Peacock Island
| Peacock Island | ||
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 view from the southwest |
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| Waters | Havel | |
| Geographical location | 52 ° 26 '4 " N , 13 ° 7' 51" E | |
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| length | 1.7 km | |
| width | 1 km | |
| surface | 67 ha | |
The Pfaueninsel is located in the Havel in the southwest of Berlin . It is a 67- hectare landscape park belonging to the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Berlin-Brandenburg Foundation and has been on the UNESCO list of world cultural heritage since 1990, together with the Palaces and Parks of Sanssouci in Potsdam and Glienicke Palace in Berlin . The Pfaueninsel is closely connected with important events and people in Brandenburg - Prussian history.
location
The island is located in the forest and water-rich district of Wannsee in the Steglitz-Zehlendorf district in southwest Berlin. The distance to the city center of Berlin is around 22 kilometers (as the crow flies), the distance to the city center of Potsdam around 5 kilometers. Since 1924 the Pfaueninsel with an area of 88 hectares, 67 hectares of which is land, has been designated as a nature reserve. The nature reserve is registered as a fauna and flora habitat and is part of the EU bird sanctuary Westlicher Düppeler Forst . Embedded in a complex, historically multi-layered cultural landscape , the sometimes different interests of nature conservation and monument preservation must be carefully coordinated.
The Pfaueninsel can be reached from the western city center by bus line 218 from the Theodor-Heuss-Platz underground station through the Grunewald and further via the Wannsee S-Bahn station . Then there is the short ferry crossing to the Pfaueninsel. Like a landscape in Samland in the past , the Pfaueninsel is known as the "Prussian Paradise".
Pfaueninsel from the 17th century to 1945
First uses
Iron Age bracelets and hair spirals made of bronze came to light during earthworks in May 1843 on Pfaueninsel. Traces of a Wendish settlement were found in the northeast of the island .
In the second half of the 17th century, the Great Elector had a canine garden, i.e. a rabbit breeding facility, built on the island, as elsewhere in Brandenburg, and a keeper's house built for it on the site of today's castle . 800 rabbits brought in 200 thalers a year for the electoral treasury. The name Rabbitwerder comes from this time , a rather unofficial name next to the terms Pauwerder, Pfau-Werder or Zu den Pfauen, which were used in old documents, although nothing was known about peacocks on the island at that time - they came much later. The name Pfaueninsel has been used throughout since 1795 .
In 1685 the island was given to the alchemist and glassmaker Johannes Kunckel "hereditary and peculiar" as a gift. Kunckel had already made the poorly efficient glass production in Brandenburg competitive on behalf of the Elector. Now this work should be intensively continued on the Pfaueninsel. Above all, the aim was to promote the country's economy , which was still badly damaged after the Thirty Years' War . But it was also about the scientific and technical interests of the sovereign, about his baroque pleasure in experiments with fire and glass and the most varied of elixirs . While ordinary outsiders were punished from entering the island, the elector often had himself rowed over from the nearby Potsdam residence to examine the progress of his glassmaker and to experiment for hours himself. Dark billows of smoke and pungent smells moved from the island over to the mainland, prompting the inhabitants there to make all sorts of suspicions about gold making and black magic .
In 1689 the glassworks and the laboratory in the northeast of the island burned to the ground, Kunckel was economically ruined. In any case, the son and successor of the Great Elector, Friedrich III. (later King Frederick I ), withdrew all support from 1688, even having him sentenced to repayment of 8,000 thalers because he had not fulfilled the expectations placed in him. When he was asked what use his expensive experiments would have had, Kunckel replied: “The most gracious Lord Elector was a lover of rare and curious things and was happy when something was brought about that was beautiful and delicate. I cannot answer this question as to what good it was. ”In 1692, Kunckel accepted an invitation to Sweden , where his knowledge and skills were widely recognized.
Friedrich Wilhelm II.
The project
The island was then unused for about 100 years. Their real rise began under King Friedrich Wilhelm II , the nephew and successor of Frederick the Great . Even as Crown Prince he and Wilhelmine Encke , the daughter of a horn player in the court orchestra, had himself translated to romantic-erotic stays on the overgrown island. At the age of 17 Wilhelmine became a mother; the two then had four children together. The relationship outlasted several other love affairs of the Crown Prince and later King ( popular nickname: Der dicke Lüderjahn ), also two marriages, which he concluded for reasons of state , and lasted until his death in 1797. The long-time mistress was responsible for the development of the Pfaueninsel - since 1796 Wilhelmine Countess von Lichtenau - considerable importance.
In 1793, the king thought about expanding the park landscape of the New Garden , which he had laid out on the banks of the Holy See in Potsdam. This led to the idea of not doing this on the directly adjacent site, but on the Pfaueninsel, which he always had in mind from Potsdam and which he had fondly remembered for over 30 years. In a cabinet order of November 12, 1793, the king conveyed his wish: "[...] The Bornstedt office includes an island in the Havel called the Caninchenwerder, which I want to take over for some of the facilities myself". A financial settlement was quickly made with the former owner, the military orphanage in Potsdam; The island was handed over on November 24, 1793, and the necessary work began in the spring of 1794.
