Niederkirchnerstrasse

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Niederkirchnerstrasse
coat of arms
Street in Berlin
Niederkirchnerstrasse
Niederkirchnerstrasse; on the right the Detlev-Rohwedder-Haus ( Federal Ministry of Finance ) on Wilhelmstrasse , on the left a section of the Berlin Wall
Basic data
place Berlin
District center
Hist. Names Extended Zimmerstrasse
Connecting roads Zimmerstrasse (east) ,
Stresemannstrasse (west)
Cross streets Wilhelmstrasse
Buildings Federal Ministry of Finance ,
Martin-Gropius-Bau ,
Prussian State Parliament (House of Representatives)
use
User groups Pedestrian traffic , bicycle traffic , car traffic
Technical specifications
Street length 420 meters

The Niederkirchnerstraße is a street in the Berlin district of Mitte on the southern border of the district of the same name to the district of Kreuzberg ( Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district ). It is named after Käthe Niederkirchner , a communist resistance fighter against National Socialism . Before 1951 this street was called Prinz-Albrecht-Straße . From 1933 to 1945, under this name, it became a synonym for the terror apparatus of the dictatorship during the Nazi era . The Gestapo - headquarters , the Reich Security Main Office and SS had their headquarters here from 1961 to 1989 ran along the street. Berlin Wall .

history

The street was laid out as a private street in the 1870s under the working title Extended Zimmerstraße . Mostly this happened on the northern edge of the park to the Prinz-Albrecht-Palais . In 1891 it received its official dedication to the previous owner of the city palace.

During the division of the city, the street lay in East Berlin territory, but the southern sidewalk could be used from the West Berlin side: on the left the Prussian Landtag , on the right the Martin-Gropius-Bau , 1986

In terms of the type of facility that connects Wilhelmstrasse to the previous excise wall through an elongated park lot, it is comparable to Vossstrasse , which was recently laid out in the same way and which also runs so close to Leipziger Platz that it forms the back of the representative building there.

After 1933, Prinz-Albrecht-Straße became the control center of the Nazi state, which was characterized by its close proximity to the government district in Wilhelmstraße.

While most of the buildings on the northern side of the street remained largely undamaged during World War II , they were badly damaged on the southern side, which belongs to the Kreuzberg district.

In the years when Berlin was split, the border between East and West Berlin ran along the road from 1948 . The entire road area including the sidewalks belonged to the East Berlin district of Mitte. That is why the Berlin Wall ran here from 1961 to 1990. As is common practice, this was built about a meter and a half back so that the GDR border troops could carry out construction and renovation work on their own territory. Plots 1–6 were in the Mitte district, numbers 7–9 in the Kreuzberg district of West Berlin.

Land

No. 1 to 3

Europa Buddy Bear in Niederkirchnerstrasse in front of the Detlev Rohwedder House ( Federal Ministry of Finance )

From 1935 the Reich Aviation Ministry was built on the northern side of the street from Wilhelmstrasse (today: Federal Ministry of Finance ).

No. 4

The site was the park of the Prussian War Ministry , which had been cut through by the road construction project. It remained undeveloped and became part of the Reich Aviation Ministry with plots 1–3, but has remained open space without any major buildings.

No. 5

The Prussian Landtag , formerly the seat of the Prussian and now the Berlin House of Representatives

The building for the Prussian House of Representatives - the second chamber of the Prussian Landtag  - was built here by Friedrich Schulze from 1892 to 1898 . The first chamber, the manor house , was then built on the more representative side of the site on Leipziger Strasse . Both components were connected to farm buildings and a canteen via a central wing.

Today, as the Berlin House of Representatives , it is the seat of the Berlin state parliament .

No. 6

On the northern corner of the property on Königgrätzer Strasse , later: Stresemannstrasse and Saarlandstrasse , there were bars and entertainment businesses.

Corner lot

Ethnological Museum ; on the left the Prinz-Albrecht-Straße with the Martin-Gropius-Bau ; on the right is today's Stresemannstrasse

From 1886 the ethnological museum was located on the south side of the street, but it was listed in the cadastre as Königgrätzer Straße 110. From 1930 Stresemannstrasse or (1935 to 1947) Saarlandstrasse 110.

