Schönhausen Palace

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Schönhausen Palace, garden side, 2014

Schönhausen Palace is a baroque palace in the Berlin district of Niederschönhausen in the Pankow district . The castle is surrounded by a park through which the Panke flows. The palace gained historical importance during the reign of Frederick the Great as the summer residence of Queen Elisabeth Christine of Prussia and during the GDR era as the official residence of Wilhelm Pieck , the first (and only) president .

Schönhausen Palace has been open to visitors for museum use since December 19, 2009. It belongs to the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg .

history

Schönhausen Palace with Baroque garden , around 1717

Origin of the buildings

Countess Sophie Theodore zu Dohna -Schlobitten, born in Vianen ( Holland-Brederode ) in 1620 , acquired the land in Niederschönhausen and Pankow, which is far from the gates of Berlin. In 1664 she had a manor house and a dairy built in the Dutch style on the manor at Niederschönhausen . When she died in 1678, Sophie Theodore left three sons, Karl Emil, Wolfard and Dietrich von Dohna, and three married daughters. In 1680 the new owner was Oberhofmarschall and General War Commissioner Joachim Ernst von Grumbkow , who demolished the building and had a little summer palace built in a slightly different place. The three-wing complex with its two upper floors was built according to plans and under the direction of Johann Arnold Nering .

In the possession of the elector and king

In 1691, Elector Friedrich III. von Brandenburg bought the castle for 16,000  thalers from the widow of Grumbkow, who died the year before. Whose other lands in the area - Pankow , Blankenfelde u. a. - passed into electoral property around the same time. The goods complex was combined to form the office of Niederschönhausen. Nering was commissioned again with some minor modifications to the castle.

In August 1700 those secret negotiations with which Friedrich III. prepared his elevation to king in Prussia . From 1704, now as King Friedrich I, he had it expanded by Johann Friedrich Eosander von Göthe . Single-storey wings were added to the core building in the north and south in order to enlarge the apartment for the visits of the ruling couple. The garden was also lavishly furnished and expanded. King Friedrich Wilhelm I , who followed him in 1713, left the building to several families of court officials as an apartment. He leased parts of the property . In the following twenty years the palace and park became increasingly neglected.

Residence of Queen Elisabeth Christine

Queen Elisabeth Christine in front of Schönhausen Palace, after 1764

In 1736, Crown Prince Friedrich and his wife Elisabeth Christine moved to Rheinsberg Castle . On the way there, the young Crown Princess had stopped at Schönhausen again and again. After Frederick's accession to the throne in 1740, he gave the castle to his wife as a future summer residence. For most of the year, the Queen stayed in the huge, specially furnished apartment in the Berlin Palace Hof. But between 1740 and 1797 she spent the summer months almost every year in Schönhausen. Her financial resources only allowed small, step-by-step changes to the castle and the castle park, which she gradually had to be transformed into a modern rococo pleasure garden. King Friedrich II., Who preferred to live apart from his wife, never seems to have visited Schönhausen. Elisabeth Christine, on the other hand, was only once, and that only in the absence of her husband, in Potsdam , where he spent the summers.

During the Seven Years' War , the Queen lived for a few years in the safe Magdeburg fortress . During this time, Russian troops that had penetrated as far as Berlin devastated the palace completely. As a result, in 1764 the king granted his wife the means to rebuild the castle to its present form. The two side wings were brought up to the level of the main building by the architect Johann Boumann and the courtyard was covered with a spacious staircase. The first landscaped areas on the Panke were created in the garden.

Property owned by the Hohenzollern family

Schönhausen Palace, around 1787

After the death of Queen Elisabeth Christine in 1797, the palace was initially inhabited from time to time in the summer. After 1806, the grandfather of the writer Theodor Fontanes , Pierre Barthelemy, was castellan of the castle for several years . This task had been assigned to him by Queen Luise , whom he had initially served as a drawing teacher and then as personal cabinet secretary before she fled to Konigsberg . Thereafter, in the summer months of 1816–1822, Princess Marianne , who had taken on the role of First Lady after the death of Queen Luise at the Prussian court , lived with Luise's children at Schönhausen Palace. These included Friedrich Wilhelm , who later became King, and Wilhelm , who later became King and German Emperor. Even Frederica of Mecklenburg-Strelitz , Queen Louise's sister, spent several summers in Schönhausen. She had the park redesigned into an English park by Peter Joseph Lenné in 1828/1829 .