Landscape and buildings
Under Friedrich Wilhelm II, two areas in particular were designed: the castle and its surroundings on the bank of the western tip, and the dairy farm and its surroundings in the damp meadowland in the east of the island . The small white castle was placed in such a way that one could perceive it from a distance, from the Potsdam bank, as an architectural accent in a beautiful landscape. It was supposed to have a private character, to provide a quiet and retreat for the king and his beloved Wilhelmine. She was heavily involved in the planning and was mainly responsible for the interior design. She did not feel obliged to any particular style. Her ideas ranged from Greek bronzes to setting up a tower room as an Oteihitisches Cabinet, i.e. a bamboo hut in the South Sea style . The overall impression still shows excellent taste; the quality of the individual pieces is excellent. The original furnishings are almost completely preserved, because the castle was no longer inhabited after 1840 and was spared from fires or war damage - a rare stroke of luck.
In the heyday of landscape parks, islands had a certain sentimental and symbolic value - one could be translated to a place of seclusion via a separating water. In other parks, such a situation had to be laboriously created by artificial watercourses. It has always existed here, with a wide belt of reeds and a population of around 300 oaks that were several centuries old. Larger new plantings were not necessary, rather it was a matter of interpreting and enhancing what was already there through landscaping interventions and suitable architecture. Contrary to popular belief, the castle and dairy were not built to seriously deceive the viewer as ruins. Rather, they were visibly functional buildings that, to a certain extent, masked the actors in a production . The castle was supposed to represent a "derelict Roman country house".
The dairy farm in the remote northeast of the island, built between 1794 and 1795, is the ruin of a Gothic monastery, but it was actually the main building of a "jewelry farm" with dairy farming, horses and sheep. The dairy consists of a two-storey tower-like building with a maid's apartment, a whey room and, on the upper floor, a splendidly decorated, well-preserved ballroom in the neo-Gothic style with stucco by Constantin Philipp Georg Sartori . The cowshed is located in the single-storey eastern extension. While the tower roof is hidden from the outside behind an artfully ruinous parapet, a high, hipped arched roof rises above the stable part behind a similar parapet. This plank roof represents a special feature of the history of construction technology and is at the same time one of the oldest surviving examples of this roof construction in Germany.
An architect was not employed. In addition, neither the Hofbauamt in Potsdam nor the Oberhofbauamt in Berlin were involved. Court carpenter Johann Gottlieb Brendel from Potsdam directed the construction of the castle and the dairy according to the ideas of his employer. In contemporary reports, it is not mentioned where the king got his ideas from. However: In a magazine of the time, “English tableaus” were offered as wall decorations with a clock, on which a surprisingly similar building can be seen; and in the royal library there was a view of the island of Capri with a similar motif.
Two landing sites were created for visitors to the island; one was reserved for the royal family, the other was used for other visitors and trucking. Almost simultaneously with the castle and dairy, a kitchen house was built in the middle of the 1790s, a wooden " ice boat " in the form of an arched tent over four meters high with a cellar for storing ice cream and perishable food (demolished in 1904), the castle fort's house, several Wells, a bowling alley and a haystack disguised accommodation for the peacocks, which were bought in Gut Sacrow and now settled on the island. From Beelitz "chasing umbrella" was brought in because of the covered tree bark exterior also Borken house called - still was the biggest part of the island wildly overgrown hunting ground. When everything was finished in 1797, the long-ailing king died. His mistress, Countess Wilhelmine von Lichtenau, was accused of unlawful enrichment, acquitted, but banned for a long time.
Friedrich Wilhelm III.
General development
The new king and his wife, the popular Queen Luise , sometimes used the Pfaueninsel as a summer stay. However, Luise didn't particularly like the island. She spoke of "the narrow peacock dwelling, where no lock and no bolt protect against burglary, where, as is well known, the walls are made of paper [...]" and preferred the nearby Paretz Castle . Friedrich Wilhelm III. Having finally returned victorious after the chaos of war and displacement during the Napoleonic Wars , he soon turned increasingly to Peacock Island, which he valued as the epitome of the peaceful pre-war period.
Ferdinand Fintelmann was court gardener there from 1804 . After the occupation of Prussia by Napoleon's troops in 1806, food became scarce all around, and Fintelmann was also aware of the king's fondness for estate management - so he laid out various arable land on some previously wooded parts of the island according to landscape gardening aspects, but spared the old oaks and left them also stand in the fields. The result was a prime example of the " ferme ornée " (a "decorated", that is, horticultural designed "agriculture"). In Berlin, the sober, linguistically poorly expressive king slowed down the imagination of his architects with brief words - for example the Neue Wache planned by Karl Friedrich Schinkel in the form of a Romanesque castle gate and a Gothic cathedral on the water - “Very, very beautiful. But I prefer the Greek style ”- and thus promoted the classicist character of the old town center. On the Pfaueninsel, on the other hand, he created a colorful collection of the most varied of buildings and attractions.
