towards Florastraße; Opening Hours: Tues., Thurs., Fri. 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.). Due to the proximity of Castle Schönhausen which Elector Friedrich III. (1657 – 1713, from 1701 King in Preußen Friedrich I.) obtained in neighbouring Niederschönhausen in 1691, Pankow became connected from then on to the Berlin power centre. From 1872 on, the citizens of Pankow were allowed to elect their own community representatives. The last community head and first local head, butcher Friedrich Neumann, held office as a volunteer from 1871 to 1890. Community and registry offices were located on property on Schlossstraße (known today as Ossietzkystraße). Around 1890, Pankow followed Charlottenburg with the highest tax income of Berlin’s surrounding communities. The number of inhabitants had risen considerably (1801: 286, 1858: 1 603, 1895: 11 932, 1900: 21 524). Until 1903, office and apartment of Pankow’s first mayor (1892 until 1906) Richard Gottschalk were located on Breite Straße 5 (see large photo below). He was Pankow’s first professional civil servant and promoted building the town hall. The increased self-assurance of Pankow’s citizens required a representative administrative building to match. In 1896, the community purchased property for the building project on Breite Strasse. The cornerstone was laid on July 12, 1901 and the new town hall was dedicated with a feast on April 18, 1903, from which the wives of the distinguished guests looked on from the balcony. In additional to the original 90 offices, three conference rooms and the mayor’s apartment, today one still finds the Ratskeller (cellar bar / restaurant under the town hall) and the registry office that were opened in the Fall of 1902 – half a year before the official building dedication. Pankow architect Wilhelm Johow (1874 – 1960) won the competition to build the town hall. The three-storey facing building contains eclectic architectural elements. The body of the building is made of red brick and red sandstone, its base of Silesian granite. Its roof was originally copper plated, but the copper – important for the war effort – was removed during World War I. The figure »Der Sämann« (The Sower) was created by Pankow sculptor Viktor Burbott. The sandstone figures by Pankow sculptor Sponar (artist studio Breite Straße 3) on the tower-like projections portray the citizens’ qualities of »Justice,« »Effort,« »Honour« (copy from 1987) and »Charity.« The town hall underwent several building changes and expansion phases: 1908 until 1910 and 1919 was when additional rooms were built, 1918 to 1920 the east wing was added (architects Carl Fenten, Rudolf Klante), 1927 to marked the west addition (Rudolf lante, Alexander Poetschke) that house offices, administrative library, community bank and police station. In 1937, the tiled roof was replaced by one made of slate, and the Ratskeller has expanded. Between 1952 and 1983, various expansions and additions (e.g. elevator) were undertaken. In 1978, the towers were re-plated in copper, and in 1989, the stairwell windows were redesigned for the third time since 1903. The wedding room of the registry office was designed by architect and city Chief Builder Ludwig Hoffmann (1852 – 1932), creator of the Berlin communal building. It had originally been located in the Berlin-Mitte registry office on Fischerstraße (An der Fischerbrücke 1a) built from 1899 to 1902 and torn down in 1974. In 1979, the completely restored and partially expanded wedding room was installed in the Pankow town hall. The oil paintings are by Ludwig von Hofmann (1861 – 1945), the oak wood wall panel etchings and cassette roof by Ernst Westphal (1851 – 1926).
Castle Schönhausen
Castle Schönhausen with its castle park in Niederschönhausen is the most important collection of buildings in the neighbourhood. Founded in 1220, »Nydderen Schonhusen« received written mention for the first time in 1375. In 1691, Elector Friedrich III (1657 – 1713, from 1701 on King in Prussia, Friedrich I) purchased the Niederschönhausen estate. A
»small palace« built in 1664 was re-designed from 1691 by chief building director Johann Arnold Nering (1659 – 1695) and from 1704 on by royal architect Eosander von Göthe (1669 – 1728) into a representative summer residence. The tri-winged castle with its expanded garden was a centre of court life until the death of King Friedrich I. During the reign of the »Soldier King« Friedrich Wilhelm I (1688 – 1740), Castle Schönhausen went unused from 1713 on and became dilapidated. In 1740, King Friedrich II (1712 – 1786) gave castle and garden to his wife from Wolfenbüttel, Elisabeth Christine (1715 – 1797). Living separate by wish of the king, the queen resided here during the summer months until her death. After the destruction of the Seven Years’War (1756 – 1763), Elisabeth Christine had the castle continued to be expanded upon. Building master Johan Boumann Sr. (1706 – 1776) of Amsterdam gave the castle its current appearance during 1763 / 64. The public park Schönholzer Heide was laid out beginning in 1920. On its grounds, the Soviet Memorial honours the 13 200 soldiers and officers who were killed in March/April of 1945 while freeing Berlin from the Nazi regime. After Elisabeth Christine’s death, members of the royal family used the castle as summer residence. Between 1828 and 1831, landscape architect Peter Joseph Lenné (1789 – 1866) turned the queen’s rococo garden into an expansive English garden style park. From 1840 on, castle and park is where Princess Liegnitz, neé Auguste Gräfin von Harrach (1800 – 1873). From 1824 on, she was per morganatic (left-handed) marriage the wife of King Friedrich Wilhelm III (1770 – 1840). In 1855, on the north side, the court gardener’s house was created in the style of an Italian country estate. In 1920, the castle became the property of the Prussian state. It was used in between as exhibition hall by the »Künstlerbund Norden« and in 1935 / 36 – under the direction of chief building inspector Erich Schonert – extensivelyrenovated for exhibits by the Nazi »Reich’s Chamber of Fine Arts.« In 1938, a large number of those works displayed in the Nazi propaganda exhibit »Degenerate Art« which were intended to be sold internationally were stored here. Castle Schönhausen survived World War II nearly unscathed. In 1946, it was used intermittently as boarding school of the Soviet Military Administration. In 1949 it became the governmental seat of the firstpresident of the GDR, Wilhelm Pieck (1876 – 1960), and was redesigned so that he could also reside there from 1953 on. During the process, an outer wall, guard houses at the driveway entrances, a presidential office and garages were added. In 1960, the castle became the meeting place of the GDR State Council (a sort of collective head of state), and after extensive changes, it became the GDR government’s first guest house in 1965. Between December of 1989 and March of 1990, the GDR Central Round Table met in the conference building (»House Berlin« memorial plaque). In June of 1990, the second round of the »Two-Plus Four« talks met here to discuss bringing about German unity. The castle park re-opened to the public in 1991.
The citizens’ estates on what used to be called Viktoriaand Kronprinzenstraße, now Majakowskiring, were taken over and emptied in 1945 by the Soviet occupation for its officers and important people returning from emigration. Both streets forming a ring received the name of the Russian poet Wladimir Majakowski (1893 – 1930) in 1950. After the founding of the GDR in 1949, upper-level functionaries of the SED party and GDR government lived in the prohibited zone (translated from the Russian to mean »little city«). Villa Nr. 28 (torn down in 1975) is where SED General Secretary Walter Ulbricht (1893 – 1973) had lived. His wife, Lotte Ulbricht (1903 – 2002), moved into House Nr. 12 after the death of her husband in 1973. House Nr. 29 is where President Wilhelm Pieck once lived, Nr. 34 inhabited by poet and Minister of Culture Johannes R. Becher (1891 – 1958), in Nr. 46/48 the first Minister President Otto Grotewohl (1894-1964) lived, and in Nr. 58 was intermittent home to SED Member of the Politburo Erich Honecker (1912 – 1994). Homeyerstrasse 13 was home to author and President of the GDR Academy of the Arts Arnold Zweig (1887 – 1968), author Hans Fallada (1893 – 1947) lived on the street named after him in 1994 called Rudolf-Dietzen-Weg 19 (previously called Majakowskiweg, Eisenmengerweg, Prinz-Heinrich-Straße). In 1960, the heads of the SED parties moved their homes to the forest settlement near Wandlitz north of Berlin.

