Königsmarcksches Palais

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The Königsmarcksche Palais was a building at Mauerstraße 36 in the Berlin district of Mitte , which was later replaced by an administrative building from Deutsche Bank . It is named after its temporary owner Adolf von Königsmarck .

The Königsmarcksche Palais was built between 1792 and 1794 as an immediate building for King Friedrich Wilhelm II . It stood out from the neighboring houses, which were more in keeping with the “bourgeois modest character” of the street.

Walther Kiaulehn wrote in his book Berlin. Fate of a cosmopolitan city : “Under Friedrich Wilhelm II, the Berlin house was elevated to a classic perfection. Rahel Varnhagen's house [...] was the typical example of its beauty. ”Houses of this type, according to Kiaulehn,“ stood like aristocrats in the midst of the wild taste ”and appeared“ cheerful and witty ”. Hans Mackowsky had similarly positive feelings towards the type of house to which the palace belonged, but did not consider the building at Mauerstrasse 36 to be the most successful representative of its kind.

history

For his construction activities, the king called the Royal High Court Building Office into being, which was chaired by Minister Johann Christoph von Woellner , but was headed artistically by Carl Gotthard Langhans , who had a staff of proven architects and builders. The court sculptor was responsible for the architectural jewelry, which in practice meant that Gottfried Schadow or his pupil took over the elaboration. In 1788 Wöllner had obtained the regulation that no house in Berlin with more than two floors or with side wings or back buildings could be built without special regulations. In 1792 four such applications were approved, including that of the widow general von Rosières, b. von Schlieben. Soon after the death of her husband Louis de Rosières in 1778, she discovered that her cost of living in Berlin was at odds with her income, and she then made the decision to obtain a permit to build a tenement house. It received this in 1789, whereupon it bought several old buildings in Mauerstraße to replace them with new ones. The front length was around 37 meters in total. First conductor Gentz ​​should deal with the construction; However, since the political situation was too tense, work did not resume until 1792, now apparently under Georg Christian Unger . On July 8, 1794, Mrs. von Rosières was able to confirm that she was satisfied with the completed construction.

The house had the characteristics typical of Unger: Its plastered area was enlivened by ashlar blocks, which were vigorously worked out on the ground floor, but kept quite discreet on the upper floors. Under the roofs of the windows on the first floor, foliage threads were attached to the facade, above those on the second floor, stretched lion skins could be seen. The attic was kept very simple. The two corner risalites were adorned with Ionic columns and crowned with reclining figures.

The design of the building thus followed a program that could already be seen in the house at Neue Schönhauser Strasse 5, but which, according to Mackowsky, had been applied more successfully there: “In the overall impression as well as in the care for the details”, “the smaller building is that superior ". Wherever one looks, one encounters in this house "life, freshness and the liveliness of the imagination, while the wall street front with its aristocratic calm also unites the temperamental, which can so easily be characteristic of refinement".

A silhouette by Karl August Varnhagen von Enses , which is in the Berlin State Library, provides information about the floor plan of the apartment of the Varnhagen von Ense couple, who lived in the right half of the first floor of the house from 1827. Rahel Varnhagen's bedroom and study was on the right-hand corner and had its window between the two pillars with which the corner projection was adorned. Behind it, a passage led to the courtyard room of her servant Dore. Next to Rahel Varnhagen's bedroom was a two-wing visiting room at the front of the house, and another two-winged room was her husband's living room and bedroom. The library was on the garden and courtyard side. In addition to these rooms, the couple also had the so-called blue room. After Rahel Varnhagen's death, Ludmilla Assing moved into the corner room.

The original staircase of the house was later replaced by a new one in the German Renaissance style. Further redesigns of the interior took place during the founding period . A stable building was also placed between the courtyard and the garden. The first floor was now by commanders of the III. Army corps inhabited. In the 1880s, the annex with number 35 was attached to the main building and was given a street facade that was adapted to this, but more modern.

Later it was considered to extend the Französische Straße over the plots Mauerstraße 35-37 to the Tiergarten . Instead, the palace was replaced by an administration building of the Deutsche Bank , which was connected to the parent company opposite by an arched bridge.

Known residents

Elisabeth and Gustav Gans zu Putlitz

Rahel Varnhagen von Ense lived from 1827 until her death in 1833 with her husband Karl August Varnhagen von Ense in the Königsmarckschen Palais and had her literary salon there. The participants were portrayed by Ludmilla Assing.

In Theodor Fontane's time, Gustav Heinrich Gans Edler zu Putlitz lived in the house that belonged to his father-in-law, Count Adolf von Königsmarck (1802–1875). One of his sons, Stephan Gans zu Putlitz , could have been the model for Count Waldemar von Haldern in Fontanes Stine . Gustav Heinrich Gans Edler zu Putlitz became general director of the court theater in Karlsruhe in 1873 . On the same floor as the Gans zu Putlitz family lived the ophthalmologist and medical officer Dr. Waldau, who married the actress Lina Fuhr in 1860 .

