Mariendorf seaside resort
The Seebad Mariendorf was an outdoor swimming pool that existed from 1876 to 1950 in what is now the Berlin district of Mariendorf . At the time of its establishment it belonged to the Teltow district and was not incorporated into Greater Berlin until 1920 . In 1953 the bathing facilities were removed in favor of a residential development. It was on the south side of Ullsteinstrasse (main entrance) between Mariendorfer Damm and Rathausstrasse , all the way to Markgrafenstrasse . The seaside resort was founded by Adolf Lewissohn in 1872 , almost 30 years before the construction of the Teltow Canal, which opened in 1906 .
Emergence
At this point, as in many places of the later Teltow Canal, there were many ponds and ponds. In 1871, Salomon Lewissohn (born August 5, 1805; died April 18, 1876), Adolf Lewissohn's father, bought the property from the Tempelhof manor . The property on the former Grenzweg, from 1907 on Burggrafenstrasse, from 1927 on Ullsteinstrasse and during the National Socialist era on Zastrowstrasse (until 1949), had a size of 9.5 acres , which corresponds to around 2.4 hectares (around 24,000 m²).
Adolf Lewissohn (born July 6, 1852 in Tempelhofer Dorfstrasse; died November 14, 1927 in Mariendorf) had the meadows and water areas bought by his father cleaned of swamp plants and dredged in 1872. He made a significant contribution to the opening of the facility.
Around 1872 a two-story house was built next to the property on Grenzweg and converted into a restaurant. The bathing establishment was opened in the summer of 1876. The ponds located there were used for "ice harvest" in the winter months, which means that natural ice was kept in stock. During the “ice harvest”, the Lewissohn ice cream trucks were an everyday occurrence on the streets of Berlin. A maximum of 500 loads should have rolled to Berlin in one day. Adolf Lewissohn was also active in local politics. For several decades he was the first hand of the Tempelhof mayor Friedrich Mussehl (born November 23, 1855 in Lychen ; died December 24, 1912 in Tempelhof).
For example, he succeeded in selling a large area between northern Mariendorf and Südende , which was owned by various owners, to the Imperial Continental Gas Association , which built the Mariendorf gasworks on it in 1901 . This took over the supply of the southern Berlin area and was also Mariendorf's largest taxpayer until 1912. With this income, the town hall (destroyed in World War II ) was built in 1905 on the corner of the town hall on the corner of Kaiserstraße, and the Eckener grammar school and municipal streets in 1911 . In addition, Lewissohn helped with the sale and the development of the area on the Teltow Canal for industrial settlement .
Almost every year the water basins and the parks were expanded or redesigned. A sports track was laid out, which had a length of 130 meters, as it corresponded to the competition regulations of the time. A "giant" water basin was built and surrounded with concrete. In addition, a 60 meter deep well was built. The fountain had an electrically operated pump , which was very remarkable at the time. It was also possible to supply fresh water and drain water used during bathing. At that time it was advertised that this was "the largest and most beautiful bathing establishment in Greater Berlin with a constant inflow and outflow".
history
The seaside pool was not only used for recreational enjoyment, it was also used by schools and clubs for swimming lessons and swimming training, courses for lifeguards and competitions. The German Swimming Championships in 1911 were held in the seaside resort, and on June 2, 1912, eliminations for the Summer Olympics in Stockholm were held here.
During the First World War and afterwards until 1919, the new residential and restaurant building was used as a military hospital and the construction of additional barracks across from the seaside resort directly on the Teltow Canal enabled 400 sick and wounded to be cared for when fully occupied. 800 inmates are said to have died there during the entire time.
In the 1920s, up to 4,000 bathers were counted daily on hot summer days. The restaurant and hall buildings with the appropriate kitchen facilities made it possible to hold association celebrations for up to 7,000 people.