Prenzlauer Berg
Pankow
Local Authorities
During the years of rapid industrial expansion in Germany from 1870 to 1890, Berlin’s population grew in leaps and bounds. Industrialisation heightened social problems. Mass poverty, disease and homelessness had to be overcome. Thus a hospital, hospice and homeless shelter were set simultaneously on Prenzlauer Allee 63 – 79/corner of Straße 13b (from 1891 on Fröbelstraße – Friedrich Fröbel, 1782 – 1852, educator, founder of both the term and institution of »Kindergarten «). Architects of the building complex were Berlin municipal builders Hermann Blankenstein and Vinzent Dylewski. Berlin’s appearance was marked by the many red and yellow brick buildings done by Hermann Blankenstein (1829 – 1910). His works included but were not limited to 14 Berlin market halls and 120 schools.
The Friedrich Wilhelm Urban Hospital and Hospice (Building 3, built 1886 to 1889) was considered a model institution, as it was constructed in accordance with what were once the most modern of health standards. Working quarters that included cafeteria and laundry facilities were connected behind the administrative building on Fröbelstraße, including wings with bed for 500 people. The buildings were some of the few centrally heated complexes of the time. The hospice in the northern part of the complex accommodated 1 000 patients. The chapel on Prenzlauer Allee was used for laying out the deceased. In 1934, both the hospital and hospice were moved to the outskirts of town in Berlin-Buch. After the Nazis came to power in 1933, the chapel was turned into a celebratory hall. The local Prenzlauer Berg district administration moved into Building 3 in 1934. After the end of the Second World War in May of 1945, the Red Army confiscated the district administration building and put up a fence around it. The Commander of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD) for the district of Prenzlauer Berg moved into the chapel. The Soviet Secret Service (NKVD) used the basement of Building 3 to imprison and interrogate persons accused of having been Nazi functionaries or opposers of the Soviet occupying forces. In 1950, he SMAD turned a portion of the building over to the Berlin local administration of the Stasi (East Germany’s Security Service). The basement of Building 3 was used as a prison until at least 1956. In 2005, an artistic memorial by Karla Sachse and an informational plaque recall the fate of the prison victims. Another part of the building complex separated by a wall was used by the Prenzlauer Berg City Council. After the Stasi moved out in 1986, the City Council made use of the entire grounds. The Prenzlauer Berg branch of the East German communist party SED moved into Building 9. The building has been in the hands of the Pankow local authorities since 2001.
The Urban Homeless Shelter built 1886 /87 on Fröbelstraße / corner of Diesterwegstraße (Adolf Diesterweg, 1790 – 1866, educator and politician who specialized in education policy, introduced the concept of social education) served as temporary quarters for the poor and homeless. The building was nicknamed »The Palm« because of the palm tree that adorned its entrance. Family shelter was available inside the administration building; individuals could stay in one of the 40 adjacent overnight halls. A single overnight hall slept up to 70 persons and was often overcrowded. Upon arrival, the homeless were registered and cleaned up, given soup and bread, and assigned a cot to sleep in until 6 a.m. the next morning. The Nazis closed the homeless shelter after 1933 and set up a transit camp for foreign forced labourers. The building has been used as a hospital since 1940. The Zeiss-Großplanetarium (planetarium on Prenzlauer Allee 80) opened in 1987 and is Europe’s largest observatory. The »Cosmorama« projector made by factory Carl Zeiss Jena is the centerpiece of the planetarium and is located in the 23 meter high dome hall. This was the most modern projector designed in East Germany. The projector brilliantly displayed the night sky. Three giant gas containers from a former gas works were once located near the planetarium. In July of 1984, the containers were detonated in spite of protests by citizens’ initiatives aimed at preserving the gasometer as an industrial memorial.
Ernst Thälmann Park
The Ernst Thälmann Park apartment complex between Danziger Straße, Greifswalder Straße and Prenzlauer Allee was created in 1986 to showcase the concept of »socialist living. « The building complex consisted of prefabricated building units with more than 1 300 apartments for 4 000 tenants, lakes, three playgrounds, an indoor swimming pool, and buildings that had been part of the former gas works. The IV. Berliner Gasanstalt (4th Berliner Gasworks) were set up between 1872 and 1874 on the grounds of today’s Ernst Thälmann Park. Here gas was produced for lighting, Berlin’s rapidly growing industry, and gas-driven household appliances. Six huge additional gasometers were set up between 1882 and 1908. Town gas from hard coal was produced at the gasworks through heating in a vacuum (hard coal distillation). The gas had to be removed of impurities before it could be measured, contained in gas holders, and then distributed to users. By-products resulted, i.e. coke used as heating material at the works and sold, as well as tar, naphthalene, ammonia, and sulphur hydrogen that were processed by the chemical industry. The gasworks also produced water-gas (from 1908 on), generator gas (from 1913 on) and benzol (since 1915). The gasworks employees worked hard and at high risk to their health in the middle of the smoky, smelly factory. Gas, dust and soot plagued generations of locals in the vicinity. There were plans in the 1930s to close the 4th Gasworks and turn the grounds into a Prenzlauer Berg neighbourhood park. The first step in that direction was taken when a gas container was ripped down on what is now Ella-Kay-Straße / corner of Danziger Straße in 1936 and a park laid out there in 1939. Gas production was ended at the gasworks on Danziger Straße (Dimitroffstraße at the time) and the building of an apartment complex and park was decided upon. While building, 90 000 cubic metres of earth that were polluted over the last 100 years had to be removed. Although many citizens requested that the gasometers be maintained as technological memorials, they were nonetheless detonated in 1984. The gasworks’ historical former gas measurement and administration buildings have been used as cultural venues since 1986. The Theater unterm Dach, Galerie parterre, the events venue WABE and the JungenKunstWerkstätten are located within. The Ernst Thälmann Memorial was commissioned by the East German Communist Party SED Politburo and created by Russian sculptor Lew Kerbel, who also contributed to the design of the Soviet Memorial in Tiergarten (1946). The 14 metre high and 15 metre wide Thälmann Memorial was dedicated in 1986 and rests upon a base of Ukrainian granite. It weighs 50 tons, is made up of 200 individual pieces, and it used up all of the bronze produced in one year in East Germany. Since Thälmann’s head resembles Lenin (leader of the 1917 Russian Revolution), the people often referred to the memorial as "Lehmann". Ernst Thälmann (1886 – 1944), port and transport worker from Hamburg, became head of Germany’s Communist Party (KPD) in 1925 und of the Communist defense organisation Red Front Fighters’ Alliance (RFB), whose members greeted one another with a raised balled fist and the words »red front.« Ernst Thälmann was one of the people primarily responsible for the Stalinist course pursued by his party. After the KPD was prohibited in 1933, Member of the Reichstag Parliament Thälmann was put into jail by the Nazis for eleven years and then murdered at concentration camp Buchenwald in 1944.