In 1824/1825 Schinkel expanded the Kavaliershaus, which had existed since 1804 . The king had the court marshal's office in Danzig buy the late Gothic Schlieffhaus from 1520, which was threatened with demolition . It was transported to Pfaueninsel on ships in numbered individual parts. The patrician house had supposedly been in Nuremberg since 1360 and was rebuilt in Gdansk in 1480. Schinkel now connected it with the old gentleman's house, which could no longer accommodate the occasional guests. 1829/1830 was also created to designs by Schinkel the "Swiss House" and since 1829 is within sight of the dairy farm in memory of Queen Louise a portico of sandstone , which is most likely designed by Schinkel. It is the original column front of your mausoleum from 1810 from the Charlottenburg Palace Park , which was subsequently redesigned from the harder material granite .
From August 1830 Harry Maitey worked as assistant to the master engineer Franciscus Joseph Friedrich on Pfaueninsel.
The menagerie
During the summer sojourn with Queen Luise, some strange animals had already been brought to the island. Gradually, Friedrich Wilhelm III. downright a passion for the most exotic animals possible. In Paris in 1815 he got to know the Jardin des Plantes - despite the name, it was more of a zoological than a botanical garden - and wanted a similar menagerie . In 1821 a fundamental redesign of the Pfaueninsel began by the horticultural master and later Prussian general gardening director Peter Joseph Lenné . His concept envisaged a section with a castle, rose garden and palm house in the west, with a focus on gardens and plants, and in the east a predominantly rural area with the dairy, whereby the area of arable land was significantly reduced in favor of meadows. Because the new garden landscape needed a regulated water supply, a steam engine in the machine house on the south bank pumped the Havel water to the highest point of the island from 1822 , from where it was distributed over the island by pipes made of clay pipes.
Lenné concentrated the menagerie buildings in the central part of the island. Since the king's preference became known, new living gifts kept arriving, including a group of reindeer that had traveled to Brandenburg under the care of two Laplanders as a present from the King of Sweden in 1836 . In an inventory of the menagerie from 1842, the animals are no longer mentioned. The pheasantry of the New Garden was relocated to Peacock Island , cages and buildings for llamas , monkeys, lions and kangaroos were built, as well as aviaries for many different species of birds, a buffalo and beaver bay, a deer enclosure and - after the brown bears kept on the island - each other had ripped loose several times - a bear pit. In 1832 a separate menagerie administration was set up; at this point in time there were already 847 animals.
Heir to the throne Friedrich Wilhelm IV did not share the special interest of his father. The greater part of the animal population and several of the buildings and facilities were transferred to the newly founded Berlin Zoological Society in 1842 and served as the basis for the Berlin Zoological Garden , which opened its doors in 1844 as the first zoo in Germany. Today you can still find an aviary and a water bird pond in the center of the Peacock Island.
The Russian relatives
The course of the war during the conflict with Napoleon made a close connection with Russia appear advisable from Prussia's point of view . The goal was achieved in 1817 when the daughter of Friedrich Wilhelm III. married the Grand Duke Nicholas. In 1826, the son-in-law even became Tsar of Russia as Nicholas I. In his honor, the Nikolskoë blockhouse was built on the hill opposite the Pfaueninsel in 1819 and the Russian church (today the Evangelical Church of St. Peter and Paul ) from 1834–1837 . The church building was not quite as Russian as the king expressly requested. Rather, the architects Friedrich August Stüler and Albert Dietrich Schadow oriented themselves towards the Prussian brick churches that Schinkel had designed in 1832. The onion dome , the actual Russian accent, was added at Schinkel's suggestion. When the Tsar's family visited Prussia, the related families went sailing together on the small royal frigate , which was stationed on the Pfaueninsel. A large slide, based on the model of a system in Saint Petersburg , was used for children's amusements on the Pfaueninsel , although the name is misleading insofar as it was actually an approximately 60-meter-long wooden ramp on which several lanes were divided up within which one could enter small carts. Today only the substructure of the ramp, a cube-shaped wooden hut, can be seen.
The palm house
A botanical equivalent to the exotic diversity of the menagerie was the palm house, which was built between 1829 and 1831. At that time, a private collection of palm trees, famous throughout Europe, was for sale in Paris , and the director of the Berlin Botanical Garden drew the king's attention to it - certainly in his own interest. He had the collection bought and decided on the Pfaueninsel as the location. For this purpose, Schinkel designed a strictly shaped, heated glass palace made of 126 uniform window units with narrow wooden struts, a structure that anticipated elements of later modernism. The front length was 34.5 meters, width and height each 14 meters.
