Police Headquarters (Königsberg)

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facade
portal
Portal, detail

The building of the former police headquarters on Sovietsky Prospect 3–5 in Kaliningrad (formerly Stresemannstrasse 3–7 ) is now home to the Kaliningrad branch of the Russian domestic secret service FSB .

Location and surroundings

It was the first public building to be built on the former fortress area after the Steindammer Gate was demolished. It is located near an "already important traffic point" at the time, directly behind the former Steindammer Tor: at the intersection of Prospect Mira and Sowjetski-Prospect. The building was only separated from this intersection by Handelstrasse (ul. Gendelja). The Kaliningrad Severny train station is directly opposite on Ploshchad Pobedy .

history

The building was built around 1912/1924 according to drafts by the secret building councilor Oskar Launer in the neo-renaissance style under the direction of the secret building councilor Eduard Fürstenau .

In addition to the police department was in the era of National Socialism , the state police control station Konigsberg (Gestapo) in the building, which was then the address General Litzmann -Straße 3-7 had. Head of the Gestapo in Königsberg were Wilhelm Casper (1933), Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski (1934), Heinrich Vitzdamm (1940), Constantin Canaris , (1941) and Horst Freytag (1942). In 1945 the building was taken over by the domestic secret service of the NKVD , the forerunner of the KGB . With the dissolution of the Soviet Union , the Russian domestic secret service FSB took over the building.

Architecture and equipment

The facade is located on Stresemannstrasse. First you enter a hallway that leads to a small hall. In the hall there is the main staircase and other corridors that lead on three sides - into the other parts of the main wing. In the main wing, there were guard rooms and offices, mostly arranged on two levels. The main wing itself is grouped at right angles around a courtyard. A second wing joins the main wing at an oblique angle and takes up the escape of Handelstrasse. This second wing also encloses a courtyard, in this wing there were apartments facing Handelstrasse and the prison cells to the rear.

Only the portal to Stresemannstrasse and the high gable above have survived from the “rich decoration in the neo-renaissance style”. The four figures above the portal have been lost. The two small corner towers facing Handelstrasse and a tower on the previously much higher mansard roof are also missing today.

literature

  • Baldur Köster: Königsberg: Architecture from German times. In the appendix: The Kneiphof . Booklet VII. The architectural and art monuments in Königsberg. Husum Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft, Husum 2000, OCLC 237377396 .
  • Markus Podehl: Architektura Kaliningrada: how Königsberg became Kaliningrad. Materials on the art, culture and history of East Central Europe, 1 . Herder Institute, Marburg 2012, OCLC 816472756 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Unless otherwise stated, the article Police Headquarters follows the work of Koester, No. 56, p. 126: Police Headquarters .
  2. ↑ Köster, No. 56, p. 126: Police headquarters .
  3. ^ Gestapo Headquarters in the East Prussia , Yad Vashem, accessed on October 29, 2015
  4. ↑ Prit Buttar: Battleground Prussia. Osprey, Oxford 2012, ISBN 978-1-84908-190-0 , p. 451.
  5. ↑ Köster, No. 56, p. 126.
  6. ↑ Herbert Meinhard Mühlpfordt: Königsberg Sculptures and their Masters 1255-1945 , Würzburg 1970, p. 44, No. 29.
  7. ↑ Podehl, p. 41: "Police headquarters and Hufengymnasium were built in the style of the Neo-Renaissance".

Web link

Commons : FSB building, Kaliningrad  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 54 ° 43 ′ 17.5 ″  N , 20 ° 29 ′ 54.3 ″  E