When the GDR (East Germany) came to an end in 1990, a discussion ensued about either tearing down, preserving, or changing the memorial. Two bronze columns with texts by Ernst Thälmann and Erich Honecker were removed. In 1993, a Berlin Senate commission recommended tearing it down. The local Prenzlauer Berg elected officials voted to tear down the memorial, re-do the park, and to find a more appropriate means of honoring Thälmann’s historical importance. Berlin’s State Memorial Authority listed the bronze bust as a historical memorial in 1995.
Gethsemane Church
Stargarder Straße was named in 1891 after the city of Stargard (today’s Szczecinski in the polish Wojwodschaft Szczecin). The Gethsemanekirche (Gethesemane Church) on Stargarder Straße 77 is the oldest Protestant church in Prenzlauer Berg. The property lay far beyond the Schönhauser Tor (Gate) at the time it belonged to Wilhelm Griebenow (1784 – 1865). Landowner Griebenow owned farmland along the Linden tree dotted Schönhauser Allee. In 1887, his widow gave the church community the land to build the Gethsemanekirche and a parish house upon. The Gethsemanekirche was built from 1891 to 1893 under direction of architect August Orth (1828 – 1901). This master builder is considered one of the most renowned architects of the second half of the 19th century. He participated not only in the building of the Zionskirche (church built 1866 Widerto 1873), but in that of countless other churches in and around Berlin. Bethlehem’s Protestant church was created based on his drawings. The Gethsemanekirche is seen as the pinnacle of his church buildings. August Orth studied in Braunschweig, Berlin and Munich before going to work for the railroad network, including a stint as managing project architect of the Berliner S-Bahn. He became a freelance architect in 1863. August Orth combined the building of churches with acoustic research. In 1879, he became one of the founders of the Association of Berlin Architects and a member of both the Berlin und Vienna Academy of the Arts. Kaisers Wilhelm I (1797 – 1888) and Wilhelm II (1859 – 1941) financially supported the building of the Gethsemanekirche. In 1890, the last German empress, Auguste Viktoria (1858 – 1921), laid the foundation stone. The imperial family was generous in its support of building churches in Prussia. The Gethsemanekirche was dedicated in the presence of the royal couple in 1893. The name Gethsemane (garden on Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives where Jesus was arrested, suffered and overcame his mortal agony) was chosen by Kaiser Wilhelm II upon request of the church community board. The building of the new church sped up the complete develop of the quarter by the year 1900. During the Nazi dictatorship (1933 – 1945), the Gethsemanekirche became a center for national socialist-minded German Christians (Deutsche Christen – »DC«). Pastor Walter Wendland (1879 – 1952) and other members of the Gethsemane community that resisted the DC and Nazi church-related policies organized a countermovement that met at the parish home on Gethsemanestraße 9 and coordinated illegal Bekennenden Kirche (Confessing Church) events. The pastor’s wife, Agnes Wendland, and their daughters offered persecuted Jews shelter and work. Made out of steel plates, the church altar crucifix was done by popular Berlin artist-blacksmith Fritz Kühn (1910 – 1967). The wooden sculpture of Christ in Gethsemane to the right of the altar was created in the 1920s by Wilhelm Groß (1883 – 1974) as a memorial to the victims of the First World War. After 1933, the Christ figure was viewed by the Nazis as so-called degenerate art. They had it removed from the premises. The Blessing Christ figure in front of the church portal used to stand in front of the Versöhnungskirche (Church of Reconciliation, detonated in 1985) on Bernauer Straße. To the right side of the church stands a copy of the bronze sculpture Geistkämpfer / »The Fighter of the Spirit« (casting by Bildgießerei Hermann Noack, Berlin) done in 1927 / 28 by Ernst Barlach (1870-1938). The original is located in Kiel. Barlach himself described his work as the »triumph of the spirit over the earthly (flesh).« This sculpture was erected on November 9, 1994 by the city of Berlin in honour and memory of the beginnings of the East German democratic movement. In the 1980s, the Gethsemanekirche became a center of church supported peace, environmental, and human
rights work. Thus a peace circle, a citizenship rights’ in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) working group, and a lesbian group met here. Put up in 1990, the flat relief Resistance by Berliner sculptor Karl Biedermann recalls the September und October days in 1989 in which the Gethsemanekirche became the information centre and meeting point of the oppositional people’s movement in the GDR. Thousands of people came together here to keep watch and pray for the demonstrators incarcerated on October 7, 1989.
During the first Ecumenical Church Conference in July 2003, the Gethsemanekirche hosted a Catholic worship service and Eucharist to which Protestants were invited, as well as a Protestant service and Communion to which Catholics were made welcome to join.
Jewish Life
Prenzlauer Berg’s Jewish cemetery (Schönhauser Allee 23 – 25), the second in Berlin, was laid out in 1827 between fields beyond the town wall. Today it is Berlin’s oldest recognisable
Jewish burial place, where all Berlin Jews were buried through 1880. Individual Jews were still laid to rest here in 1943. The cemetery contains 22,500 individual and 750 family graves. An outstanding and unique aspect of this cemetery is that its gravestones inscriptions are in both German and Hebrew. These gravestone exemplify the contradictory aspects of 19th-century Jewish life, as well as the desire of Berlin Jews to integrate into society-at-large. The names of those buried here reads like a »Who’s Who« of Prussian cultural history: Ludwig Bamberger (1823 – 1899, a revolutionary, Member of Parliament, banker, founder of the German Reichsbank); Gerson von Bleichröder (1822 – 1893, Banker of the Hohenzollerns and Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, first Prussian Jew to become a member of the aristocracy); Meno Burg (1788 – 1853, first Jewish military officer in Prussia); Rabbi Abraham Geiger (1810 – 1874, renowned Jewish theologian, co-founder of the College for the Science of Judaism in Berlin); Eduard Lasker (1829 – 1884, jurist, Member of Parliament, legal system reformer); Max Liebermann (1847 – 1935, Impressionist painter and graphic artist, President of the Prussian Academy of the Arts); Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791 – 1864, opera composer), Leopold Ullstein (1826- 1899, publisher). The remains of the main cemetery hall, destroyed during World War II, were detonated in 1956. Another historically unique feature of the cemetery is found alongside its wall and along the back courtyards of apartments on Kollwitzstrasse: »The Jewish passage« (»Judengang«) – a path 7 m wide and 400 m in length that was once a rural path along the rear end of the newly erected Jewish cemetery in 1827. The »Judengang« was maintained between Metzer Strasse (on Senefelderplatz) and Kollwitzplatz during the urban development of the neighbourhood.
Its historical function isn’t completely clear. Some say that the Jews were forbidden to use the main entrance to the cemetery on Schönhauser Allee as the king did not want to be disturbed by funeral processions on the way to his summer residence in Niederschönhausen. Thus only the »Judengang« and rear cemetery entrance were permitted to be used during funerals. During substantial cemetery renovation (2003), the »Judengang« and its gate on Kollwitzplatz were restored to visibility. Today the »Judengang« is preserved as a listed garden memorial. The building on Schönhauser Allee to the right of the Jewish cemetery was once the Jewish community’s second Home for the Aged. For years after 1945, the former Jewish Home was used as a police station. The Home was founded by Bertha and Moritz Manheimer in 1880. Their family grave plot is located in the cemetery within close proximity to the wall that once stood next to the Home for the Aged. Requirements for tenancy at the Home for the Aged: at least 60 years of age, Jewish, and 15 years of Berlin residency. The Nazis shut down the Home in 1942; residents and personnel were deported to Theresienstadt concentration camp. The children and teachers of Baruch Auerbach’s Orphanage for Jewish Boys and Girls suffered the same fate. Teacher and educator Baruch Auerbach (1793 – 1864) founded a Jewish orphanage for boys in 1832 on Rosenstrasse. It moved into the newly erected complex on Schönhauser Allee 162 in 1897. The orphanage consisted of both a boys’ and girls’ house, plus a gymnasium. A memorial to Kaiser Friedrich stood in front of the main entrance. When the Nazis forcibly shut down the institution in 1942, 89 children and teachers were deported to Riga. The building sustained heavy damage during World War II before being torn down in the 1950s. A memorial on site recalls this Jewish social service institution and the fate of its children and their caretakers.