In the ponds of the park there were not only huge goldfish but also carp up to 60 years old and weighing 15 kilograms , some of them also romped around in the swimming sections. Ducks were also at home in the carp pond . The adjacent grotto and the so-called "fair game aquarium" were a special attraction in the Mariendorf seaside resort. The carp pond including the grotto was separated from the bathing pool by a wide wooden walkway, which in turn was divided into swimmers and non-swimmers by a wooden walkway. The walls of the pools were made of concrete, the bottom of sand. There was a wooden diving platform with a three-meter board and wooden changing rooms. Wooden grates on the wide footbridge to the carp basin and a square area with beach-like sand on the property boundary to Markgrafenstrasse were used as lying areas.
On November 14, 1927, Adolf Lewissohn died at the age of 76 after a long and serious illness. Also in November 1927, the founding meeting of the Mariendorfer Reichsbanner took place in the festival rooms of the seaside resort . The keynote speaker on this day was the SPD member of the state parliament, Erich Kuttner, who was later murdered by the National Socialists . The local politician and later mayor Otto Burgemeister from Tempelhof and the former Berlin police chief Wilhelm Richter also appeared at the ceremony .
On December 13, 1930, the former Interior Minister in Prussia and Berlin Police President, Albert Grzesinski , gave a controversial speech in the seaside resort. In 1929, as Minister of the Interior, he was politically responsible for the Blutmai in Berlin.
A festival week was held in July 1932 to mark the 60th anniversary of the seaside resort. There were radio performances and children's parties every evening. The motto was "Seebad in Flammen". The founder of the seaside resort never experienced this. In memory of him, a memorial stone was dedicated to his daughter on the occasion of the first anniversary of his death on November 14, 1928 in the family's private park. The whereabouts of the stone is unknown today.
After the anniversary, an article appeared in the Tempelhof-Mariendorfer Zeitung on August 12, 1932 , in which it was mentioned that at the invitation of Helene Lewissohn (born June 18, 1874; died April 17, 1957), the only daughter and heiress Adolf Lewissohn, a hundred elderly and needy women from Mariendorf were entertained with free coffee and cake in the seaside resort, so that it was impossible for them to use up the mountains of cake and coffee donated. This generous deed created a lasting memorial in the hearts of those invited and the old ladies thanked her with tears in their eyes.
Period of National Socialism 1933–1945
In 1933 the process of " aryanization " of the seaside resort began. The Reichsluftschutzbund (RLB) was the first user to take over rooms on the seaside resort property in September 1933 at the latest and, unlike previous users (including the former police station 202), did not pay any rent for them as a district air raid protection school. From April 1934 a court-appointed administrator worked for the entire property.
In July 1934, Helene Lewissohn “sold” a property of around 9,300 m² (the eastern part) with all buildings and machines to the innkeeper Paul Hilgner for 115,000 marks (adjusted for purchasing power in today's currency: around 515,000 euros). After deducting all liabilities that had accrued, Mrs. Lewissohn received an amount of only 151.25 marks.
Hilgner was admitted to the NSDAP on August 23, 1933 and was a full member until the beginning of 1936 when he was not registered in the central file due to a bureaucratic oversight. However, the retrial was so protracted that it was not resumed in 1937 because Freemasons were now excluded from membership of the NSDAP. Until November 1932 Hilgner was a member of the Blücher von Wahlstadt lodge association .
The main cause of the reduction in the purchase price to such a low official estimate is suspected to be, among others, the NSDAP member Carl Pollesch , who had been State Commissioner for District Finance in Tempelhof since July 1933 and district mayor from 1937.
The C. Lorenz AG leased from 1937 to part of the plot by Paul Hilgner as "Kameradschaftsheim" and stored there also operational documents of the group one.
In 1939 the western part with the seaside resort that had remained with Helene Lewissohn was foreclosed on February 28th. The buyer of the property, valued at 50,000 marks, was Franziska Theuerkauf, who had previously acquired two mortgages on the property “with a high level of damage ” (ie at a much lower price). Her son, the businessman Friedrich Theuerkauf, had been an avowed NSDAP member since April 1933 and she paid 60,000 marks for the 12,000 m² property with the seaside resort. An architect's report in 1932 put the value at 294,000 marks.
C. Lorenz AG gave up the comradeship home again in 1942 and the military district administration set up a reserve hospital there. During the Second World War , the seaside resort served as an auxiliary hospital for the reserve hospital 122, today's Wenckebach hospital, where additional wounded from the department for jaw injuries were accommodated.
