Mohrenstrasse (Berlin)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mohrenstrasse
coat of arms
Street in Berlin
Mohrenstrasse
View along the road to the east
Basic data
place Berlin
District center
Connecting roads
Vossstraße (west) ,
Hausvogteiplatz (east)
Cross streets Wilhelmstrasse ,
Mauerstrasse,
Glinkastrasse ,
Friedrichstrasse ,
Charlottenstrasse ,
Markgrafenstrasse ,
Jerusalemer Strasse
Places Zietenplatz ,
Gendarmenmarkt ,
Hausvogteiplatz
Buildings see: → here
use
User groups Road traffic
Technical specifications
Street length around 900 meters

The Mohrenstrasse is a street in the Berlin district of Mitte .

It runs from west to east between Wilhelmstrasse and Hausvogteiplatz and in part of it forms the southern border of the Gendarmenmarkt . At the western end of Mohrenstraße is the underground station of the same name on the U2 line . Most of the buildings in the street that have been preserved or rebuilt after being destroyed in the war date largely from the Wilhelminian era and are listed buildings .

On August 20, 2020, the District Assembly of Mitte requested the District Office of Mitte to immediately initiate a renaming of Mohrenstrasse. BVV proposes that the street be named after Anton Wilhelm Amo in the future .

history

17./18. century

The street was built around 1700 when Friedrichstadt was built and originally ended on Mauerstraße in the west. Together with other streets around Hausvogteiplatz , it formed the main center of German textile manufacture in the decades before the Second World War thanks to the local clothing companies .

Naming

Like the other streets in Friedrichstadt, Mohrenstrasse was given its name at the end of May 1707. This is evident from the chronicle of Friedrichstadt by Joachim Ernst Berger (1666–1734), who was a preacher for the Lutheran congregation in Friedrichstadt from 1697–1732. He wrote: "A Eodem [1707] at the exit of the said month [May], the Gaßen, the publico for the best, got their name." The 9th street name mentioned by Berger is Mohren-Strasse .

Karl Marx lived at Mohrenstrasse 17 during his studies from 1837–1838. In September 1929, at the request of the SPD city ​​council group, a memorial plaque was attached to the house, but it was removed by the National Socialists in July 1933 .

In 1946 the editorial offices of the magazine Die Weltbühne were located on Mohrenstrasse , which Maud von Ossietzky opened in 1946 in the “v. Ossietzky-Verlag ”was reissued.

renewal

With the redesign or development of the former town squares Zietenplatz and Wilhelmplatz (later: Thälmannplatz ) during the GDR era, the section of road that connects to Wilhelmstraße was included in Mohrenstraße.

Origin of the street name

Variant 1: After a black resident of the street

About the origin of the street name Leopold Freiherr von Zedlitz wrote in 1834: "It was given the name, as they say, from a Moor who was in the service of the Margrave of Schwedt and who, thanks to the generosity of the ruler, was able to build a house here."

Variant 2: According to black residents of the street

Hermann Vogt wrote in 1885 about the naming: “When Friedrichstadt was newly built, it received its name from the Moors that Friedrich Wilhelm I received from the Dutch and quartered in a house on this street in order to use them from here for the individual regiments To transfer Janissary bearers ”. Since Friedrich Wilhelm I was crowned in 1713 and planned to “acquire 150 Moors” in 1714, the naming can be limited to the period around 1715 according to the above statement. In the Berlin address book of 1900 it says accordingly: "After the Mohren quartered here by Friedrich Wilhelm I, which he had received from the Dutch and used as a Janissary bearer". This variant is wrong, because the name was given as early as 1707.

Variant 3: According to settled former slaves

Other information suggests that the street was named during the reign of King Frederick I (1688–1713), who was also the ruler of the Groß Friedrichsburg trading colony in West Africa and was already elector Friedrich III. the Friedrichstadt named after him in Berlin . So reports Friedrich Nicolai about the district, which Mohrenstrasse and Gendarmenmarkt includes: "The first Anbauung done the same in 1688, from the current Crown road to the Hunter Street, at the bottom of the former Churchill Princely Barbican and garden [...] 1706, the streets got their names . ”Mohrenstrasse is also listed by name in the Berlin city map from 1710, which, however, represents a later attempt at reconstruction.