The largest synagogue in Berlin today is located on Rykestrasse 53 (to get there, take Metzer Strasse – Kollwitzstrasse – Knaackstrasse). Berlin’s sixth community synagogue was completed in 1904 based on plans by the Jewish community’s chief builder Johann Hoeniger (1850 – 1913). Built in the form of a Neo-Romanesque three-part basilica, the synagogue style is reminiscent of Mark Brandenburg’s brick churches. The five-storey main front building housed a meeting hall with apartments and religious school. During the Nazi pogroms against Jews in Germany on the night of November 9, 1938, the sanctuary was desecrated and objects were destroyed. It is reported that the synagogue was misused as a horse stable during World War II. The GDR had it restored in 1953; the newly dedicated »Temple of Peace« on Rykestrasse was the Jewish community’s only synagogue in East Berlin. Rykestrasse is named after the Berlin patrician family Ryke (or Reiche), from which a number of Berlin city mayors hailed between the 14th and 16th centuries. Senefelderplatz (south of the underground station) was laid out in 1885, the memorial for Alois Senefelder erected in 1892. An Austrian born in Prague, Senefelder invented the steel writing nib that replaced the quill, as well as planography (known as lithography or stone print) that revolutionized book printing.
Kollwitzplatz
Kollwitzplatz (previously Wörther Platz) is one of Berlin’s loveliest plazas. Berlin Director of Urban Gardens, Hermann Mächtig (1837 – 1909), designed the decorative plaza with
a circular memorial at its centre in 1887. After the Franco-Prussian War (1870 – 1871), Wörther Platz was named in 1875 after the conquered Alsatian city of Wörth. The plaza
and surrounding streets used to be called the »Alsace-Lorraine Quarter«, but was colloquially known as the »Generals’ Quarter,« as numerous military officers stationed around Alexanderplatz resided in grand apartments here. Even before Nazi Germany officially capitulated (May 8, 1945) and World War II ended in Europe, the Red Army held a victory celebration at Wörther Platz on May 1, 1945. Both Kollwitzplatz and Kollwitzstrasse (previously Weißenburger Strasse) received their current names in 1947, in honour of the illustrator, painter, graphic artist and sculptor Käthe Kollwitz (1867 – 1945). Her most famous works include the drawing »Never Again War« and the sculpture »Pieta« – an enlarged copy of the sculpture is found in the Neue Wache (New Guard House) on Unter den Linden. The square was remodelled in 1950, based on plans by land-scape architect Reinhold Lingner (1902 – 1968). A bronze Käthe Kollwitz Memorial, based on plans by Gustav Seitz (1906-1969) has decorated the centre of the plaza since 1960; it is based upon a Käthe Kollwitz self-portrait done in 1938. The sculpture itself (done by Seiler bronzecasting) is a mas terpiece of mid-20th-century German sculpture. Käthe Kollwitz was married to the Physician Dr. Karl Kollwitz (1863 – 1940), who treated the poor. The couple lived and worked on Weißenburger Strasse 25 (currently Kollwitzstrasse 56a) from 1891 onwards. The building on the corner of Knaackstrasse (Ernst Knaack, 1914 – 1944, murdered anti-Faschist) was destroyed during an air raid in 1943. A limestone sculpture of a »Mother with Two Children« designed by Käthe Kollwitz and completed by Fritz Diederich (1869 – 1951) was displayed on the empty site of Kollwitz’ former apartment building beginning in 1965 on Kollwitzplatz. The sculpture stood until 1960 at Kollwitzplatz. Since the development of Kollwitz’s former residence site in 1997, the sculpture was moved to the grounds of the local authority offices on Fröbelstrasse 17. The special flair of the Kollwitzplatz (with its neighbouring Jewish Cemetery) drew students, artists, and GDR intellectuals to the neighbourhood beginning in the 1960s. Their presence had a lasting influence on the reputation and distinct social climate of the neighborhood. A »living laboratory« for art, literature, and alternative lifestyles grew. The East German citizen’s movement gained momentum in the former district Prenzlauer Berg and people met here to communicate.
In honour of the 750th anniversary of Berlin’s founding in 1987, the facades, storefronts, restau rants, lanterns and street signs north of Kollwitzplatz on Husemannstrasse (Walter Husemann, 1909 – 1943, murdered anti-Faschist) to Sredzkistrasse (Siegmund Sredzki, 1892 – 1944, mur dered anti-Faschist) were restored to the way they looked in the year 1900. Five hundred apart ments were also modernized in the process. Most of the older buildings had been so neglected that beginning anew appeared less costly than refurbishing older buildings. Authorities had planned to do extensive tearing down of old buildings – against which residents successfully protested until the end of the GDR (in 1990). Plans were laid for tearing down to begin on Rykestrasse (Ryke, Berlin patrician family of high standing during the 14th to 16th centuries), location of Berlin’s largest Synagogue. Church-related and other groups created plans for building playgrounds, adding greenery to building courtyards and for preservation of parks.
Berlin Wall Park
The Mauerpark (Berlin Wall Park) runs along Schwedter Straße between Bernauer Straße and Gleimstraße. The Park is located on the grounds along the former East German border to West Berlin that made up the Berlin Wall. The Wall split Berlin from 1961 to 1989 into two halves. A row of concrete markers along the Wall Park’s pedestrian walkway delineates the path of the former border zone’s outer wall. To the east of the frontal Wall lay a guard patrol strip that allowed border guards an unencumbered view and free shooting range. Watch towers were located on the guard patrol strip. A 100-metre stretch of the Wall’s rear portion has been preserved along the slope of the Wall Park. Until the 19th century, the grounds of today’s Wall Park consisted of suburban farming land. From 1825 on, a Prussian military regiment used the space along the »Lost Path« (renamed Schwedter Straße in 1862) as a marching and drill grounds (»Exerzierplatz«). Berliners affectionately called the grounds »Exer«. The train station opened by the »Nordbahn« in 1877 on Schwedter Straße/corner of Bernauer Straße (renamed Eberswalder Güterbahnhof in 1950) was used through the early 1980s. The Bösebrücke (bridge named after Wilhelm Böse, 1883 – 1944, murdered antifascist; dedicated Hindenburgbrücke in 1916) is located at the northern end of the Wall Park at Bornholmer Straße. On November 9, 1989, pressure exerted by the mass gathering here led to the first opening of the Berlin Wall border. On this night, tens of thousands of East German citizens crossed state and system lines to West Berlin. A cherry tree grove was planted beneath the Bösebrücke as a reminder of the opening of the Berlin Wall here. The Wall and border zone were disassembled and removed in 1990. The open space was laid out as a park in 1994 based on plans by landscape architect Gustav Lange, and was designed to reconnect the Prenzlauer Berg and Wedding districts. The Wall Park, sponsored by the State of Berlin and also financed through donations, was set up as a spacious grove and grass field. The column-shaped trees geand thickets of fruit are intended to resemble a Tuscany landscape. This spot here is where a viewing tower used to be located behind the West Berlin side of the Wall. Tourists and West Berliners alike used to come here; this was also a place to obtain information, where demonstrations and meetings took place. On the night of November 10, 1989 – one day after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Wall was also opened here and an additional border crossing point was set up. Gedenkensemble Berliner Mauer (Berlin Wall Memorial) on Bernauer Straße (between Hussiten- and Gartenstraße): Visitors can take in the memorial from above at the tower of the Berlin Wall Documentation Center (Bernauer Straße 111). This is the only place in Berlin where a more or less original piece of the Berlin Wall and recognizable border zone is located. The Center opened in 1999 and is both informational and meeting place for memorial visitors. In order to present the history of the Berlin Wall in its political context here: exhibits are shown, personal testimonies and documents collected and presented, lectures are offered, publications released and educational work done. Dedicated in 2000, the Chapel of Reconciliation is a place that focuses on reconciliation efforts. Broken bricks taken from the Church of Reconciliation (detonated in 1985) were used for building the chapel. The alter hall contains a glass window through which the remains of the Berlin Wall from 1961 and the foundation of the Church of Reconciliation can be seen. The sculpture of the blessing Christ figure fromthe Church of Reconciliation was preserved and is displayed today in front of the Gethsemane Church.
