Japanese embassy in Berlin

The embassy building seen from Hiroshima Street

The Japanese Embassy in Berlin ( Japanese : 在 ド イ ツ 日本国 大使館) is the diplomatic representation of Japan in Germany . It is located in the embassy district on the corner of Hiroshima and Tiergartenstrasse in the Berlin district of Tiergarten . Takeshi Yagi has been the ambassador since February 3, 2016 .

history

Former main entrance to the embassy building on Tiergartenstrasse , 1940

Former Ambassador Takeshi Nakane, 2013

Flowers, candles and paper cranes dropped in front of the Japanese embassy on the occasion of the devastating Tōhoku earthquake , 2011

The embassy building was originally built between 1938 and 1942 according to plans by Ludwig Moshamer under the supervision of Albert Speer . The previous building had to give way to the plans for a huge north-south axis in the projected " World Capital Germania ", Germany compensated the Japanese Empire with a large piece of land in the newly created embassy district at the Tiergarten . The building itself, however, had to meet the expectations of the German leadership, so that a comparatively sterile classicism building was the result. Above all, the building should impress with its size; the pillars at the main entrance were a defining stylistic element. A half-storey attic above the main entrance forms the visual end of the building above the cornice . In the central visual axis there is a golden chrysanthemum as a symbol of the imperial family .

Although the German builder furnished the building with a lot of luxury inside, in fact a large part of the administration took place in bunkers and other air raids during the Second World War . At that time, part of the Japanese embassy was relocated to Linde - north of the city of Brandenburg - to the then existing estate of the Jewish family Zwillenberg , which had been forced to sell by the National Socialists .

As early as 1943, an aerial bomb destroyed the side wing with the representation rooms. Badly damaged in World War II, the building stood empty for several decades. In the mid-1980s, Germans and Japanese agreed to build a German-Japanese cultural center in the dilapidated building. The German monument protection authorities urged that the historic building be preserved, but the Japanese client found it in a state that could no longer be saved. In order to keep the agreements with the Germans as much as possible, Japan had it rebuilt as identically as possible by Kishō Kurokawa and Tajii Yamaguchi . For its new use as an embassy building, it underwent extensive renovations and additions by the architect Ryohei Amemiya between 1998 and 2000 . A complete office wing was newly built and a Japanese garden was laid out. The main entrance was also relocated from Tiergartenstrasse to Hiroshimastrasse, which branches off from it. A golden chrysanthemum, the imperial seal , is still emblazoned above the former main entrance, which is now the entrance to the ambassador's residence .

Both architecturally and historically, the Japanese embassy is very similar to the Italian embassy directly opposite .

In the GDR , the embassy was located at Otto-Grotewohl-Strasse 5 in East Berlin from 1973 to 1990 (since 1993: Wilhelmstrasse 64).

See also

• German-Japanese relations
• List of Japanese ambassadors in Germany
• Embassy of Japan (Bonn)

literature

• Wolfgang Schächen: Foreign Messages , Volume No. 2: The building of the former Japanese Embassy in Berlin-Tiergarten . Transit Buchverlag, Berlin 1984. ISBN 3-88747-022-2 .
• Kerstin Englert, Jürgen Tietz (ed.): Embassies in Berlin. Architecture and diplomacy . Gebr. Mann, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-7861-2472-8 .

Web links

Commons : Japanese Embassy in Berlin  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Official website of the Japanese Embassy
• Official Facebook page of the Japanese Embassy
• Expansion of the Embassy of Japan at the Berlin Senate Department for Urban Development (maps, photos of models, Black plans )
• Japanese embassy in Berlin. In: Structurae

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Embassy of Japan in Germany: The Ambassador - Greeting. Retrieved February 17, 2016 . 
2. ↑ Embassy of Japan in Germany: About us - The Ambassador - Curriculum Vitae. Retrieved February 17, 2016 . 
3. ^ Derek Fraser: Berlin. The Buildings of Europe . Manchester University Press ND, 1996, ISBN 0719040221 , p. 53.
4. ↑ Matthias Donath: Architecture in Berlin 1933–1945 , published by the Landesdenkmalamt Berlin. Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2007, p. 101, ISBN 3-936872-26-0 .
5. ^ Academy of Sciences and Technology in Berlin Yearbook 1987 . Walter de Gruyter, 1988, ISBN 311011867X , p. 460.
6. ↑ Japanese-German Center Berlin: History.
7. ^ Brian Ladd: The Ghosts of Berlin. Confronting German History in the Urban Landscape . University of Chicago Press, 1998, ISBN 0226467627 , p. 252.
8. ^ Senate Department for Urban Development, Extension of the Embassy of Japan.
9. ↑ Japan cultivates cherry trees. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , March 19, 2002.
10. ↑ Andrea Schulte-Peevers, Tom Parkinson: Berlin . Mair Dumont DE, 2006, ISBN 3829715641 , p. 50.
11. ^ Baunetz: Embassies: Japan.
12. ^ Telephone book for the capital of the German Democratic Republic Berlin. 1989 edition, p. 100

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 32.8 "  N , 13 ° 21 ′ 30.1"  E