The interior design stood in clear contrast to the restrained facade. First a small marble pagoda was integrated, an English piece of booty from Bengal , enriched with a fountain and goldfish basin. Accordingly, the entire interior design was based on Indian designs and ornaments . The plants on display included date palms and Japanese fan palms , lianas , sago palms , elephant feet , pineapple and banana trees, dragon blood trees , litchi trees , spice and coffee plants. In the center of the house was a sprawling fan palm that grew quickly and soon reached the glass roof. In order to create space for the tree, the building was initially given a roof attachment with a dome in the Indian style, and later the floor under the planter had to be lowered. The painter Carl Blechen captured the interior of the palm house in oil paintings. These pictures are exhibited in the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin, the Hamburger Kunsthalle and the Art Institute of Chicago . Other unusual plants were planted in the immediate vicinity of the palm house. Gustav Adolph Fintelmann described the situation: “[...] in which many of the most beautiful plants of striking growth from the most distant parts of the world are united. Rice, sugar cane and the old papyrus tree [...] "will thrive separately if the weather is favorable.
The palm house was a popular attraction, especially after the menagerie was closed. Since 1821 it has been possible to visit the island three days a week - Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday - but only when the king is not there. In a public declaration on May 4, 1821, it was announced that it was not permitted to consume food and drinks that you had brought with you and that you could not buy anything like that there. The appeal was addressed to the “better-off public” - there was no public transport yet, so it was hardly possible for ordinary people from Berlin to reach the island.
On the night of May 18-19, 1880, the palm house caught fire for an unknown cause. Although fire brigades were on the spot relatively quickly, the fragile wooden structure burned to the ground and all plants were lost. A restoration was discussed, and money was initially provided for it, but this was eventually used for other purposes. In 1882 the remains of the building were completely leveled. Today, stone markings and beds with historical leaf plants are a reminder of the building.
Ornamental and kitchen garden
As early as 1821, when Lenné began fundamentally redesigning the Pfaueninsel, an extensive private collection of roses was purchased for 5000 thalers. A rose garden was laid out between the castle and the castellan's house, the first of its kind in Prussia. After several years of intensive care, it contained 2000 sticks and 140 different varieties. The facility, which has since been largely destroyed, was restored in 1989.
Ferdinand Fintelmann and then his nephew Gustav Adolph undertook various experiments with useful and ornamental plants on the island in the first half of the 19th century. In publications of the Association for the Promotion of Horticulture in the Royal Prussian States , they reported on their experiences several times, and at the meetings of the Association they showed their botanical specialties. Ferdinand cultivated two plants that were still rare at the time: hydrangeas , which took on a blue hue with the help of the reed soil, and dahlias , which at that time were still called georgines. The nephew wrote in retrospect in 1838: "The garden became ever richer, even famous, thanks to the culture of the georgines or dahlias, which were shipped from here to America, from where they were imported, and were the most beautiful of their time." The breeder himself recommended the plant as animal feed and assumed: "Perhaps this plant will be consumed by farmers in the future as a usable fodder herb, even if the tubers should not be as beneficial as potatoes [...]."
Gustav Adolph Fintelmann, in turn, devoted himself specifically to rhubarb . In an essay he presented five different types of them as more or less common ornamental plants, but also published a text on the culture of rhubarb and its use instead of fresh fruit in the economy , apparently a new idea at the time; because he assures right at the beginning "[...] that nobody has anything to fear from the rhubarb as a dessert or cake filling [...]"
The Royal Louise and the Frigate Shed
In 1833 Albert Dietrich Schadow built the wooden frigate shed , a boathouse for the sailing ship Royal Louise, on the east bank of the Pfaueninsel as an arched pile construction . This reduced to just under 18 meters length of deck, oceangoing copy of a frigate was named in memory of the deceased already 1810 Queen Luise received. The pleasure yacht was sold in 1831 after the joint victory over Napoleon as a gift from the British King Wilhelm IV to the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III. built in the Royal Dockyards in Woolwich and transferred to Pfaueninsel in 1832. In 1841 the ship was moved to the Kongsnæs sailor station on the Jungfernsee near Potsdam near the Glienicke Bridge and kept its winter quarters in the frigate shed. It was stored there during the First World War . The abdicating German Kaiser Wilhelm II left the inherited ship to the Seglerhaus am Wannsee association for use by the youth department. In 1926, the Sacrow Fishing School took over the hull, which had meanwhile been cannibalized. In 1935 the Reichsmarine restored the ship and erected it as a memorial in Kiel . After the end of the Second World War it was destroyed due to its poor condition by order of the Allied Control Council .
Between 1997 and 1999 a replica was built in Berlin-Köpenick as part of an “ employment-generating measure ”, which has been cruising the waters of the Unterhavel from Scharfen Lanke in Spandau to Lehnitzsee near Fahrland since 2004 under the responsibility of a newly founded association . Since then, the frigate shed has returned to its original purpose as winter storage for the (new) Royal Louise .