Water Tower
The Water Tower building complex (reservoir, supply line tower, engine room, and watermark control unit) on the former Windmühlenberg is one of Berlin’s important industrial memorials. The water tower itself is the Prenzlauer Berg district symbol. Its large and small water silos are used for summer cultural events. Berliners (resident population in 1850: 420,000) and city industry once drew drinking and overall water supply from wells using hand pumps. By the mid-nineteenth century, this water supply system could no longer keep up with the demand induced by city development. In 1852, the Prussian state government hired the English firm Fox & Crampton to take care of Berlin’s sewage and water supply. English engineering was considered Europe’s best at the time. The firm founded the »Berlin Waterworks Company«, which commissioned English engineer Henry Gill in 1856 to build the city’s first waterworks – on the Spree River near Stralauer Tor (in today’s Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district). Steam engines used a pipe system to pump filtered Spree river water to every second Berlin household. Complimentary to the waterworks, Henry Gill built an open subterranean reservoir for clean water and a supply line tower on the Windmühlenberg in front of the Prenzlauer Tor. The reservoir (3,000 cubic metre capacity) and tower (20 metres in height) were used to indicate and balance the water pressure, and also as a safety valve. The water table in the complex on the 50 metre high Windmühlenberg measured in at the same level as the roof of the Berlin city palace. The city of Berlin bought the existing waterworks in 1873 / 74. More water was needed; available water pressure at the time was no longer sufficient. Thus the city erected a new water tower and two engine rooms a few metres away from the old Windmühlenberg complex in 1875. Berliners called the new massive 30 metre water tower »Fat Hermann.«Wilhelm Vollhering designed the round water tower to include workers’ apartments below an elevated water reservoir for 1,200 cubic metres of treated ground water. Together with the old supply line tower and the reservoir, the new water tower and pump houses supplied water to Berlin’s entire northern region. After the Nazis came to power in late January of 1933, Satroops used the boiler and engine rooms to set up one of the first concentration camps. A memorial recalls the fate of Anti-fascists tortured and murdered here. The machine complex and the old supply line tower went out of use in 1914. Just the new tower’s elevated reservoir was used to adjust pressure through 1952. The grounds surrounding the water tower were designed in 1916 based on plans by Albert Broderson, City Director of Gardens. Paul Mittelstädt, Garden Director, continued the development in 1935. Grounds restoration paid heed to both the 1916 and 1935 garden designs. Other sights in the immediate vicinity of the water tower include: Kollwitzplatz; Immanuelkirche on Prenzlauer Allee (dedicated in 1893; August Orth, Architect and Privy Building Counsillor, 1828-1901); Synagogue on Rykestraße (completed in 1904; Johann Hoeniger, Architect and Jewish Community Chief Building); Cultural and Educational Center prenzlauer 227 (accessible also on Kolmarer Straße) containing the Pankow district regional museum, a library and an Adult Education School in one of the oldest school buildings in Prenzlauer Berg (used as a school beginning 1886; Hermann Blankenstein, Architect and City Building Councillor).
Antonplatz • Composers‘ Quarter
Berlin chronicler and publisher Friedrich Nicolai sang the praises of the Weißer See with its lovely gardens along the avenue to Berlin in 1786. Expansion of the avenue began in 1804. From 1877 on, the horse-drawn tram (streetcar precursor) covered the six kilometers from Alexanderplatz out to the Weißer See. The streetcar line on Berliner Allee is the oldest completely preserved line in use today. The avenue was named Königschaussee in 1880, from 1910 on Berliner Allee, and since 1953 Klement-Gottwald-Allee. Weißensee’s lifesline was renamed Berliner Allee again in 1991. The street begins at Antonplatz, home to one of Berlin’s oldest movie theaters. From 1907 through the 1920s, Berliner Allee and its side streets developed into a movie mile of sorts. The first „Kintopps,“ as Berliners called them, were cinematographic theatres or picture palaces. The Weißensee theatres were called „Anton,“ „Antonia,“ „Berolina,“ „Delphi,“ „Harmonie,“ „Rio,“ „Schlosspark“ or “Universum.“ The picture palace on busy Antonplatz was the first free standing new movie theatre in Weißensee. Built in 1919 for movie theatre builders Czutzka and Co. based on plans by Berlin movie theatre architects Max Bischoff and Fritz Wilms, creators of the first picture palace in Prenzlauer Berg, the „Colosseum“ on Schönhauser Allee 7. After 1921, the 750-seat movie theatre belonged to the Universum Film AG (Ufa). Heavily damaged during the Second World War, it was re-opened in 1948. The building authorities closed the only privately owned movie theatre in East Berlin in 1979; the leaseholder gave up. The Berlin city authorities overtook responsibility for the theatre; after extensive reconstruction, it was reopened in 1982 as KINO TONI. Antonplatz was laid out from 1871 on and in December of 1875 legally recognized as a public space named after land owner, business man and russian local politician Anton Matthias Schön (1837 deceased after 1913). He was a Berlin representative and younger brother of Hamburg business man, ship owner, and building speculator Gustav Adolf Schön (1834 – 1889), after whom the Weißensee streets Gustav-Adolf-Straße and Schönstraße are named. In 1872, G. A. Schön purchased large pieces of Weißensee property which he divided up until 1874 and sold for profit. In 1875, the Weißensee communal authorities purchased Antonplatz, which hotels, banks, and a department store were built. To honour the 100th anniversary of the birthday of Kaiser Wilhelm I (1861 to 1888 King of Prussia, 1871 to 1888 German Kaiser), a Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial was erected on Antonplatz in 1897. Thus from 1900 on, city maps often deemed Antonplatz “Kaiser-Wilhelm-Platz” even though the name was never officially sanctioned. The memorial statue was moved in 1928 and melted down during the Second World War. Antonplatz received its current apprearance in 2001. G. A. Schön’s ground speculation made the advantageous location near Berlin so profitable. An extensive building of apartments was undertaken. Entrepreneur Ernst Gäbler (1812 – 1876) found the „Baugesellschaft für Mittelwohnungen“ and errected the Französische Viertel (French Quarter) from 1872 on south of Königschaussee (Berliner Allee) between Antonplatz and Lichtenberger Straße (Indira-Gandhi-Straße). The name of the quarter was drawn from the former names of the streets – points and places that glorified the Franco-Prussian War (1870 / 71). In 1951, the streets were given the names of composers Bizet, Borodin, Gounod, Mahler, Meyerbeer, Puccini, Rossini and Smetana. From then on, it was known as the Komponistenviertel (Composers’ Quarter). Chopinstraße was added in 1962, Arnold-Schönberg-Platz in 1998.