From the second half of the 19th century, however, the palace and park increasingly fell into disrepair and the palace ultimately only served as a warehouse for furniture and paintings.

In the Prussian state property

Staircase, 1936

After the November revolution, the revolutionary government confiscated the castle in 1918. In 1925 it became the property of the Free State of Prussia . The castle continued to fall into disrepair until the end of the 1920s, under the direction of Erich Schonert , which led to a comprehensive renovation during the National Socialist era from 1935 onwards, heavily supported by the Prussian Finance Minister Johannes Popitz . In the meantime, from 1931 to 1934, parts of the palace were given to the artist association Pankow-Schönhausen for exhibition purposes. The palace received the previously missing heating and a connection to Berlin's irrigation and drainage network. The roof, the floors, the sacked main staircase, stucco ceilings and walls were renovated or restored and a baroque stucco ceiling recovered from the demolished high house in the center of Berlin was installed. In October 1936, the palace was ceremoniously reopened as an exhibition building for the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts . Numerous exhibitions took place in the castle until the 1940s. From 1938 to 1941 the most valuable of the works of art confiscated in German museums for the Degenerate Art exhibition were stored in the castle in order to be offered to buyers from foreign museums and the international art trade in a dignified setting. 780 paintings and sculptures as well as 3500 works on paper were stacked in the rooms, including works by Ernst Barlach , Wilhelm Lehmbruck , Vincent van Gogh and Franz Marc .

The palace was slightly damaged during the fighting for Berlin at the end of World War II . Some of this damage was repaired in 1945 by an artist initiative from Pankow. The castle could be used for an art exhibition in September 1945.

Soon after, the Soviet military administration confiscated the castle, closed it to the public, and set up an officers' mess. Later it became a school and boarding school for Soviet students.

Official seat of the head of state of the GDR

Visit of Hồ Chí Minh to Wilhelm Pieck , 1957
Honorary formation of the NVA in front of the castle, 1959
Nikita Khrushchev visits Wilhelm Pieck, 1959

When the GDR was founded on October 7, 1949, Schönhausen Palace was handed over by the Soviet Union to the GDR and served Wilhelm Pieck as the official residence of the GDR President from 1949 to 1960 . For this purpose, the castle was rebuilt and the complex was expanded to the north with garages for the president's vehicle fleet and to the south for a casino and a chancellery building in a representative forecourt with two gatehouses. The palace garden was separated by a wall into an inner, no longer public, and an outer, public part. The garden architect Reinhold Lingner designed the inner part as a cheerful, open-looking garden in the typical style of the 1950s.

The castle became the backdrop for the self-expression of the GDR, where state visitors such as Hồ Chí Minh or Nikita Khrushchev were received.

After Pieck's death in 1960 and the abolition of the presidency, the palace housed the GDR State Council , which was constituted in the ballroom in 1960.

Walter Ulbricht receives the diplomatic corps in the palace as chairman of the GDR State Council , 1960

Guest house of the GDR government

After the State Council building in Berlin-Mitte was completed in 1964, it became the guest house of the GDR government, which officially referred to it as Niederönhausen Castle . An apartment house was built in the western part of the castle park between 1966 and 1968 to accommodate the ministers, employees and staff of the state guests who were traveling with them . Up until the 1980s, repeated renovations led to ever new losses of historical substance. The castellan's house from the 18th century was demolished around 1980. Numerous state guests of the GDR from East and West such as Indira Gandhi and Fidel Castro stayed here. The last guests in October 1989 included the Soviet head of state Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife Raisa .

In the turn of time 1989/1990 met in casino building of the palace complex of the Round Table . One of the four two-plus-four rounds of negotiations also took place there in June 1990 . A memorial plaque in the forecourt on Ossietzkystraße commemorates this time.

Use in reunified Germany

After German reunification , the castle was initially owned by the Federal Property Office . In 1991, the Federal Republic of Germany used the palace as a guest house during Queen Beatrix's state visit to the Netherlands and in the same year handed it over to the State of Berlin with the palace gardens. In 1997, the then district of Pankow transferred the castle to the real estate fund of the State of Berlin with the aim of selling it.

One hundred years after the revival of the Olympic Games , the founding congress of the International Delphic Council took place in Schönhausen Palace in 1994 .