Friedrich Wilhelm IV.
The continuous use of the Pfaueninsel by Prussian rulers ended when Friedrich Wilhelm III. Died in 1840. His successor, Friedrich Wilhelm IV., Occasionally had himself rowed to the island for a few hours in summer, but did not live in the castle. He and his family had a few special moments with the Pfaueninsel.
His brother Wilhelm, the Prince of Prussia , sought refuge there for two days in 1848. There was revolutionary unrest in Berlin; the prince, who had campaigned for a military solution to the conflict, was mistakenly assigned a direct order to fire against the rebels ( grape prince ) ; he fled via Spandau in civilian clothes to the Pfaueninsel. He arrived there at two o'clock on the night of March 21, 1848, took up accommodation, but not in the castle, but hid for two days and two nights in the house of the court gardener Fintelmann. In the meantime, the angry citizens of Berlin demanded that he be permanently removed from the court. The king apparently gave in, Prince Wilhelm secretly left the island and continued to London under the pseudonym Lehmann . At the beginning of June of the same year he was back in Berlin. In 1861 he became Wilhelm I, King of Prussia, and in 1871 German Emperor . No report mentions even a single visit by him to the Pfaueninsel after his involuntary stay in 1848.
A notable date was July 13, 1852. The Russian relative Tsar Nicholas I was visiting, and the king wanted to arrange a special performance of the famous actress Rachel on Peacock Island in his honor . The diva , who is currently performing in Berlin, found an outdoor appearance without any stage to be unreasonable: “Am I a tightrope walker? I will not play! ”. In the end she was difficult to persuade. She was undesirable for the arch-conservative Tsar since she sang the Marseillaise on the open stage in 1848 . The main argument for her was therefore that Russia would be open to her again in the future. The performance with texts by the French playwright Jean Racine was a success, the king and court society congratulated them, the Tsar invited them, as had been hoped, to St. Petersburg . A marble statuette of the tragic woman, created by a student of the sculptor Christian Daniel Rauch , commemorates the event at the scene.
Until 1945
In the following decades, the funds for maintenance were cut several times and the maintenance-intensive areas suffered from the savings. The rose garden could be renewed again in 1870, but undisciplined day trippers soon caused serious damage here and in the other facilities. After the First World War , the island was the target of purely commercial interests for several years. The utilization plans ranged from the construction of a villa colony to the operation of a private school with boarding school to a luxury sanatorium for senior citizens. It was not until 1924 that such plans became irrelevant and the island's decline ended. On the basis of a 1922 study by Wolfgang Stichel on the flora and fauna of the Pfaueninsel worth protecting, the island was granted the status of a nature reserve on February 28, 1924 .
On the occasion of the XI. For the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, the National Socialists chose Pfaueninsel as the venue for a festive spectacle, and the end of the games was celebrated on August 15 with an Italian Night . Pioneers had laid a ship bridge to the island, young girls in Renaissance costumes served as pages, the opera ballet danced by torchlight, garlands of lanterns everywhere in the trees, and at the end a fireworks display - according to the will of the host Goebbels, the largest the world had ever seen . A total of 1000 celebrities were on the guest list: a king and a duke, several crown princes, lords and ladies, the International Olympic Committee and the German imperial government, a number of ambassadors, the sons of Mussolini . Some guests were embarrassed about the effort on display. The rampant, noisy fireworks aroused bad associations. The French ambassador André François-Poncet noted: "The crackling rockets gave the impression of a huge artillery fire", the American ambassador William Dodd noted that "many people complained about this form of war propaganda." But the fascist organizers were satisfied with that Solid and with the games as a whole; they owed them a considerable propaganda success.
With a brief episode, Pfaueninsel was then implicated in the downfall of the National Socialist regime. Berlin had already been largely conquered by the Red Army and the city was about to capitulate . In this absolutely hopeless situation, on April 29, 1945, two small troops of soldiers were marched out one after the other from the Führerbunker . They were supposed to make their way to Pfaueninsel to deliver Hitler's messages to two aircraft that had been ordered there to carry the documents out of town. The papers were the "political testament" of Adolf Hitler , who committed suicide one day later, as well as an urgent call for help to General Wenck , the commander of the 12th Army , which was already on its way west at that time. to surrender to the Americans. The messengers from the bunker did reach the Pfaueninsel; nevertheless, the company failed in the confusion of the last days of the war. At night and under Russian fire, the first machine had to start again hastily, another came too late - the messengers of the news had already left the island. The action did not influence the outcome of the war or the end of the National Socialist era .