It is certain that during the Brandenburg-Prussian colonial period (1682 / 1683–1717) boys and young men abducted from West Africa had to work as military musicians, court servants and valets in Berlin. In 1680, Elector Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg had commissioned his captain Bartelsen to kidnap six “ slaves of 14, 15 and 16 years of age who are beautiful and well formed” to Berlin. In 1682 he ordered Captain Voss to come back with "twenty large slaves between the ages of 25 and 30 and twenty boys between the ages of 8 and 16". Contemporary images also prove the presence of several people of dark-skinned origin in Berlin, for example Peter Schenk's colored copper engraving Schwarzer Militarymusiker at the Brandenburger Hof (1696–1701) and Paul Carl Leygebes’s famous painting tobacco college of Friedrich I in Prussia from around 1709/1710 on the three young blacks and a servant with a turban can be seen in the castle.

Theory of origin according to Ulrich van der Heyden

The historian Ulrich van der Heyden advocates the theory that the street name at the time it was created had no racist or colonial connotations at all and was instead named after an honored delegation of African representatives from the Brandenburg colony of Großfriedrichsburg (later Ghana ). The African delegation is said to have stood under the leadership of Chief Janke from the village of Pokesu (later: Princes Town ) and was quartered in an inn at the gates of Berlin. She would have paid her respects to the Great Elector at the end of the 17th century after so-called protection treaties had been signed. The delegates are said to have spent a total of four months in Berlin and, as was customary at the time, walked from the quarter to the palace. The route used repeatedly was then given the name Mohrenweg by the Berliners .

Christian Kopp, activist at Berlin Postkolonial e. V., accuses Ulrich van der Heyden of failing to provide historical evidence for his thesis. Apart from a servant, the envoy Janke had come to Berlin alone to submit to the elector. This visit took place in 1684, years before the official name of Mohrenstrasse. With regard to these counter-theses, Kopp relies on Richard Schück . Nothing has been reported about accommodation in an inn on what will later be Mohrenstrasse. Even on the historical map of Johann Bernhardt Schultz from 1688, no Mohrenweg or an inn are shown.

Selected structures

House of the Mezner company, Mohren- / Markgrafenstraße, 1885
Destruction in Mohrenstrasse after a bomb attack on February 3, 1945

18th to 20th century

Many of the houses on this street were owned by insurance companies, bankers, master craftsmen and wealthy merchants in the 19th century. The following selected buildings are worth mentioning:

House ensemble No. 1–5 was an address of the Hotel Kaiserhof on Wilhelmplatz in 1890 . It also housed the city post office No. 50 with a telegraph station. No. 11/12 was the Hotel Stadt Magdeburg with a wine wholesaler in it. The hotel Zum Norddeutschen Hof was in house number 20 . No. 27/28 housed the hospice of the Berlin City Mission and building 31 housed the Hotel de France and Café Schiller . Shops had settled under the colonnades (shop 1 = wigmaker, shop 2 = butcher, [1900: bee products], shop 3 = glove shop, shop 4 = ignition goods [1900: perfumery], shop 5 = court shoemaker). Building No. 31 was the 16th community school with the 1st municipal public library in it. And several publishers are also identified. It is also worth reporting that the US embassy office was established in house number 66 . In house number 9 on Mohrenstrasse there was the Traube und Sohn wine shop around 1900 .

The Englisches Haus restaurant has been located at Mohrenstrasse 49 since the 18th century . The Berlin Monday Club , founded in 1749 , the Military Society , the Berlin Liedertafel , the Association of Berlin Artists and the Literary Society Tunnel over the Spree met there for a time .

The poet Heinrich Stieglitz and his wife Charlotte moved into their first joint apartment in 1829 at Mohrenstrasse 27 .

GDR press center

Former Prausenhof commercial building where Günter Schabowski initiated the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989 ; today: Federal Ministry of Justice

During the GDR era, the International Press Center was located at Mohrenstrasse 36/37, where the member of the Politburo Günter Schabowski announced new travel regulations for GDR citizens on November 9, 1989. When asked by journalists, he even declared it to be valid “immediately” because he was not aware of the embargo period until the following morning. When the media reported about it, the rush to the Berlin Wall took place in the course of the evening , making 9 November 1989 the date of the fall of the Wall . An information column from the Robert Havemann Society reminds you on site.