In 1998, scenes for the video for the single Du riechst so gut by the group Rammstein were filmed in Schönhausen Palace .

In 2003 it was initially planned to prepare the palace as the temporary seat of the Federal President for the duration of the renovation of Bellevue Palace . This plan was abandoned because of the associated costs for repair and renovation of twelve million euros. Due to the pollution of the roof beams with toxic wood preservatives, only the lower two floors could be used for celebrations and guided tours at times in the following years. Since the long-term use remained unclear, further renovation work was delayed. An important impulse for the preservation of the castle came from the citizens of Pankow. On January 18, 2004, a protest action with around 500 participants took place in front of the castle to point out the unsatisfactory condition.

Schönhausen Palace in the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation

On June 24, 2005, the State of Berlin handed over Schönhausen Palace to the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg . For the restoration of the castle, 8.6 million euros were made available. The largest single amount of 3.5 million euros came from cultural tourism funds from the State of Berlin from the European Regional Development Fund ( ERDF ).

  • Schönhausen Palace in March 2008 during renovation

  • Facade, 2010

  • Stairwell, 2000

  • Upper hall during the renovation

  • Schönhausen Palace with renovated risalit (park side), 2005

The palace was opened on December 19, 2009. On the ground floor, a number of rooms from the time of Elisabeth Christines were restored with valuable Rococo furnishings . In addition to original chimneys, mirror frames and panels, furniture and wallpaper from the time of the queen returned. In this context, a permanent exhibition is dedicated to the life of this Prussian queen.

The ballroom, the only completely preserved Rococo interior in Berlin, is used for various concerts, readings and festive receptions. Representative rooms from the GDR era are shown in one part of the upper floor, such as the state guest apartment of the GDR government and the preserved furniture in Wilhelm Pieck's study.

In the remaining rooms on the first and part of the second floor, numerous works of art from the East Prussian Schlobitten Castle can be viewed. These are large parts of the valuable inventory of the castle that has been accumulated over centuries by the important Prussian noble family Dohna . Prince Alexander zu Dohna managed to save these treasures at the end of the Second World War. With paintings, furniture and handicrafts from three centuries, an impression of East Prussian aristocratic culture can be conveyed here. On the second floor, exhibitions on the architectural history and reconstruction of Schönhausen Palace are presented.

The restoration of the palace garden in the design of Reinhold Lingner from the time when the President of the GDR was seated is also planned. The outbuildings will also gradually be given new uses. The future use of the listed garages is currently being examined in order to accommodate a fort office , a café and a museum shop.

In June 2009 an exhibition was opened in the guard houses, which is dedicated to information and political remembrance of the past two German dictatorships. The role of Schönhausen Palace as a place of rule in the SED dictatorship, but also as a place of political change in 1989/1990 is explained here. Information is also provided about the housing estate of the GDR top politicians in the nearby Mayakowskiring . This processing is supported and accompanied by the Potsdam Center for Contemporary History . Since 2003 the Federal Academy for Security Policy (BAKS) has been housed in the former presidential chancellery and in the casino (in the buildings "Bonn" and "Berlin").

An East Prussian art collection will be on display from 2009 to 2019: The Dohna-Schlobitten collection presents significant evidence of European aristocratic culture. The collection will then be shown in Doberlug Castle .

The Schönhausen Castle Talks , moderated by Robert Rauh , have been taking place in the premises since 2011 . Well-known personalities from politics and the public will be guests.

Bike path

The long-distance cycle route Berlin – Usedom , which starts in Berlin-Mitte at Schloßplatz and leads to Usedom , runs through the palace gardens . In Schönhausen Palace Park, it is identical to the Panke cycle path along the Panke.

