Cadet House (Berlin)

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View of the Berlin Hetzgarten, built in the style of an ancient amphitheater. Detail from a medal from 1693. Artist: Raimund Faltz.
Location of the cadet house on the eastern part of the Berlin fortress wall (excerpt from Walter's Berlin city map, 1737, north at the lower edge).
In 1717, the Hetzgarten complex was converted into a cadet house, attached to the Berlin city map of Schleuen from 1757.

From 1717 to 1777 the old cadet house in Berlin housed a cadet institute in Berlin-Mitte in the expanded building of the former " Hetzgarten " for the training of junior officers in the Prussian army . It was located within Bastion IX of Fortress Berlin, roughly on the square of the main staircase of today's Berlin City Court at Littenstrasse 13.

From the hunt garden to the cadet house

The Hetzgarten was built in 1693 by master builder Johann Arnold Nering on the order of Elector Friedrich III. built a circular arena on one side, surrounded by a semicircular building , in which public animal hunts took place until 1712 . After the quarters of the cadet academy, the fencing house in Klosterstrasse , had become unusable due to a fire, Frederick I ordered that the animal hunt in Berlin be stopped and that the hunt garden be left to the cadets as emergency accommodation. In the following year Friedrich died and under his successor the temporary accommodation of the cadets in the Hetzgarten became permanent. King Friedrich Wilhelm I abolished it when he took office in 1713. By 1717 the semicircle of the colossal columned hall of the Hetzgarten was supplemented by a three-storey half-timbered building to form a closed ring of buildings.

King Friedrich Wilhelm I , the "Soldier King", concentrated the training of the cadets for the Prussian army in his capital , which was originally distributed over various academies in the country, and in 1717 housed an enlarged cadet corps in the cadet house in crowded confinement.

The history of the use of the Hetzgarten from a pleasure architecture dedicated to the antique festival to a military school is an example of the character of the restructuring of the Prussian court through the accession of the soldier king Friedrich Wilhelm I.

Lessons in the cadet house

The Prussian cadets were between 11 and 18 years old and mostly came from the eastern provinces of Prussia. Impoverished parents saw in giving their sons away to the cadet house an opportunity to provide adequate care, the king, on the other hand, raised the offspring for his officer corps. The cadets stayed in the cadet house for two to three, less often four years. After that they were usually transferred to a regiment as private corporal .

A place of spartan education

A description of the lessons and the atmosphere in the old cadet house is given by Adolf von Crousaz in his book about the Royal Prussian Cadet Corps , published in 1857

“At that time (1740) the cadet corps was a half monastic and half Spartan institute, excellent in discipline and strength, but without spiritual stimulation, without external attraction. The whole teaching was a mechanical and elementary exercise being; the college of teachers was unscientific and insignificant, the penal system was iron; one lived tightly together, in a damaged house, etc. One raised excellent men, just as the Lycurgian constitution had once brought up such things, but it was a gloomy picture, a condition that did not correspond to the regulations of the human spirit. "

Demolition and new construction

As early as 1723 thought was given of an expansion, but it was only Frederick the Great who initiated the construction of a three-storey square-shaped building. After the new construction of the cadet house was partially finished, the old one was demolished in 1777.

  • A Prussian cadet from 1717 on guard in front of the entrance to the cadet house in Berlin. Unknown graphic artist, 1855.

  • Cadets from 1786 taking fencing lessons. Unknown graphic artist, 1855.

  • 1853: School requirements for admission to the cadet house

literature

  • Adolf von Crousaz: History of the Royal Prussian Cadet Corps, according to its creation, its development and its results. Heinrich Schindler, Berlin 1857 ( digitized in the Internet Archive ).
  • Baroque architecture in Berlin: the drawings and notes from the travel diary of the architect Christoph Pitzler (1657–1707). Edited by Hellmut Lorenz . Nicolai, Berlin 1998. ISBN 3875846990 , ISBN 9783875846997 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ For this and the following see Richard Borrmann : Die Bau- und Kunstdenkmäler von Berlin. With a historical introduction by P. Clauswitz. Gebrüder Mann Verlag, Berlin 1982 (facsimile reprint of the edition published by Julius Springer, Berlin 1893), ISBN 3-7861-1356-4 , pp. 338f. ( Digitized version of the first edition in the Internet Archive ).
  2. ↑ Adolf von Crousaz: History of the Royal Prussian Cadet Corps, according to its creation, its development and its results. Heinrich Schindler, Berlin 1857 ( digitized in the Internet Archive ), pp. 51–57.
  3. ↑ See Berlin architecture of the baroque period: The drawings and notes from the travel diary of the architect Christoph Pitzler (1657–1707). Edited by Hellmut Lorenz . Nicolai, Berlin 1998. ISBN 3875846990 , ISBN 9783875846997 , p. 157.
  4. ↑ Adolf von Crousaz: History of the Royal Prussian Cadet Corps, according to its creation, its development and its results. Heinrich Schindler, Berlin 1857 ( digitized in the Internet Archive ), p. 37.
  5. ↑ See online article: http://home.foni.net/~adelsforschung/kade.htm
  6. ↑ Adolf von Crousaz: History of the Royal Prussian Cadet Corps, according to its creation, its development and its results. Heinrich Schindler, Berlin 1857 ( digitized in the Internet Archive ), p. 146.

Coordinates: 52 ° 31 ′ 6.1 ″  N , 13 ° 24 ′ 49.2 ″  E