Architectural monuments in Mohrenstrasse

The three or four-story buildings erected here in large numbers at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries served mainly as administrative headquarters for insurance companies, banks, trading houses, publishing houses and similar companies. Despite heavy damage at the end of the Second World War , many houses have been preserved or rebuilt and renovated at the end of the 20th century. These include the following listed buildings:

  • Mohrenstrasse 6 at the corner of Glinkastrasse 8: Administration building of the Viennese insurance company Der Anker , architect: Adolf Zabel
  • Mohrenstrasse 20/21 from 1908: NDPD House and House of German Crafts from 1908, architect: Georg Rathenau
    Architectural monument office building Mohren- corner Charlottenstraße
  • Mohrenstrasse 22/23 at the corner of Charlottenstrasse 60: Berlinische Bodengesellschaft's office building from 1907, architects: Cremer and Wolffenstein
  • Mohrenstrasse 37a: Commercial building from 1896 ( Goldenbaum & Lichtenstein women's clothing ), architect: Carl Bauer
  • Mohrenstrasse 37b at the corner of Kronenstrasse 38–40: Prausenhof commercial building from 1913, architect: Ludwig Otte
  • Mohrenstrasse 39–44 at the corner of Hausvogteiplatz 8/9: Zum Hausvoigt office building from 1890 (two clothing companies), architect: Otto March
  • Administration building of the German domestic and foreign trade company (DIA) (Mohrenstrasse 51/52) from 1955
  • Mohrenstrasse 53–61: Administration building of Allianz- und Stuttgarter Lebensversicherungsbank AG from 1936, architect: Heinrich Rosskotten ,
    around 1910 the Zurich Insurance Company had house no. 58/59 rebuilt and house no. 62 was home to Preuss. Life insurance AG
  • Mohrenstrasse 63/64: Allianz insurance administration building from 1913, architect: Bodo Ebhardt
  • Mohrenstrasse 66: Office building of the Kur- and Neumärkisch. Knighthood credit inst. From 1890, in the same house were the Mittelmark knighthood management as well as a wine wholesaler and numerous apartments.

The following other architectural monuments can be found in Mohrenstrasse:

Discussion about renaming

Fifth "renaming party" for Mohrenstrasse

Since the 1990s, the renaming of Mohrenstrasse and the subway station of the same name has been discussed in Berlin in the context of a broader debate about street names that may be historically contaminated .

Various activists, e.g. B. the Africa Council Berlin-Brandenburg , Afro-Germans and representatives of organizations such as the International League for Human Rights , the Initiative Schwarzer Menschen and groups critical of colonialism such as the Berlin Postkolonial association or the network of over 100 development associations, Berlin Development Policy Advice (BER), denounced in this context a discriminatory background of the designation 'Mohr'. In their opinion, the retention of the name Mohrenstrasse is also an expression of a failure to come to terms with European and German racism and colonialism . As alternatives, street names after the Queen of Sheba , Nelson Mandela or Anton Wilhelm Amo were suggested. Those in favor of renaming received political support from representatives of the PDS and the Greens in the Mitte district . The then Federal Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul ( SPD ) had also spoken out in favor of a new street name. In February 2009 the Naturfreundejugend -Berlin drew attention to the problem by having a pink rabbit rename the street as Möhrenstraße . About 200 people demonstrated on February 22, 2014 for the name to be renamed Nelson Mandela Street . On August 23, 2014, the International Day for the Remembrance of the Trafficking in Slaves and its Abolition , an alliance of civil society groups, Decolonize Mitte , celebrated the 1st festival for the renaming of M-Strasse . The second street renaming festival took place on August 23, 2015. In 2018, at the fifth festival, activists called for the name to be changed to Anton Wilhelm Amo, who, with his dissertation, The Legal Status of the Moor in Europe, became Germany's first black academic and philosopher .

In January 2015 Dieter Hallervorden hit the headlines in the context of Mohrenstrasse. The BVG had celebrities make announcements from the subway stations. Hallervorden here announced the Mohrenstrasse, which, given the wide media conducted in 2012, debate on the listed in its theater Blackface -Stück am I not Rappaport of Herb Gardner led to protests and media coverage.

Opponents of a renaming point out that it is a now historical street name, which would continue to give cause for discussion instead of a neutral street name. The Berlin CDU , which opposes a renaming, does not consider the term 'Mohr' to be racist. Rather, the word goes back to ' Maure ', so originally it was a neutral term for a Muslim North African. CDU representatives rated the whole discussion about the renaming and arguments put forward by the supporters as "absurd" and "nonsense".

In July 2020, the attempt by the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe to rename the Mohrenstrasse underground station failed. Instead, it should bear the name of the adjacent Glinkastraße .