literature

  • Alfred Hagemann , Monika Theresia Deißler: Schönhausen palace and garden . Ed .: Foundation Prussian Palaces and Gardens Berlin-Brandenburg. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-422-04020-5 .
  • Alfred Hagemann, Detlef Fuchs, Alexandra Schmöger: Schönhausen. Rococo and Cold War. The eventful history of a castle and its garden . Jaron, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-89773-625-2 .
  • Franziska Windt: Monarchical Legacy. Schönhausen Palace in the GDR. A Prussian pleasure palace as the presidential seat and guest house of the GDR . In Thomas Biskup, Martin Kohlrausch (ed.): The legacy of the monarchy. Aftermath of a German institution since 1918 . Campus, Frankfurt a. M. / New York 2008, pp. 217-237, ISBN 978-3-593-38727-7 .
  • Dirk Finkemeier, Elke Röllig: From the Petit Palais to the guest house. The history of Schönhausen Palace and Park in Pankow . Cultural Office Pankow, Berlin 1998.
  • Erich Schonert: Schönhausen Palace and its history . Limpert, Berlin undated (1937).
  • Ernst Rehfeldt, Karl Fangauf: History of Niederschönhausen. A contribution to the cultural history of the Barnimer Land . Zillessen, Berlin 1929.

Web links

Commons : Schönhausen Palace  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Guido Hinterkeuser: Unknown sources for the construction of the new baroque building of Schönhausen Palace in 1689. In: Discover - Explore - Preserve, Festgabe for Sibylle Badstübner-Gröger on October 12, 2015 , Contributions to Art History and Monument Preservation, Berlin 2016, p. 135 -149.
  2. ^ Ines Elsner: Friedrich III./I. von Brandenburg-Prussia (1688–1713) and the Berlin residential landscape , Berlin 2012, p. 161 f.
  3. ^ Alfred P. Hagemann: Queen Elisabeth Christine and her summer residence , in: Schönhausen, Rokoko und Kalter Krieg , Berlin 2009, p. 44 f.
  4. ^ Franziska Windt: The Queen and Her Castle - Elisabeth Christine in Schönhausen Castle . In: zeitenblicke 7 (2008), No. 1.
  5. ↑ Erich Schonert: Schönhausen Palace and its history . Limpert, Berlin n.d. [1937], p. 14.
  6. ↑ On the fate of the palace during the Nazi era, see Finkemeier / Röllig (lit.), pp. 199–217, the figures on p. 209.
  7. ^ A b Alfred P. Hagemann: A Prussian Palace for the Workers 'and Peasants' State - Schönhausen Palace 1945–1990 . In: zeitenblicke 7 (2008), No. 1, June 5, 2008, URN: urn: nbn: de: 0009-9-13178 .
  8. ↑ Chronology of the Delphic Games of the Modern Era ( Memento of the original from June 10, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / delphic.org
  9. ↑ Founding Members ( Memento of the original from June 10, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / delphic.org
  10. ↑ Detlef Fuchs: Schönhausen - a late child of the palace administration. In: zeitenblicke 7 (2008), No. 1, June 5, 2008, URN: urn: nbn: de: 0009-9-13188 .
  11. ↑ Thomas Tapp: Results of the preliminary restoration study of Schönhausen Palace and the first steps to implement a restoration and color concept . In: zeitenblicke 7 (2008), No. 1, June 5, 2008, URN: urn: nbn: de: 0009-9-13576 .
  12. ↑ Pictures and report from the exhibition opening ( Memento of the original from July 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 154 kB) and website for the exhibition ( Memento of the original from May 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zzf-pdm.de @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.pankower-machthaber.de
  13. ↑ Website for the exhibition “Die Pankower rulers. The Majakowskiring and Schönhausen Palace after 1945 ” ( Memento of the original from May 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.pankower-machthaber.de
  14. ↑ (LR picture series): The Dohna-Schlobitten Collection in: Lausitzer Rundschau , Lausitzer Geschichte, April 14, 2017 ; accessed on April 14, 2018.
  15. ^ Exhibition in Schönhausen Palace , website of the Dohna family association, April 14, 2017 ; accessed on April 14, 2018.
  16. ↑ Bodo Baumert: Adels-Schätze finally reunited in: Lausitzer Rundschau , Senftenberg edition, April 6, 2018 ; accessed on April 14, 2018.
  17. ↑ Bodo Baumert: Significant Evidence of the European Nobility , in Lausitzer Rundschau , Senftenberg edition, April 6, 2018; accessed on April 14, 2018.
  18. ↑ Bodo Baumert: Doberlug Castle gets a unique East Prussian collection (interview with Babette Weber) in Lausitzer Rundschau , Finsterwalde edition, December 27, 2017; accessed on April 14, 2018.
  19. ↑ Schönhausener-schlossrechner.de

Coordinates: 52 ° 34 ′ 42.2 ″  N , 13 ° 24 ′ 20 ″  E