The Peacock Island today
Peacock Island Ferry
In 1811 there was the first ferry service from the mainland to the Pfaueninsel. It wasn't until 1821 that a public ferry was set up, as the island was open to visitors from Tuesdays to Thursdays. There was also an excursion steamer from Potsdam to the Pfaueninsel. The wooden boat put into service in 1905 for the purpose of the ferry connection sank in 1945, badly damaged. In 1948 it was lifted and in 1950 the ferry service could be reopened. In the same year, an application was made for the establishment of a ferry service between the Kladow excursion restaurant Brüningslinden and the Pfaueninsel, but this was rejected because of the low profitability and the route too close to the border installations . In 1956, a cable ferry for a maximum of two vehicles and 60 people was set up between Nikolskoer Weg and Pfaueninsel, which was replaced in 1968 by a new motorized vehicle ferry .
The small passenger ferry Louise (built in 1968), which takes 25 people, and a twenty-ton wagon ferry (22 meters), which can transport a car and 150 people, run between the mainland and the island . The ferry is operated by the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation and operates during the day. A new ferry (built in 2011) has been operating since 2011, which - like the old one - can transport people and vehicles.
Pfaueninsel nature reserve
The Peacock Island originally consisted of two parts: a larger South Island and a smaller North Island. The east of the present bay Parschenkessel located pike spawning area is the part of the former vermoorte gully. Although the island was already settled in the Bronze Age, nature was left to itself for a long time. The island was first used agriculturally around 1683 for breeding rabbits and later as a leased hut forest . The dairy farm built in 1795 in the course of the castle construction in the northern part of the island still uses the surrounding areas for livestock farming . From the menagerie of exotic animals formerly located on the island, only the peacocks associated with the island by name are now settled. In the immediate vicinity of Pfaueninsel Castle, the round garden and the rose garden can be found under horticultural care . Like the rest of the island, they are part of the landscape park designed by Lenné. Lenné's concept envisaged the preservation of the old tree population for large parts of the island, so that in addition to a well thought-out network of paths, visual axes that have been preserved to this day represent the main intervention of the garden architect in the island's nature.
After there were plans at the beginning of the 20th century to build villas on the Pfaueninsel similar to the Havelinsel Schwanenwerder , the entomologist Wolfgang Stichel, together with the state agency for the preservation of natural monuments, succeeded in designating the island as one of the first nature reserves in Berlin on February 28, 1924 . This measure was justified with the occurrence of rare plants and bird breeding grounds worth protecting. The currently valid ordinance dates from June 28, 1941. Today, as a Natura 2000 area according to the Fauna-Flora-Habitat Directive , the island is part of the special protection area of the Western Düppeler Forest . The nature reserve covers 88.3 hectares, with 68 hectares on the island's land area and the remainder on the surrounding shore and water area close to the island.
Much of the island is forest. The notable trees include the oaks, some of which are several hundred years old, some of which are free. Especially the partially or completely dead trees offer ideal habitats for birds and insects, for mosses, lichens and fungi. For example, the rare beetle species hermit and large oakbuck can be found here . In addition to oaks and other native tree species, there are numerous exotic trees on the island that go back to plantings in the 19th century. These trees include ginkgo , Colorado fir , swamp oak , tulip tree, and white mulberry . A Lebanon cedar that is well over 100 years old , originally a gift from the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire , Abdülhamid II , to Kaiser Wilhelm II , fell victim to Hurricane Kyrill in January 2007 and was later replaced by a new plant.
In addition to forest areas, meadows are part of the island's landscape. As part of Lenné's landscape planning, you can often find dry sandy grassland with typical plants such as early sedge , common carnation , heather carnation and fescue sheep . Plants such as Ehriger speedwell , blue-green schiller grass , spring sedge and Carthusian carnation , which prefer soils rich in bases, are rarer on the island . There are also in the field of heath meadow typical heath plants such as Scotch broom , heather and juniper . The moored isthmus in the north of the island, known as pike spawning meadow, is now a wet meadow. For plant population of this area include Goldsegge , marsh sedge , stiff sedge , Carex riparia , Ragged Robin , reed canary grass , reeds , Thelypteris palustris , Lathyrus palustris and water vapors . At the edge of the pike-spawning meadow you can also find eyebright , large rattlespot , edged leek , long-leaved blue loosestrife and mariengrass .
In the flat areas of the riparian zones belonging to the nature reserve, reed beds are part of the landscape. The species found there include brown sedge , reed nettle and marsh pond thread . The reed stocks are a preferred breeding area for various bird species, such as the reed warbler or the reed warbler . Other bird species that can be found on the Pfaueninsel are the black kite , great spotted woodpecker , black woodpecker , green woodpecker , medium-sized woodpecker , small woodpecker , cormorant , nightingale and oriole , and occasionally a sea eagle residing in the Lower Havel area .
The historical buildings on the island are not only part of the world cultural heritage, but also serve as a habitat for various animal species. Bats like the great mouse-eared bat or the water bat use the buildings as winter quarters.