Exceptional names include Herbert-Baum-Straße (murdered Jewish anti-fascist resistance fighter), Otto-Brahm-Straße (Berlin literary critic, dramaticist, and theatre director), and
Markus-Reich-Platz (Berlin Jewish educator). In 1880, the Berlin Jewish Community dedicated its new Jewish cemetery south of the Composers’ Quarter on Lothringenstraße (now Herbert-Baum-Straße).
Film City Weißensee
Caligariplatz was named in 2002 as a reminder of the cinema center Filmstadt Weißensee. From 1911 on, famous film production companies moved from out of the à7 inner city’s
narrow attic quarters and into what is now Berliner Allee 249 / corner of Liebermannstraße (see memorial plaque). This is where young Marlene Dietrich (1901 – 1992) debued in
the film „Die Tragödie der Liebe.“ Producer and director of this film, Joe May (1880 – 1954), shot the world’s first monumental films in Weißensee. In use up until the worldwide
economic crisis of 1928 / 29, Filmstadt Weißensee gave birth to some of the most important early German films. In 1919, the Decla-Filmgesellschaft Holz & Co. on Franz-Joseph-Straße (today’s Liebermannstraße) produced the silent film „Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari“ based on the screenplay by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer. Direction (Robert Wiene), camera (Willy Hameister), acting (Lil Dagover, Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt und andere) and scenes (Hermann Warm, Walter Röhrig, Walter Reimann, Albert Kubin) make this work one of the most famous examples of expressionist film art. The premiere showing of the psychodrama took place on February 27, 1920 in the „Marmorhaus“ on Kurfürstendamm. The film became world famous a year later after being shown in New York. The most discussed film of its time was banned in Germany in 1933 and deemed “degenerate art” by the Nazis. The art and cultural center „Brotfabrik“ on Caligariplatz was named after the bread factor that used the premises until 1952. In 1986, the Berlin-Weißensee Art College / Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee (Bühringstraße 20, to be reached via Gustav-Adolf-Straße) set up a youth club
in the building, which was shut down for political reasons after only two months by GDR authorities. The same youth club „An der Weißenseer Spitze“ re-opened in 1987 with a
cafe, artists’ workshop, and off-theatre. Today movies, theatre, and exhibits are shown, and cabaret, jazz and literary events take place here. Berliners call the area around Caligariplatz Weißenseer Spitze. The name comes from the pointed section of the estate at the Weißenseer Feldmark that came in contact with the district of Pankow – approximately where the supermarket is located today on Talstraße. After 1870, a typical suburban mixed residential and commercial area was created on land that had been used for agriculture up until then. Book binders, wood turners, wood carvers, masons, plasterers, saddlers, locksmiths, tailors and joiners for whom Berlin rent had grown too expensive took up residence. Since the formation of greater Berlin in 1920, the new districts formed then and the contemporary districts of Weißensee, Prenzlauer Berg and Pankow meet at the Weißenseer Spitze. Other Greater Pankow District sights worth seeing are located in the vicinity of Caligariplatz, such as the Residential town Wohnstadt Carl Legien on Erich-Weinert-Straße (to be reached via Prenzlauer Allee in Rthe direction of downtown Berlin) and the self-help initiative founded by artists, the culturLAWINE Kunst und Kommunikation on Streustraße 42 (reachable via Gustav-Adolf-Straße) with its artist studios, practice rooms, and apartments that cover 640 square meters designed for creative work close to the center of Berlin.
Community Forum • Dutch Quarter
The building of the Gemeindeforum (Community Forum) at Kreuzpfuhl in 1907 created a Weißensee community center with homes, social and administrative buildings, and a sewage removal system. Completed in 1912, the park-like residential area done in Mark Brandenburg brick architecture with interesting artistic details adorning the interior of the homes was intended to make Weißensee more attractive for more affluent renters. The county community strived to obtain city status under direction of its head Dr. Carl Woelck (1868 – 1937, 1905 to 1920 mayor of Weißensee, buried at Friedhof Roelckestraße), but did not succeed. The Gemeindeforum building ensemble designed by Carl James Bühring (1871 – 1936) had thus been conceived of a municipal quarter. Bühringstraße, location of the Kunsthochschule Berlin (Art College), is named after him. The school building built in 1910 north of the Kreuzpfuhl was also made according to a design by the architect and local politician; a memorial plaque on the building at Pistoriusstraße 24 reminds us of him. Bühring had studied in Christiania (as Oslo was once called), Charlottenburg and Braunschweig, and then worked in Wiesbaden, Hannover, Nienburg and Berlin. From 1906 on, he served as community head of building planning and control in Weißensee. In addition to the Gemeindeforum in Weißensee, Bührung had the first communal Children’s Hospital in Prussia (former Newborn and Children’s Hospital on Hansastraße) built in 1910 / 11, the building on Tassostraße and the Gemeindebadeanstalt (community bathing facilities dedicated in 1912) at the Weißer See. Bühring left for Leipzig to become head of building planning and control in 1915.
A plaque on the corner of building at Woelckpromenade 5 is in memory of the founder of the Malik-Verlag publishing company and author Wieland Herzfelde (1896 – 1988). Honorary Berlin citizen and brother of graphic artist John Heartfield, Herzfelde lived here from 1974 until his death. One of the Gemeindeforum’s first buildings was an indoor center for sports and culture. The community athletic and celebration hall with bowling alley, and swimming pools was opened in 1908 and everything was completely destroyed during the Second World War except for its restaurant. It was still used for a few years after 1945 as a restaurant and then as a kindergarten. In 1998, it was given over to an association called Frei-Zeit-Haus for use. Supported by the Berlin Senate and the Pankow local authorities, the Frei-Zeit-Haus on Pistoriusstraße (Johann Pistorius, 1777 – 1858, spirits producer, owner of former Weißensee manor) is gladly frequented today not only by Weißensee locals as a culture and event center for people of all ages. The residential Holländer-Quartier (Dutch Quarter) between Woelckpromenade, Schönstraße, Paul-Oestreich-Straße and Amalienstraße is located right next to Bühring’s Gemeindeforum buildings and was created between 1925 and 1929. This complex by architect Josef Tiedemann is reminiscent of the Holländische Viertel in Potsdam. Gemeindeforum and Holländer-Quartier are excellent examples of building reform that proceeded the „New Building“ style as represented by Bruno Taut’s social residential buildings done between 1926 and 1930 on Trierer Straße 8 – 18 („Papageienhaus“) and by his designs on Buschallee. These buildings, as well as the ones planned by Bruno Taut for the residential town Wohnstadt Carl Legien on Erich-Weinert-Straße (in Prenzlauer Berg) are listed architectural memorials.
