Russian Embassy in Berlin
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| State level | bilateral | ||
| Position of the authority | Embassy | ||
| Supervisory authority (s) | Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation | ||
| Consist | since 1837 | ||
| Headquarters |
 Berlin
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| ambassador | Sergei Yuryevich Nechayev | ||
| Website | https://russische-botschaft.ru/de/ | ||
The Russian Embassy in Berlin is the headquarters of the diplomatic mission of the Russian Federation in Germany . It is located in Berlin 's Mitte district of the district of the same name and occupies a building complex that consists of the main building at Unter den Linden 63-65 and several administrative and residential buildings on Behrenstrasse and Glinkastrasse .
history
First embassy building through conversions and extensions
The establishment of diplomatic relations between the Kingdom of Prussia and the Russian Empire began in the 1820s. In Berlin , the Imperial Russian Embassy was established in 1837 on Unter den Linden 7 . In addition, Russia had acquired a two-story Rococo palace ( Palais Kurland ) with a plot of land between Unter den Linden and Behrenstrasse for its permanent diplomatic mission with the attaché Yasnowski at the helm . This house was built in 1734 and has been owned by Princess Amalie of Prussia since 1764 . Johann Boumann had it rebuilt the following year .
The historical name of the building comes from the period 1805 to 1837, when it was owned by the Duchess Dorothea of Courland .
After the purchase, Russia let Eduard Knoblauch expand and modify the property , in particular the building was increased to three floors in 1840/1841. It now offered diplomatic apartments, offices, ballrooms and an apartment for the tsar during his stays in Berlin. After the renovation, the palace, which was rebuilt again in 1874/75 by Gustav Knoblauch & Hermann Wex, was used continuously for around 100 years - with the exception of the years 1914–1918, when diplomatic relations between the two countries were interrupted during the First World War. as the seat of the Russian and later the Soviet embassy. After the German attack on the Soviet Union in World War II in 1941 and the expulsion of all Soviet diplomats , the building was cleared and sealed. In June 1942, the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories moved into the building , which was headed by Nazi chief ideologist Alfred Rosenberg . The building was destroyed in the Allied air raids in February 1944 . Some files of the East Ministry, which were in a safe under the rubble, could only be recovered a year later, although it is still unclear to this day why an American command in the Soviet sector was able to recover files.
Construction of an embassy building after being destroyed in the war
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After the end of the war and with the establishment of diplomatic relations with the GDR , the Soviet Union decided to build a new embassy building on the property by purchasing neighboring land - now in East Berlin - and commissioned an architectural collective around Anatoli Strischewskij , A. Lebedinskij, Sichert and the Latvian master builder Friedrich Skujin (Frīdrihs Skujiņš) with the reconstruction. The Berlin architect Fritz Bornemann also took part in its design . From 1949 to 1953 a three-part symmetrical building was built. The main embassy building, which was newly built in the period of late Stalinism , is in the style of socialist classicism with elements of Berlin classicism of the early 19th century. A few years later, this architectural style was also groundbreaking for the layout and development of Stalinallee (since 1961: Karl-Marx-Allee ). Inside, the building was lavishly furnished, including the dome hall used for celebrations and receptions , which is located directly under the roof structure of the center of the building and was richly decorated with glass mosaics , a hall of mirrors, a conference hall. The official inauguration of the new embassy took place on the 35th anniversary of the October Revolution on November 7, 1952. The final work continued until the next year.
In the following decades, the building served as the headquarters of the diplomatic mission of the Soviet Union in the GDR and also held international diplomatic meetings; in 1954 the conference of the foreign ministers of the four victorious powers (Soviet Union, USA , Great Britain , France ) took place here. From 1970 to 1971, the same states negotiated the four-power agreement on Berlin here. In the 1960s and 1970s, several residential and commercial buildings were built near the main building, which, in addition to the premises of the actual embassy, also housed facilities such as the Soviet foreign trade agency , a Russian school abroad and the headquarters of the then state airline Aeroflot .