On August 20, 2020, the district assembly in the middle decided at the request of the SPD and the Greens and with the support of the Left Party to request the district office “to rename Mohrenstrasse in accordance with Berlin Road Act [...] and immediately start the process of renaming. ”In this context, the district council proposed renaming the street after Anton Wilhelm Amo . According to the decision, there should only be information for the residents, but no participation. Alternative suggestions for renaming should not be submitted either.

literature

  • Ulrich van der Heyden: On Africa's footsteps in Berlin. Mohrenstrasse and other colonial legacies . Tenea Verlag, Berlin 2008.
  • Ulrich van der Heyden: The Mohrenstrasse , in: U. van der Heyden, J. Zeller (Ed.): Colonial metropolis Berlin. A search for traces , Berlin 2002, p. 188 f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Printed matter - 2586 / V of BVV Mitte
  2. ↑ Philipp Manes : The German fur industry and their associations 1900–1940, attempt at a story , Volume 4. Berlin 1941. Copy of the original manuscript ( → table of contents ).
  3. ↑ Joachim Ernst Berger: Kernn of all Fridrichs-Städtschen incidents , approx. 1730, Berlin State Library, manuscript department, Ms Boruss. Quart 124, p. 30.
  4. ↑ Berlin honors Karl Marx . In: Vorwärts , September 1, 1929 and Vossische Zeitung , July 27, 1933.
  5. ↑ Ursula Madrasch-Groschopp: Die Weltbühne - Portrait of a magazine , Ullstein non-fiction book, 1985, p. 470 ff.
  6. ↑ The latest conversation manual for Berlin and Potsdam for the daily use of the locals and foreigners of all classes, containing: the description or evidence of everything worth knowing about the locality, with special consideration of the relations between the capital and the provinces . Published by an association of local science, under the board of the L. Freiherrn von Zedlitz. (ZN) [Motto.] Berlin 1834. Printed by AW Eisersdorff. P. 492.
  7. ^ Hermann Vogt: The street names of Berlin. Writings of the Association for the History of Berlin, Issue 22, Berlin 1885, p. 63.
  8. ↑ Doc. 186 Ramler's report on the acquisition of 150 moors. From November 25, 1714. In: Richard Schück Brandenburg-Prussia's colonial policy under the Great Elector and his successors (1647–1721) . Second volume, published by Fr. Wilh. Grunow, Leipzig 1889, pp. 564-566.
  9. ↑ a b Mohrenstrasse . In: Address book for Berlin and its suburbs , 1900, III, pp. 423-425.
  10. ^ Friedrich Nicolai: Description of the royal royal cities of Berlin and Potsdam and all the peculiarities located there , 1779, p. 152/153
  11. ^ Plan of Berlin , 1710, attempted reconstruction
  12. ^ Richard Schück: Brandenburg-Prussia's colonial policy under the Great Elector and his successors (1647–1721) , published by Fr. Wilh. Grunow, Leipzig 1889, Vol. II, Doc. 46 Instructions for Captain Joris Bartelsen to Angola and Guinea, July 7, 1680 .
  13. ^ Richard Schück: Brandenburg-Prussia's colonial policy under the Great Elector and his successors (1647–1721) , published by Fr. Wilh. Grunow, Leipzig 1889, Vol. II, Doc. 64 Instructions for the Commandeur de Voss on shipping to the Guinean coast along with that of Gröben, May 17, 1682 .
  14. ↑ Plate 20 in: Peter Schenk: Electoral Brandenburg Military and Court Costumes , Amsterdam 1696–1701, SMB-SPK.
  15. ^ Paul Carl Leygebe: The tobacco college of Frederick I in Prussia and his third wife, Queen Sophie Luise, in the Drap dór chamber of the Berlin Palace , 1709/1710
  16. ↑ Ulrich van der Heyden: On Africa's footsteps in Berlin. Mohrenstrasse and other colonial legacies , Berlin 2008
  17. ↑ LaG-Magazin, p. 19
  18. ↑ Mohrenstrasse . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1890, II, p. 325ff.
