Crown Prince Villa

Crown Prince Villa (1899/1900)

View from Wörthstrasse (around 1901)

The Kronprinzenvilla (also Kronprinzenpalais ) was a villa on the banks of the Rhine in Bonn , which was built in 1871 and demolished in 1952/53. It was located on Wörthstraße (today Tempelstraße) near Coblenzerstraße (today Adenauerallee ) on the current site of the Foreign Office and belonged to the German Imperial House ( Hohenzoller ) from 1900 to 1910 .

history

The villa was built for the builder Friedrich König (1826–1916), the retired founder of a profitable hard rubber factory on Long Island ( New York ), based on a design by the well-known Berlin architect Walter Kyllmann , whose father Gottlieb Kyllmann also lived on Coblenzerstraße . Stylistically it can be attributed to the villas of the picturesque style. It was one of the last villas to be assigned to the first development phase on Bonn's banks of the Rhine (1819–1872) - the property was the last one on the high bank of the city that could still be freely developed. Following the building application from June 1871, the building permit was granted in July . The building site was only accessible via a dirt road ( Plittersdorfer Gasse ), which also divided it. König therefore had it relocated to the south as soon as he had acquired the adjacent property and house required for it and had temporarily moved into it.

As a follow-up, from the summer of 1872 a final wall with bars and a gardener's apartment were built. The demarcation to the Godesberger Bach , which ran parallel to Coblenzerstraße, created a lining wall in 1875 . In April 1889, König gave a retired architect and government master builder from Bonn. D. Anton Zengeler commissioned the construction of a stable and coach house , the shell of which was completed by October 1889 . In 1898 the villa, including the stable and coach house, gardening, chicken house, shed, wine house , greenhouse and porter, was owned by King's daughter Lilly, whose husband Professor Dittmar Finkler could now dispose of it. He had the property parceled out and Wörthstraße (today Tempelstraße) with stairs to the banks of the Rhine built on part of it (execution: Kayser & von Großheim ). Since a new villa was being built for Finkler's family south of the street , he was able to put Villa König up for sale.

In the summer of 1900, the villa became the interest of the Ministry of the Royal House , which was commissioned with the purchase of a property in which the then Crown Prince Wilhelm and his younger brothers could live and be taught during their (traditionally) planned studies in Bonn . Located on the banks of the Rhine with an extensive park area, the villa, still in the possession of Professor Finkler, appeared to be the only property suitable for the representative requirements of the imperial family. The purchase for a price of 450,000 marks was approved by Kaiser Wilhelm II on December 13, 1900 , when conversion work for the new use had already been approved. In 1901 there were furnishing costs of 60,000 marks as well as further costs in the amount of planned 75,000 marks, among other things for the construction of a horse stable and coach house and a tennis court. Kaiser Wilhelm and Empress Auguste also had specially equipped rooms in the villa. The lectures for the Crown Prince also took place here.

After Prince August Wilhelm began his studies in 1906 and had completed it, the German imperial family sold the former Villa König in April 1910 for 375,000 marks to the royal councilor Wilhelm Girardet . In the same year he had the villa's side staircase and winter garden demolished and they were built according to a design by the Bonn architect and former government master builder . D. Julius Rolffs to rebuild, the former in Weser sandstone and the latter as an iron construction. In 1913 a new greenhouse was built under the responsibility of the same architect. After the First World War , the occupying forces confiscated the villa, and its use resulted in significant damage; during the time of the French occupation of Bonn (1920-26) it was the seat of the current commanding general of the 33rd Army Corps. In 1930 she took over the University of Applied Sciences for Church Textile Art . The factory owner Max Gruhl appeared as the new owner in 1935 at the latest, after a failed attempt to convert into an apartment building in 1943, the Cologne / Aachen Chamber of Commerce .

During the Second World War , the villa suffered severe damage: 85% of the roof structure was destroyed, and parts of the woodwork and ceilings had to be considered lost or stolen. After Bonn had become the seat of government of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949 , the villa was located on the northern edge of the new parliament and government district . An initially planned occupancy of the property by federal authorities (including the Ministry of the Interior) was opposed, among other things, by the property's past, which was viewed as a burden. It was acquired by the federal government from the property of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry and demolished in 1953 at the latest for the new building of the Foreign Office . The porter's house of the ministry was built on the previous position of the villa.

literature

Olga Sonntag : Villas on the banks of the Rhine in Bonn: 1819–1914 , Bouvier Verlag, Bonn 1998, ISBN 3-416-02618-7 , Volume 2, Catalog (1), pp. 343–351. (also dissertation University of Bonn, 1994)

Individual evidence

^ Olga Sonntag: Villas on the banks of the Rhine in Bonn. 1819–1914 , Bouvier Verlag, Bonn 1998, ISBN 3-416-02618-7 , Volume 3, Catalog (2), p. 325.
^ Olga Sonntag: Villas on the banks of the Rhine in Bonn. 1819-1914. Bouvier Verlag, Bonn 1998, ISBN 3-416-02618-7 , Volume 1, p. 26.
^ Norbert Schloßmacher : Bonn on the eve of the First World War . In: Dominik Geppert , Norbert Schloßmacher (Ed.): The First World War in Bonn. The home front 1914–1918 (= publications of the Bonn City Archives , Volume 72; Bonner Heimat- und Geschichtsverein , Stadtarchiv Bonn: Bonner Geschichtsblätter: Yearbook of the Bonner Heimat- und Geschichtsverein , Volume 65/66). Bonn 2016, ISBN 978-3-922832-82-9 , pp. 11-48 (here: p. 27).
↑ Horst-Pierre Bothien: Bonn sur-le-Rhin Occupation 1918-1926 (= City Museum Bonn : Forum History ., No. 14). morisel Verlag, Munich 2018, ISBN 978-3-943915-34-1 , p. 61/62.
^ City of Bonn, City Archives (ed.); Helmut Vogt : "The Minister lives in a company car on platform 4": The beginnings of the federal government in Bonn 1949/50 , Bonn 1999, ISBN 3-922832-21-0 , pp. 18-20.

50.725603 7.11347Coordinates: 50 ° 43 ′ 32.2 " N , 7 ° 6 ′ 48.5" E

[1] Olga Sonntag: Villas on the banks of the Rhine in Bonn. 1819–1914 , Bouvier Verlag, Bonn 1998, ISBN 3-416-02618-7 , Volume 3, Catalog (2), p. 325.

[2] Olga Sonntag: Villas on the banks of the Rhine in Bonn. 1819-1914. Bouvier Verlag, Bonn 1998, ISBN 3-416-02618-7 , Volume 1, p. 26.

[3] Norbert Schloßmacher : Bonn on the eve of the First World War . In: Dominik Geppert , Norbert Schloßmacher (Ed.): The First World War in Bonn. The home front 1914–1918 (= publications of the Bonn City Archives , Volume 72; Bonner Heimat- und Geschichtsverein , Stadtarchiv Bonn: Bonner Geschichtsblätter: Yearbook of the Bonner Heimat- und Geschichtsverein , Volume 65/66). Bonn 2016, ISBN 978-3-922832-82-9 , pp. 11-48 (here: p. 27).

[4] Horst-Pierre Bothien: Bonn sur-le-Rhin Occupation 1918-1926 (= City Museum Bonn : Forum History ., No. 14). morisel Verlag, Munich 2018, ISBN 978-3-943915-34-1 , p. 61/62.

[5] City of Bonn, City Archives (ed.); Helmut Vogt : "The Minister lives in a company car on platform 4": The beginnings of the federal government in Bonn 1949/50 , Bonn 1999, ISBN 3-922832-21-0 , pp. 18-20.