Jewish Cemetery
Weißensee
The Jewish Cemetery Weißensee consists of 115 000 graves over 42 hectares and is Europe’s largest intact Jewish cemetery. It was laid out in 1879 in Weißensee – not yet belonging to Berlin – as the Berlin Jewish Community’s third burial grounds (previously: 1672 to 1827 Cemetery Große Hamburger Straße; 1827 to 1880 with occasional burials through Cemetery Schönhauser Allee. On September 9, 1880, this cemetery – now a listed historical monument – was festively dedicated. The extensive system of paths leading through the cemetery divides it into 120 fields of graves. Main and side paths are set up as avenues. Along the main paths and in rows of honor, monumental graves of Berlin’s Jewish citizens are found. The architecture of these graves demonstrates the way the Jewish bourgeoisie saw itself at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. In 1961, the graves stones from the closed down Köpenicker Jewish Cemetery are also found at the Cemetery in Weißensee. Just two kilometres to the north on Wittlicher Straße, the Israelitische Synagogen-Gemeinde, dass Jisroel (Israelite Synagogue Community Adass Yisroel) bought land in 1873 for their cemetery. The first burial took place in 1880. The plaza at the main entrance was named in 1995 after the Jewish educator Markus Reich (1844 – 1911; Grave U1 Row 15). He founded the Israelitische Taubstummenanstalt (Israelite Institute for the Deaf and Mute) in 1873 in Fürstenwalde. It moved in 1890 to Parkstraße in Weißensee to a newly erected school and residential building. A memorial plaque reminds of and remembers the Jewish residents deported to extermination camps in 1942. In 1990, the Protestant Stephanus-Schule (school) for children with mental and multiple handicaps moved into the building between Pistoriusstraße and Amalienstraße. The Jewish Cemetery Weißensee entrance buildings and ceremonial hall were built based on plans by architect Hugo Licht (1841 – 1923). The memorial plaza at the cemetery entrance created in 1992 is in memory of the six million
European Jews murdered between 1933 and 1945. From Berlin alone, 55 000 of the once 160 000 Jews were murdered. More than 1650 Jews who desperately committed suicide during the Nazi dictatorship are buried here. A special section set up in 1941 (Abteilung / Section 7) protects the cremated remains of 283 Jews murdered in concentration camps. The names of other victims were added by relatives to gravestones. The street leading to the cemetery entrance was named in 1951 after the Jewish anti-Fascist Herbert Baum (1912 – 1942).
An electrician by profession, Baum himself stood in a special way for Jewish resistance against the Nazis. The resistance group he led consisted of up to 100 Jewish youth, many of
them young women. Herbert Baum participated in the sabotage and burning of the Nazi propaganda exhibition “The Soviet Paradise” on Mai 18, 1942 at the Berliner Lustgarten.
He died in prison after extensive torturing on Juni 11, 1942. His grave is located at the cemetery (Berlin State Honorary Grave, P 1), as well as a memorial stone for him and 27 murdered members of the Herbert Baum Group. Many prominent personalities are buried at the cemetery, including: author Micha Josef Bin Gorion (a.k.a. Berdyschewski, 1865-1921), philosopher Hermann Cohen (1842 – 1918), publisher Samuel Fischer (1859 – 1934), cigarette factory producer Josef Garbáty-Rosenthal (1851-1939), physician Albert Fraenkel (1848 – 1916), author Stefan Heym (1913 – 2001), politician Max Hirsch (1832 – 1905),
gastronomist Berthold Kempinski (1843 – 1910), composer Louis Lewandowski (1821 – 1894), women’s rights activist Lina Morgenstern („Suppen-Lina“, 1830 – 1909), publisher
Rudolf Mosse (1843 – 1920), Rabbi Martin Riesenburger (1896 – 1965), department store founder Hermann Tietz (1837 – 1907), painter Lesser Ury (1861 – 1931), and journalist
Theodor Wolff (1868 – 1943). Near the cemetery’s second entrance (opened in 1924
but no longer in use) at Indira-Gandhi-Straße (through 1986 Lichtenberger Straße) is where the Memorial Field for Jewish Soldiers Killed during the First World War has been located
since 1914 (total of 12 000 in Germany, 3 500 of them were from Berlin). More than 500 Jewish soldiers killed in battle or who died as a result of war injuries are buried here, of them
395 at the memorial field. The three metre tall „Memorial Altar“ made by Community Head Builder Alexander Beer (1873 – 1944) out of mussel limestone was dedicated in 1927 by Rabbi Leo Baeck (1873 – 1956). The Bundeswehr (German Army) cares for this field regularly and honors those killed in battle with a ceremony on Volkstrauertag (Memorial Day). The 750 metre long cemetery wall made out of concrete elements adorned with menorah decoration on Indira-Gandhi-Straße was erected in 1983/84 based on plans by architect Gerd Pieper. To ensure that this unique cultural memorial receives the care it deserves, both the city of Berlin and the Berlin Jewish Community are working toward having the Jewish Cemetery Weißensee recognized as a world cultural heritage treasure.
Weißensee School of Art
The Kunsthochschule Berlin in Weißensee (Weißensee School of Art) on Bühringstraße 20 (Carl James Bühring, 1871 – 1936, architect and local politician offers five-year study programs in sculpture, stage and costume design, painting, fashion design, industrial design, textile and surface design, and in visual communication. The school’s unique and defining
features are a mandatory year long foundation course for all students, an intensive wealth of theory-based teaching during the entire program as well as open workshops for bronzes sculpting, computer, print, print graphics, photography, ceramics, metal, model and object building, tailoring and textiles, that enable students of all subjects to try out and examine their designs. The Kunsthochschule Berlin is remarkably international: The positive and comparatively high number of foreign students comprises 17 percent of the total student body (2006); students of this college are aboveaverage participants in exchange with more than some 60 other art colleges – most of which are located in other European countries.
