Great Wall

Great Wall
Looking north-east, the Great Wall with the Moby Dick passenger ship . Left the south bank of Tegelort , right the island Valentinswerder .
Waters	Havel
Geographical location	52 ° 33 '43 "  N , 13 ° 13' 37"  E Coordinates: 52 ° 33 '43 "  N , 13 ° 13' 37"  E
length	90 m
width	50 m
surface	0.334 5  ha

Left the west bank of the Havel, roughly in the middle of the picture the Große Wall, right the considerably larger island Valentinswerder

The Große Wall (also: Helgoland ) is a river island of the Havel in Berlin . It belongs to the district hook field of Spandau .

The approximately 3000 m² island has an oval shape with a maximum length of around 90 and a maximum width of around 45 meters. It is located southwest of the considerably larger island of Valentinswerder on the edge of an island group that separates Lake Tegel from the Havel. The Berlin-Spandauer Schifffahrtskanal branches off from the Havel in the direction of the city center to the south-east of the Großer Wall island .

The uninhabited and tree-lined island is under the administration of the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district , whose youth welfare office used to run the “Großer Wall tent recreation center” here. The tent camp was part of the children's and youth recreation home “Haus Europa” on the shores of Lake Tegel in Konradshöhe , which has been run by the Kreuzberg district center “Alte Feuerwache e. V. “stands.

The island originally belonged to the Saatwinkel settler colony , which was founded in the 18th century on the western edge of the Jungfernheide and is now part of the Tegel district. The first tenant was the Saatwinkler innkeeper Paul Meyer (1883–1913). At the end of the 19th century, the Great Wall and its sister island, Kleiner Wall, were used by the Spandau garrison for military exercises. The western banks of the Havel was up to North Harbor Spandau part of the fortress area of 1873 developed into a fortress Spandau and belonged to the 1st Battalion of the 3rd  Guard -Grenadier Regiment "Queen Elizabeth". For practical testing, pioneers laid pontoon bridges from the bank of the Havel to the Great Wall. According to Klaus-Dieter Wille, the naming of the islands goes back to this time of the city, which has been de- fortified since 1903 . So be, Wall 'here no geographical, but a military term. The second island name, Helgoland, goes back to the time when storm trips were carried out on the island with a cabin cruiser and the island and the surrounding waters were considered a sailing paradise.

In addition to the military, the island was important for the fishing industry . South and north of the island were the Großgarnzüge "Big Storm" and "Neither hole" and on the northeastern shore a fish trap fishing ground . In addition, one of the five former weirs of the Oberhavel was located on the island . In the 1970s, the island region was still one of the fishing grounds of the Tiefwerder-Pichelsdorf fishing association, one of the most influential fishing organizations in the region, which watches over 1,682 hectares in the state of Berlin and over 3,847 hectares of fishing waters in the state of Brandenburg .

In the 1920s there was a boathouse on the northern tip of the Great Wall. Water guides of this time record a restaurant "Helgoland" on the island. In the 1920s, the island served as a meeting place for members of fishing clubs, which supports the assumption that there was a restaurant here. On a measuring table from 1938, two buildings at the south and north end of the island as well as two small sheds in the middle can be seen. After 1945 the island was initially used as a club tent site; a water sports map published in 1963 shows two buildings in the south and north of the island without any further marking. Nothing has been preserved from the campsite and the buildings.

literature

• Klaus-Dieter Wille: Two islands and a “mouse tower” in the Havel. In: 42 walks in Charlottenburg and Spandau. Verlag Bruno Hessling, Berlin 1976, ISBN 3-7769-0152-7 , pp. 103-107. ( Berlin Kaleidoscope. Volume 17)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Anglersverein Einigkeit Spandau 1901 e. V., Association history ( Memento of the original from June 30, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , see entry under 1932. 
2. ↑ Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district budget, 2008/2009, p. 14 ( Memento of March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 5.0 MB)
3. ↑ Alte Feuerwache, Haus Europa
4. ↑ History of Saatwinkel ( Memento of the original from March 11, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
5. ↑ ^{a b} Klaus-Dieter Wille: Two islands and ... , p. 105 f
6. ^ Berlin Southwest. Havel islands and Havel ferries in Berlin and Potsdam.
7. ↑ Fischersozietät Tiefwerder-Pichelsdorf Homepage
8. ↑ So recorded in the BZ map Märkische Waters, ed. von der BZ am Mittag in the Ullsteinhaus Berlin, n.d. From various details of the waterways, the year of publication of the map can be narrowed down to the period 1925–1930. The German river and tent hiking book of the German Canoe Association (DKV) from 1939 noted the boathouse of the “WP Havel Northwest” and “rescue centers” on the island “Helgoland” (p. 148).
9. ^ Friedrich Eduard Keller: Hip Hip Hurray! Straube's guide for water hikers , Geographical Institute and map publisher Jul. Straube, 6th edition 1929, p. 268. It reads: “Eine Havelbr. using the Gr. Wall is planned. ”In the previous 5th edition from 1925, neither a restaurant nor the planning of a bridge is mentioned.
10. ↑ Year 1932
11. ↑ Scale 1: 25,000
12. ↑ Hiking map water sports map of North Berlin Forests and Waters 1: 20,000, Schaffmann & Kluge Landkartenverlag, Berlin 1963. The first post-war edition of the German River and Tent Hiking Book from 1950 has no boathouse, but still has "rescue stations". After the 18th edition (1964) and 19th edition (1967) the canoe club "Zugvogel" operated a campsite on the island (p. 404 and p. 472); the 20th edition of the German River and Tent Hiking Book (1974) no longer has a campsite on p. 526. The aforementioned KV "Zugvogel" had its boathouse in Berlin-Jörsfelde / Tegelort and is not identical to the KV "Zugvogel", which is now located on the old Berlin-Spandau shipping canal .