From around 1896 to 1913 Elli and Paul Schwabach (from 1907: von Schwabach ) lived in the house. They received guests there on Sunday afternoons for salon-like socializing. Elisabeth Eleanor Schröder, a Hamburg merchant's daughter, had married Paul Schwabach, who later became the senior boss of the Bleichröder company and British consul general, in 1896 before moving into the Königsmarcksche Palais.

Literary meaning

Mauerstraße is mentioned several times in Fontane's novel Stine . The furniture of the widow Pauline Pittelkow, in whose living room the disaster for the main characters begins, comes from a second-hand dealer in Mauerstraße, where it was "bought on the same morning" and taken away by handcart. An explicit mention of the Königsmarckschen Palais can be found at a later point, in the twelfth chapter. The young count is just on the way to see his uncle in order to obtain the family's advocacy for his plan to marry Stine Rehbein, Pauline Pittelkow's younger sister. He turns from Zietenplatz into Mauerstraße and, apparently without any motive, looks up when passing the Königsmarckschen Palais "to the second floor, behind whose small windows he chatted many happy hours with a friend who lived there years and days ago" .

If you refer to one of the last sentences of the novel - "Un next Sunday is Sedan [...]", the action takes place either in 1883 or 1888. In the summer of 1883, Stephan zu Putlitz, who had suffered a riding accident like the hero von Haldern was impaired, shot himself. The family tried to cover up the incident and circulated a story about an unfortunate duel . Also Lita to Putlitz , the sister of Stephen, the extensively left out in her autobiography about life in Königsmarckschen Palais, later skirted the subject. Fontane, however, knew the true background: "The 'duel' was invented to cache other, more fatal things," he wrote on July 29, 1883 to his wife. The mention of the house thus contains, in addition to an indirect autobiographical reference, a hint of the future fate of the young count, which can only be deciphered if one knows the history of the palace and its inhabitants.

Fontane may also have been interested in the house because he originally intended to have Rahel Varnhagen von Ense appear in his novel Before the Storm .

literature

  • Hans Mackowsky, Rachel's house. In: Hans Mackowsky: Houses and people in old Berlin. Berlin 1923, reprint: 1996, ISBN 3-7861-1803-5 , pp. 59-77

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Theodor Fontane : Stine . dtv, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-423-13374-0 , p. 100
  2. ^ Walther Kiaulehn: Berlin. Fate of a cosmopolitan city. Munich 1997, ISBN 3-406-41634-9 , p. 81
  3. ↑ Kiaulehn, p. 82
  4. ↑ While Mackowsky always called the lady a general, Rosières is listed as a major general in Anton Balthasar King's Biographical Lexicon of All Heroes and Military Persons (Volume 3, 1790, p. 320 ).
  5. ^ Edouard-Marie Oettinger : Moniteur des Dates. Volume 1, Dresden 1866, p. 188
  6. ^ Hans Mackowsky: Houses and people in old Berlin. Berlin 1923, reprint: 1996, ISBN 3-7861-1803-5 , pp. 61-65
  7. ↑ Mackowsky, p. 70
  8. ↑ Mackowsky, p. 74
  9. ↑ Mackowsky, p. 75
  10. ↑ Mackowsky, p. 76 f.
  11. ^ Rahel-Varnhagen-Promenade. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )
  12. ↑ Silvy Pommerenke: Exhibition until October 28, 2006 in honor of Rahel Varnhagen von Ense. Article from October 19, 2006 AVIVA-Berlin .de, accessed on May 1, 2020.
  13. ↑ grosspankow.de
  14. ^ Theodor Fontane : Stine . dtv, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-423-13374-0 , p. 124 f.
  15. ↑ Lita zu Putlitz : From the picture room of my life. Leipzig 1931, p. 14
  16. ^ Petra Wilhelmy: The Berlin Salon in the 19th Century 1780-1914 . De Gruyter, 1989, ISBN 3-11-011891-2 , p. 831 f. (= Publications of the historical commission in Berlin, volume 73)
  17. ^ Theodor Fontane: Stine . dtv, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-423-13374-0 , p. 20
  18. ^ Theodor Fontane: Stine . dtv, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-423-13374-0 , p. 62
  19. ^ Theodor Fontane: Stine . dtv, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-423-13374-0 , p. 95
  20. ^ Elisabeth von Heyking: Diaries from four parts of the world . ( Project Gutenberg-DE ) Koehler & Amelang, 1925, chap. 2
  21. ^ Theodor Fontane: Stine . dtv, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-423-13374-0 , p. 101
  22. ^ Theodor Fontane: Stine . dtv, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-423-13374-0 , p. 100 f. and p. 124 f.

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 43.5 ″  N , 13 ° 23 ′ 9.2 ″  E