Military gymnasium

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Königliche Centralturnanstalt in Berlin, view and floor plan
Map section in Berlin-Mitte (1915), labeled "Milit.-Turn-Anst." On the map

The military gymnasium was a military training facility of the Prussian Army in Berlin , Scharnhorststrasse 4 (north of Invalidenstrasse ), which existed from 1850 to 1919.

history

The starting point for the foundation was a Prussian cabinet order of June 6, 1842, in which gymnastics was recognized and decreed as an indispensable part of the entire civil and military education system. In 1845 two officers were sent to Stockholm to study at the Lingschen gymnastic institute . On the basis of these findings, a Central Institute for gymnastic instruction in the army was founded in Berlin on October 1, 1847 , and opened with the first course for 18 officers . Because of the March Revolution in 1848 , the course was canceled.

The facility as such remained and became the Königliche Central-Turnanstalt with its own building, which was built in 1850 on a plot of land on what was then Kirschenallee - Scharnhorststrasse 4 since 1860 (building no longer exists today) - according to plans by Wilhelm Louis Drewitz and in 1851 with the first teaching course was opened. Major Hugo Rothstein was entrusted with the management of the lessons . The military leaders held the service title of military director or instructor. On June 2, 1881, the institute was renamed Military Gymnastics Institute . At the same time, the leader received the title of director, from 1906 commander.

The institute, which was subject to the inspection of the infantry schools, existed in the same place until the end of the First World War until 1919, when the Reichspost took over the premises for the legal collection office (later Reichsverlagsamt ) in the course of the dissolution of the Prussian army .

literature