Recreation area Pfaueninsel
The appearance of the Pfaueninsel has not changed profoundly in decades. Horticultural and structural efforts are constantly required to maintain the historical structures and, in individual cases, to restore them. This is based on the time around 1835, the heyday of the island. Currently the traditional free-roaming peacocks are back on the island. Their number is given in various sources as 35 to 100.
As it has been since 1821, the island is still a popular destination today. It can only be reached via a narrow arm of water by ferry , which normally runs every 15 minutes, and more often if there is a lot of traffic. Cars and bicycles are only allowed to be carried by the few permanent residents of the island; there is a parking lot for visitors' vehicles at the jetty on the mainland.
To protect the island and its facilities, there are stricter park regulations than in other parks operated by the Foundation. Among other things, it forbids bringing dogs or other animals, bicycles, inline skates and skateboards , smoking, leaving the paths, fishing or swimming, skiing, lighting fires, trading or holding demonstrations . In the event of gross violations, there is a risk of expulsion from the island.
Paths across the island
A description of the circumnavigation of the island clockwise can look like this. From the ferry terminal to the south, the path leads past the castellan's apartment to a garden that opens up to Pfaueninsel Castle. From there there is a view of peacocks and the Havel. Then the circular route opens to the former palm house, the floor plan of which is only marked by four stone pillars. Various foliage plants are still cultivated within this marker. The Parschenkessel Bay follows with a wide belt of reeds and wild water birds. We go to the Dutch house from 1802, which is located in the northern part of the island and serves as a stable for cattle. On the way back on the circular route, you will pass the dairy in the form of an artificial ruin of a medieval abbey. From here there is a direct line of sight to the Temple of Luis in the form of a Greek temple. The black, shaggy cattle graze in a wetland between the dairy and the Luise temple. The path further passes a grove with large acorns reproduced in stone and the terrain of the alchemist Johannes Kunckel , who invented the ruby-red glass. After passing two bridges, you will reach the “Beelitz Hunting Umbrella” located directly on the bank, a shelter clad with bark the size of a large hunting lodge. The royal hunting groups killed the waterfowl out of its protection. In terms of the "closeness to nature", this was already a clear departure from the driven hunt. The frigate harbor, also located on the shore, is a building designed to protect the small-scale replica frigate named Royal Louise. The way uphill touches the aviaries, the nursery and the rose garden and leads back to the ferry terminal. The aviaries are mainly used to protect the young peacocks so that they do not fall prey to foxes.
Inferences
Literary memories
“A trip to Pfaueninsel was considered the most beautiful family festival of the year for Berliners, and the youth felt extremely happy to see the lively jumps of the monkeys, the funny plumpness of the bears, the strange hopping of the kangaroos here. The tropical plants were admired with many a delight. One dreamed of being in India and saw with a mixture of lust and horror the southern animal world, alligators and snakes, yes the wonderful chameleon , which often seemed to reflect all the colors of the blooming surroundings in an opalescent manner "
“Peacock Island! A picture from my childhood emerges like a fairy tale: a castle, palm trees and kangaroos; Parrots screech; Peacocks sit on high poles or turn a wheel, aviaries, fountains, shaded meadows; Meandering paths that go everywhere and nowhere; a mysterious island, an oasis, a carpet of flowers in the middle of the market. "
Pfaueninsel as a film set
In the 1960s, outdoor shots were made on Pfaueninsel for the Edgar Wallace films The Door with the Seven Locks (1962), News from the Witcher (1965), The Monk with the Whip (1967), The Dog from Blackwood Castle (1968) and Under the Spell of the Eerie (1968). In addition to the English landscape park, the cavalier's house was often used as a backdrop for outdoor shots, as its architecture is reminiscent of English country houses. In 2005 the Pfaueninsel served as a backdrop for In Love in Berlin .
Stamp motifs
As part of the stamp series Castles on April 14 appeared in 1977 , a 20-cent stamp of the Federal Post Office Berlin and on 14 February 1979 one of the German Post Office with the motif of the Castle Peacock Island. On February 16, 1977 , a 190-pfennig postage stamp from each of the postal organizations with the same motif was issued.
The legend of the nuclear power plant on the Pfaueninsel
Occasional reports can be found that the Berlin Senate under Willy Brandt was considering building a nuclear power plant on the Pfaueninsel in order to make the city energy self- sufficient. In fact, the state-owned power company operating Bewag a 150- 1959 plans to build megawatts - pressurized water reactor in the western part above the city. The planned location was a piece of forest west of the Berlin district of Wannsee. The "legend of the nuclear power plant on the Pfaueninsel" was created by confusing the geographical indication " Wannsee Island " with the Pfaueninsel.
literature
- Gregor Geismeier: The Danzig House on the Pfaueninsel. In: The Mark Brandenburg. Issue 53, Marika Großer Verlag, Berlin 2004, ISBN 978-3-910134-32-4 .