The Kunsthochschule Berlin was founded in 1946 as the „Art School of the North“ as a private initiative on behalf of artists and designers close to the Bauhaus movement. Metal sculptor Otto Sticht (1901 – 1973) served as its first director. The Kunstschule moved into the administrative building (today’s right section of the complex) built in 1935 that was taken away from the Trumpf Chocolate Factory during the Second World War. In 1947, the Kunstschule received from the Soviet Military Administration in Germany the status of a state college for applied arts that also taught architecture and fine arts. This combination of subjects was especially important to the first teachers of the school, as these components had been a basis of education during early Bauhaus. College rectors from 1947 to 1950 Jan Bontjes van Beek (1899 – 1969, ceramicist) and from 1950 to 1952 Mart Stam (1899 – 1986, architect and designer), were also close to the Bauhaus tradition. The Kunsthochschule Berlin’s additional building was completed in 1955 / 56 by Bauhaus architect Selman Selmanagi (1905 – 1986, taught at the Kunsthochschule Berlin from 1950 to 1970) with the help of Peter Flierl, Günther Köhler and Erwin Krause. The entrance to the school was designed with a wall by Toni Mau and reliefs by Jürgen von Woyski. The first teaching staff comprised of influential artists and designers such as Theo Balden, Heinrich Drake, Bernhard Heiliger, Rudi Högner, Arno Mohr, and Rudolf Vogenauer. who taught later at the Kunsthochschule Berlin included sculptor Waldemar Grzimek, form designer Erich John, graphic artists Werner Klemke and Klaus Wittkugel, and painter Maler Walter Womacka (rector from 1968 to 1988). During the years 1988/89, the Kunsthochschule Berlin was home to a decided student opposition against the undemocratic situation in the GDR. They demanded open discussion platforms, created a party-neutral wall newspaper, and voted in the local elections on Mai 7, 1989 with 52 percent of the votes against all of the official candidates. Many of the posters used in the demonstration for radical reform in the GDR on November 4, 1989 at Alexanderplatz had been designed by Kunsthochschule students. The restructuring of the Kunsthochschule begun in the GDR during 1989 / 90 was successfully completed between 1991 and 1993. The number of students doubled. The Mart-Stam-Gesellschaft (association) has been supporting the Kunsthochschule since 1994 to ensure the existence of a Berlin college of arts with teaching concepts anchored in the Bauhaus movement. It carries out colloquia, supports projects and networks between schools, businesses, and public administration. Since 1998, the association has awarded the annual Mart-Stam-Förderpreise prizes for the best Kunsthochschule Berlin graduation projects. – For more information: www.kh-berlin.de
Parish Church •
„Parrot House“
The Pfarrkirche (parish church) of the Evangelische Kirchengemeinde (Protestant community) Berlin-Weißensee on Berliner Allee is dedicated to the Virgin Mary, the evangelist John and to Saint Catherine. During the second half of the 15th century, the church was built out of field stones on the former village green in place of a wooden church dating back to the 13th century. After a number of restructurings, a church tower was added in 1834 that is attributed to plans by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. The church was expanded on its eastern side in 1863; church transept and choir apse were added around 1900. The church was completely burned down during a 1943 bomb raid; a simplified version was rebuilt by Herbert Erbs in 1948 / 49. The tower was crowned with a simple pointed helm roof. The church is home to an organ made by the firm W. Sauer (Frankfurt / Oder) with 15 stops on two manuals and pedal. The front of the organ as well as the altar table, stambaptism pool, pulpit, and church lighting were designed by Werner Richter. The altar cross was created by Berlin artist metal smith Fritz Kühn (Gethsemanekirche), the apse glass window pictures designed by painter Gerhard Olbrich. The „Papageienhaus“ („parrot house“) is located near the parish church on Trierer Straße 8-18. The attention-getting colors on the outside explain its name. Restored in the 1990s and today a listed historical monument, the building went up in 1925/26 based on plans by architect Bruno Taut. This was his first work done for the union-supportive real estate company GEHAG, founded in 1924. The only two hectare large Cemetery of the Israelitischen Synagogen-Gemeinde Adass Jisroel in Berlin-Weißensee, Wittlicher Straße 2 (reachable over Falkenberger Straße), was established in 1878. Burials have transpired at the site since 1880. The grave of the community’s first rabbi, Esriel Hildesheimer (1820 – 1899), is located here. The approximately 600 grave stones remaining from what was once 3000 places of burial tend to be more understated than in other Berlin Jewish cemeteries, but artistically speaking equally interesting. A prime example was done by the famous Werkbund architect Erich Mendelsohn (1887 – 1953) for department store owner Simon Schocken. The ancient gravestones of Spandau’s Jewish Community are located in a special section since having been moved here in 1940.
White Lake
The Weißer See (White Lake), used for swimming and recreation, spans 305 meters wide and 350 meters long from shore to shore. Drainage of sewage into the lake is strictly forbidden.
A ventilator and two fountains directing groundwater into the lake contribute to maintaining lake water quality. Follow the 1.3 kilometer hiker’s path around the Weißer See to see the following attractions: the lakeside swim resort built in 1912 on wood stakes (architect: Carl James Bühring, 1871 – 1936) and filled in with sand from the Baltic Sea in 1980, the rose garden with a sundial made of flowers, the amphitheatre created in 1957 which seats 3 000, the animal reserve with fallow deer (no feeding allowed!), the “Sea Bridge” viewing platform with two sculptures of Triton (Sculptor: Hans Schellhorn, 1912), Restaurant „Milchhäuschen“ and its attractive lakeside terrace – renewed in 1967 and overhauled in 2005, and the boat rental station. The floating lake fountain (1969) has become an emblem of Weißensee. On the eastern shore of the fish-filled, 10 meter deep and 8400 square metre Weißer See (which was dug by glacial mass during the ice age), fishers and hunters founded the linear village of Weißensee (in Low German: Wittense) during the early 13th century. It was situated along a trade route connecting the Baltic Sea with Bohemia. The oldest section of the Parish Church (Berliner Allee / Falkenberger Straße) dates back to this era. In this village whose first written mention dates back to 1313, a manor was built and later divided a number of times; owners changed repeatedly until the 19th century. Around 1745, manor owner and privy councilor Carl Gottlob von Nüßler (1700 – 1776) had a modest
home built on the lake’s southern shore; he also made provisions for a garden and pine forest. The praises of both lake and lovely garden along the avenue to Berlin were sung as early as 1786 by the famous Berlin chronicler and publisher Friedrich Nicolai. In 1821, Johann Heinrich Leberecht Pistorius (1777 – 1858) purchased the grounds and tested out, on his own home grown potatoes, the alcohol distiller he had created. Pistoriusstraße at the Gemeinde-Forum (community forum) is named after this spirits’ producer and local politician. His nephew, government councilor Dr. Friedrich Wilhelm Lüdersdorff had the large garden turned into a landscaped park in 1859 and replaced the simple home with a more prestigious looking manor crowned with two towers. People called it Weißensee Castle. Manor and grounds were bought in 1872 by Hamburger businessman Gustav Adolf Schön, who divided it up and had it removed from the municipal manor registry in 1890. From 1874 the castle was leased out for gastronomic use.From 1877 on, it was directly reachable from Alexanderplatz, six kilometers away, via horse-drawn tram (streetcar precursor). The contemporary streetcar line Alexanderplatz-Weißer See is Berlin’s oldest completely preserved line in use. The fact that the castle was easy to reach from the city led restaurant owner and brewer Rudolf Sternecker to expand both park and castle into the „Welt-Etablissement Schloss Weißensee“ (International Establishment Weißensee Castle) consisting of music and sales pavilions, swimming pools, hippodrome, giant carousel and ferris wheel, indoor shooting range, photography studio, beer halls, a wood country style ballroom building, a “lake theatre” built into the water, bathing facilities set up in 1879 as precursor to the outdoor swimming pool, row boats and a motor ship, a Swiss bob sled terrain, and an electric train. Huge events took place in the castle halls and out in the open space. The entertainment park reminded Berliners of Copenhagen’s Tivoli – especially when it was lit up at night. And the goal was to outdo Tivoli park.
On the grounds now covering Berliner Allee 121 – 125, Rudolf Sternecker opened his own Brewery „Zum Sternecker“ in 1887, which was the first industrial site in Weißensee. He sold it in 1892 to brewer Gustav Enders („Enders Bräu“). The brewery was in operation through the 1920s and is now a listed monument. The former restaurant and beer garden, ball room and bowling alley (currently Berliner Allee 125) at the entrance to Sternecker’s entertainment park, was turned into a communal „Volkshaus“ (house of the people) in 1946 and was named Kulturhaus „Peter Edel“ (Peter Edel, 1921 – 1983, graphic artist and author) in 1983. Rudolf
Sternecker went bankrupt in 1897. The „Welt-Etablissement Schloss Weißensee“ was hereafter run by a rapid succession of changing owners. In 1908, the well-to-do community of Weißensee purchased the castle and park grounds, as well as the lake promenade. It set up a continuous Volks- und Bürgerpark (people and citizen’s park) around the Weißer See with public swimming facilities, playgrounds, and wading pools with a lawn for sunbathers. During the First World War, grounds and castle were used as a garrison. Soldiers departing in February of 1919 set their straw bags on fire and ignited a blaze that destroyed Weißensee Castle. All that remained was the former castle terrace high above ground, which is now an open, tree-covered space that can be reached by walking directly toward the Lake through the Parkweg across from Lindenallee. Today, the park covers 21 hectares and is home to treesup to 150 years old and charming herbaceous borders. The annual „Weißenseer Flower Festival“ has taken place at the park and in the neighbouring streets since 1963.