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union , the entire complex of buildings became the property of the Russian Federation over, since these are all rights and obligations of the USSR on international law assumed level. During the 1990s, after the political change , the embassy complex in Berlin served as a branch of the Russian embassy on Viktorshöhe in Bonn . At the end of the 1990s, the Russian government completely renovated the embassy buildings, including the main building on Unter den Linden. In the Behrenstraße one of the residential building was built and set up a consular section. After the Russian Embassy moved from Bonn to Berlin by 2000, the complex is once again used as the headquarters of the Russian diplomatic mission in Germany. The area in Bonn, which was used as the Soviet (and from 1991 to 1999 also as the Russian) embassy in the Federal Republic of Germany from 1976 to 1991 , now functions as the seat of the Consulate General of the Russian Federation.
architecture
It is a three-part symmetrical building with an ashlar facade and two elongated side wings around a central section with a parade entrance and courtyard, which is indented into the interior and crowned by a cornice with an attic top . On the attic floor of the central block are four sandstone figures and an open column lantern . The main building and the side wings are four-story, their facades are set in front of half-columns from the first to the fourth floor. The second and third floors are each combined by arched windows . The semicircular columns rest on the rusticated ground floor cladding and are connected in their foot area with ornate parapets. A coat of arms frieze surrounded by flags and cords as well as oak leaves can be seen above the main entrance . The centrally arranged coat of arms is the former state coat of arms of the Soviet Union .
The main entrance is also very lavishly designed: decorated and curved sandstone consoles are located above three parallel double-leaf doors with glass and metal ornaments. These carry a balcony running across the entire width of the portal for representation purposes. Candelabra are placed on each side between the doors .
The embassy area is demarcated from the street Unter den Linden by an interrupted wall in the middle, which optically takes up the ashlar of the building's ground floor. The middle area along the length of the main courtyard is separated from the road by a wrought iron fence. The building complex along the Unter den Linden boulevard is around 185 meters long and with the courtyard is around 35 meters wide. The built-up area, including the buildings added later in Behrenstrasse and including the buildings in Glinkastrasse, is 125 meters × 240 meters.
See also
- List of Russian envoys in Prussia
- List of the Russian and Soviet ambassadors in Germany
- List of the Soviet ambassadors in the GDR
literature
- Kerstin Englert, Jürgen Tietz (ed.): Embassies in Berlin. Architecture and diplomacy . Gebr. Mann, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-7861-2472-8 .
Web links
- Official website of the Russian Embassy in Germany
- Russian Embassy. At: berlin.de
- Entry in the Berlin State Monument List
Individual evidence
- ↑ Yasnowski . In: General housing indicator for Berlin, Charlottenburg and surroundings , 1827.
- ^ A b Institute for Monument Preservation (Ed.): The architectural and art monuments of the GDR. Capital Berlin-I . Henschelverlag, Berlin 1984, p. 141, 184 .
- ^ Russian legation, Berlin-Mitte in the architecture museum of the TU Berlin
- ↑ Andreas Zellhuber: "Our administration is heading for a catastrophe ..." The Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories and German occupation in the Soviet Union 1941–1945 . Munich 2006, p. 76 f.
- ↑ HD Heilmann: From the war diary of the diplomat Otto Bräutigam . In: Götz Aly u. a. (Ed.): Biedermann and desk clerk . Materials on the German perpetrator biography. Institute for Social Research in Hamburg: Contributions to National Socialist Health and Social Policy 4, Berlin 1987, p. 164 f (cited source: Otto Bräutigam : This is how it happened . Würzburg 1968, p. 669.)
- ↑ Friedrich Skujin. In: arch INFORM ; accessed on October 28, 2015.
- ↑ Kay Hailbronner , Marcel Kau, in: Graf Vitzthum (ed.): Völkerrecht , 5th edition 2010, marginal number 184 .
- ↑ Dimensions estimated from Google Earth .
Coordinates: 52 ° 30 '58.1 " N , 13 ° 23' 0.4" E