  19. ↑ In the years 1890 and 1900, according to the address book, there was no restaurant here, but only private persons are named under No. 49. One innkeeper appears under No. 51: Winkelmann (but only as administrator; 1890) and C. Voigt (1900). ( Mohr Straße 49 . In: Address Book for Berlin and its suburbs , 1900, III.)
  20. ^ General housing gazette for Berlin and its immediate surroundings, including Charlottenburg . digital.zlb.de. Accessed January 1, 2020.
  21. ^ Steles of the Robert Havemann Society: Press Office at the Council of Ministers of the GDR
  22. ^ Press office at the GDR Council of Ministers . berlin.de, updated on August 8, 2011, accessed on November 2, 2016.
  23. ↑ Monument Mohrenstrasse 6 (1911)
  24. ^ A b c d e f g Mohrenstrasse 6> Owner Der Anker , company for life and pension insurance with the director P. Schlesinger . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1914, III, pp. 609f.
  25. ↑ Monument Mohrenstrasse 20/21 (1908)
  26. ↑ Architectural monument Mohrenstrasse 22/23 (1907)
  27. ↑ a b Monument Mohrenstrasse 37a / b
  28. ↑ Monument complex Hausvogteiplatz 8/9 and Mohrenstrasse (1889–1890)
  29. ↑ Monument Mohrenstrasse 51
  30. ↑ Architectural monument Mohrenstrasse 53–61 (1937–1943)
  31. ↑ Architectural monument Mohrenstrasse 63/64
  32. ↑ Monument Mohrenstrasse 66 (1890-1892)
  33. ↑ Architectural monument Mohrenkolonnaden (1787)
  34. ↑ Monument U-Bhf Mohrenstrasse
  35. ↑ Architectural monument U-Bhf Stadtmitte
  36. ↑ Project group for renaming Mohrenstrasse ( Memento from November 15, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  37. ↑ Torben Ibs: The Inglorious Legacy of the Colonies . In: taz , November 13, 2004.
  38. ↑ Rainer L. Hein: Not only the Moor should go . In: Die Welt , November 13, 2004.
  39. ^ A b Rainer L. Hein, Steffen Pletl: Culture Committee wants forum for renaming Mohrenstrasse. In: Die Welt , February 11, 2005.
  40. ↑ Template: dead link /! ... nourl  ( page no longer available ): Möhrchen (-strasse) instead of fairy tale land. (Documentation of the Pink Rabbit campaign) ( Memento from December 12, 2013 in the Internet Archive ).
  41. ↑ Svenja Bergt: With carrots against the nation . In: taz , February 13, 2009.
  42. ^ Protests for the renaming of Mohrenstrasse . In: Berliner Zeitung , February 24, 2014.
  43. ↑ Alliance to rename Mohrenstrasse Decolonize Mitte .
  44. ↑ 2nd celebration for the renaming of Berlin's “Mohrenstrasse”. ( Memento from March 7, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) At: ber-ev.de .
  45. ^ Stefan Strauss: Action against racism - initiative calls for the renaming of Mohrenstrasse in Berlin . In: Berliner Zeitung , 23 August 2015.
  46. ^ Jonas Wahmkow: Protest against street names in Berlin: Why not Anton-W.-Amo-Straße? In: The daily newspaper . August 17, 2018, ISSN  0931-9085 ( taz.de [accessed July 30, 2019]).
  47. ↑ For the inaugural dissertation see: Anton Wilhelm Amo argues against the legality of slavery in Europe (1729) . Information from the Black Central European Studies Network (BCESN), accessed on August 21, 2020.
  48. ↑ Dieter Hallervorden is in trouble about "Mohrenstrasse" . In: Der Tagesspiegel , January 22, 2015.
  49. ↑ Avoid Mohrenstrasse, Dieter Hallervorden . In: Die Welt , January 23, 2015.
  50. ^ Dieter Hallervorden and the Mohrenstrasse problem . In: BZ , January 23, 2015.
  51. ↑ Dieter Hallervorden provokes with the "Mohrenstrasse" . In: Stern , January 22, 2015.
  52. ↑ Henkel: PDS demands for street renaming inappropriately . CDU press release from January 28, 2005.
  53. ^ After the racism debate: BVG wants to rename Mohrenstrasse underground station. In: Der Tagesspiegel . July 3, 2020, accessed July 4, 2020 .
  54. ^ Mohrenstrasse is to be renamed Anton-Wilhelm-Amo-Strasse. In: BZ August 21, 2020, accessed on August 21, 2020 .
  55. ^ "" Berlin writes world history "- Mohrenstrasse will be renamed" immediately "" welt.de of August 21, 2020

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 44.2 "  N , 13 ° 23 ′ 31.8"  E