- Thomas Hettche : Pfaueninsel. Novel. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2014, ISBN 978-3-462-04599-4 (awarded the Wilhelm Raabe Literature Prize )
- Ingo Kowarik: Nature conservation in cultural landscapes and its possible cross-connections to monument preservation. In: Axel Klausmeier (Ed.): Fürst-Pückler-Park cultural landscape. The Branitz outdoor park in the focus of conflicting interests. Bad Münstereifel 2005, pp. 31–37.
- Axel Menges: Book series about European architecture individual representations; Volume 13: The Pfaueninsel. 1993, Ernst Wasmuth Verlag, ISBN 3-8030-2713-6 .
- Ernst Pett: Berlin Reminiszeneen 12: The Peacock Island , 1966
- Marie-Louise von Plessen (ed.): Berlin through the flower or cabbage and turnips. Garden art in Berlin-Brandenburg. Nicolai, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-87584-147-6 .
- Michael Seiler: The Peacock Island Rose Garden. In: Florian von Buttlar (ed.), Franziska Kirchner, Clemens Alexander Wimmer, Senate Department for Urban Development and Environmental Protection, Charlottenburg Palace (ed.): Peter Joseph Lenné. Volkspark and Arcadia. Nicolai, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-87584-277-4 , pp. 125-137.
- Michael Seiler (text) and Stefan Koppelkamm (photos): Pfaueninsel, Berlin . Wasmuth, Tübingen 1993, ISBN 3-8030-2713-6
- Eckart Rüsch: Building construction between innovation and failure. Verona, Langhans, Gilly and the plank roofs around 1800 , Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 1997, ISBN 3-932526-00-7 , pp. 138-145.
- Senate Department for Urban Development Berlin (Ed.): Berlin of course! Nature conservation and NATURA 2000 areas in Berlin. Natur & Text, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-9810058-3-7 , p. 184 ff.
- Wolf Jobst Siedler: On the Pfaueninsel. Walks in Prussia's Arcadia. Siedler, Berlin 2007 (first edition 1987), ISBN 978-3-88680-869-4 .
- Folkwin Wendland: Berlin's gardens and parks from the founding of the city to the end of the nineteenth century. In: Classic Berlin. Propylaeen, Berlin 1979, ISBN 3-549-06645-7 , pp. 354-359.
- Clemens Alexander Wimmer, Senate Department for Urban Development and Environmental Protection, Dept. III - Garden Monument Preservation (Ed.): Parks and Gardens in Berlin and Potsdam. 4th, revised edition. Nicolai, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-87584-267-7 , pp. 116-125.
- Caesar von der Ahé: The menagerie on the "Royal Peacock Island". The origin of the Berlin zoological garden . In: Mitteilungen des Verein für die Geschichte Berlins, 1930, Issue 1. Digitized by the Central and State Library Berlin, 2006. https://digital.zlb.de/viewer/image/14688141_1930/5/
On the Berlin traffic pages there are several book references with a brief summary of the Pfaueninsel.
Film documentaries
- Mysterious places. The islands of Berlin. Film, RBB 2004. Shown in the RBB on April 20, 2010, 8:15 pm - 9:00 pm. (History of island development and use).
Web links
- Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg - Pfaueninsel
- Detailed description with numerous pictures of the palm house and the dairy farm on the island
- Senate Department for Urban Development Berlin: NSG and NATURA 2000 area Pfaueninsel
- Panoramic pictures from the Pfaueninsel
- Map of the Peacock Island
- Entries in the Berlin State Monument List:
Individual evidence
- ↑ Senate Department for Urban Development Berlin: Berlin of course! P. 84.
- ↑ Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe: Pfaueninsel and Park Glienicke . Leaflet Berlin, September 30, 2010
- ^ Gabriela Walde: Visit to the Prussian Paradise . In: Berliner Morgenpost , May 3, 2010
- ↑ See: Rüsch 1997, pp. 138–143, with a detailed account of the building history.
- ↑ Rüsch 1997, pp. 138, 269.
- ↑ Rüsch 1997, pp. 144-145.
- ^ Royal Louise - Yacht and Shipping Association of Potsdam e. V. Accessed December 10, 2009 .
- ↑ Picnic for a cedar tree
- ↑ Senate Department for Urban Development Berlin: Berlin of course!
- ↑ Park regulations for the Pfaueninsel ( PDF ( Memento from June 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive )).
- ↑ Malgorzata Ominalowska, Juergen Scheunemann: Berlin . Dorling Kindersley, Munich 2004, pp. 208/209.
- ↑ Joachim Radkau, Lothar Hahn: Rise and fall of the German nuclear industry . Quoted in VDI news: Nuclear power on Berlin's Pfaueninsel . No. 11, March 15, 2013, p. 4.
- ↑ Katja Roeckner, Jan Sternberg: Berlin atomic. The nuclear power plant plans for the capital , Geschichtesverlag, Berlin 2012.
- ↑ Sebastian Petrich: The legend of the nuclear power plant on the Pfaueninsel .
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