No. 7

In 1881 the arts and crafts museum was built, today's Martin-Gropius-Bau . The museum also housed the teaching facility of the Berlin Museum of Decorative Arts . When the burned-out ruin was transferred to the State of Berlin by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in 1977 , it was rededicated in the land register from “Prinz-Albrecht-Straße 7” to “Stresemannstraße 110”, the neighboring property of the destroyed Völkerkundemuseum. Today it is registered as "Niederkirchnerstrasse 7". It is the only remaining building on this side of the street.

No. 7a and 8

Building Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse No. 7a-8 in 1933

Between 1901 and 1905 the educational establishment of the Kunstgewerbemuseum built an extension according to plans by the secret building councilor Oskar Hoßfeld , as the previous premises in the neighboring building of the Kunstgewerbemuseum were no longer sufficient. The eastern part of the new building was on property no. 8 and was connected to the western part on property 7a, which was separated from property 7. This part housed the library of the Kunstgewerbemuseum with a room especially for the Lipperheide costume library . In 1924 the educational establishment merged with the University of Fine Arts to form the new United State School for Free and Applied Arts and moved to Hardenbergstrasse  33 in Charlottenburg , where the UdK is still located today . The vacant rooms of the educational establishment and the studios in the attic were rented. The art library, which in 1924 had become an independent department of the state museums, remained in its rooms on property 7a.

The “Prinz Albrecht site” was first used by the Nazi dictatorship in May 1933, when the newly created Secret State Police Office (Gestapa) moved into the building of the former arts and crafts school at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8 . In 1934 the art library had to give up its location to the Gestapo. Their holdings were transported on the open road by hand chain to the Gropiusbau, where they were set up in the atrium and surrounding areas. Building No. 7a-8 no longer exists. Only a few basement foundations have been exposed and are part of the Topography of Terror exhibition .

No. 9

In 1888 the "Hotel Römerbad" was built here, later " Hotel Prinz Albrecht ".

When Heinrich Himmler was appointed "Inspector" of the Gestapo in April 1934, as Reichsführer SS he moved the administrative apparatus of the SS and the security service of the Reichsführer SS (SD) from Munich to Berlin. He himself and his management staff moved into the former hotel next to the Gestapo headquarters.

The SS security service and, from 1939, the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) moved into the Prinz-Albrecht-Palais in the immediate vicinity at Wilhelmstrasse 102, which was only two plots away from the garden side of the former "Hotel Prinz Albrecht". After the buildings previously used by the NSDAP and the SA on Wilhelmstrasse (No. 101-106) had also been included, there was a decisive power center of the Nazi dictatorship. After 1939, the buildings in the entire Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse / Wilhelmstrasse complex were no longer sufficient, and many offices were relocated across Berlin.

Corner lot

The corner lot belonged to Wilhelmstrasse (No. 98)

Prince Albrecht site

Today none of the buildings No. 8, 9 and Wilhelmstrasse 98-106 exist anymore. As far as they were in ruins after 1945, they were demolished in the mid-1950s. The area was partially cleared.

literature

  • Erika Bucholtz: The headquarters of the National Socialist SS and Police State. Building use and planning in Berlin 1933–1945 . In: Journal for Historical Science 52 . Issue 12, 2004, pp. 1106–1125 ( topographie.de ( memento of September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) [PDF; 231 kB ]).
  • Reinhard Rürup (Ed.): Topography of Terror. Gestapo, SS and Reich Security Main Office on the "Prince Albrecht site". A documentation . Arenhövel, Berlin 1987, ISBN 978-3-922912-21-7 .

Web links

Commons : Niederkirchnerstraße  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual proof

  1. On the art library see Goerd Peschken : Afterword . In: Prussian royal castles . Gebr. Mann, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-7861-1849-3 , p. 107; also Topographie des Terrors (lit.), p. 84.

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 26.1 ″  N , 13 ° 22 ′ 57 ″  E