At the address Zastrowstraße 163 there was a forced labor camp on the grounds of the swimming pool , which was hit and damaged in an air raid on March 1, 1943 . The warehouse was operated by ORMIG Organizations-Mittel GmbH , founded in 1925 and located on the other side of the Teltow Canal at Wolframstrasse 87-91 in Tempelhof. The occupancy of the camp was given as 95 people (Soviet forced laborers and Belgian forced laborers), at least three women from the camp gave birth to children in the Neukölln women's clinic. The ORMIG company continued to exist in Tempelhof until the end of the 1980s, and since the Berlin blockade it has had a branch factory and a distribution warehouse in Bad Oeynhausen. There it was merged with ORMIG Organizationsmittel GmbH, Oeynhausen plant and expired in 1991.
Lawsuits for redress after World War II
At the request of the former owner Helene Lewissohn in 1948 the trustee for Jewish and Polish assets in Greater Berlin appointed an administrator for the Hilgners' property to handle day-to-day business. The property was covered by Law No. 52 of the Allied Command on property that was transferred under duress or threat, or unlawfully withdrawn from its owner. The objection of Hilgner's lawyers failed, the Allies referred to the decision of a total of six reparation proceedings for reimbursement , which related to four tenants or owners of the property, along with the use and inventory of the restaurant. These proceedings were directed against Paul Hilgner, who had meanwhile died on March 1, 1947, and his wife Margarete, Franziska Theuerkauf, Heinrich Ditze and Willi Gummelt.
At the beginning of 1952, a redress procedure, which had been carried out since 1950 for the restitution of the land and buildings, ended with a settlement of 1,000 marks before a formal court case. The meanwhile penniless Mrs. Lewissohn previously applied twice unsuccessfully for the work of a lawyer for the poor law . The Court of Appeal found the chances of success of the application for reimbursement to be insufficiently assessed before the Regional Court reached its judgment.
The other proceedings relating to the properties in Ullsteinstrasse 154–156 and 160–164 were also ended in 1953 by withdrawing the claim for reimbursement or by a court ruling without compensation. In the same year, the process fees of 166.10 marks for the objection proceedings against the higher court were unsuccessfully demanded from Ms. Lewissohn through foreclosure , but she had meanwhile taken the oath of disclosure .
The end of the seaside resort
After the end of the war, bathing and swimming continued with interruptions and various tenants until the early 1950s. The reserve hospital and Lorenz AG cleared the grounds and buildings of the now badly run-down seaside resort by September 30, 1945. In May 1946, the seaside resort Mariendorf is mentioned as one of the four reopened open-air pools in the American sector.
On October 20, 1946, the first free elections to the city council and district council assembly took place in Berlin for over 13 years . On December 13, 1946, the first District Assembly (BVV) took place and the 40 members elected Jens Nydahl as Mayor of Tempelhof. The first meetings of the denazification commission for Tempelhof also took place here.
Since the Tempelhof town hall had war damage, departments (including the building police and the food card office) were housed in the area of the seaside resort, so that the bathing establishment had to close first. At the beginning of 1947, a five-year lease was signed between the district office and the late owner's wife, Margarete Hilgner. In addition, the Orden Odd Fellows rented the former ballroom for a year and a half, and Paul Hilgner was also a member of the lodge.
The Tempelhof-Kreuzberg District Court used the restaurant and event building as an office until May 1947, as its official building in Berlin-Kreuzberg had suffered severe war damage.
In 1946 and 1947 art exhibitions were also held in the seaside resort of Mariendorf. In August 1946, the Berlin cultural collective , founded by Cuno Fischer at the end of May 1945 in cooperation with the Tempelhofer Volksbildungsamt u. a. Works by Otto Mueller , Erich Heckel , Franz Heckendorf , Bertold Haag , Horst Strempel and Lidy von Lüttwitz . In October 1947 the Tempelhof district committee of the FDGB organized an exhibition as part of a culture week and showed u. a. Works by Sella Hasse , Ottilie Ehlers-Kollwitz and Bruno Skibbe .
In June 1950, the cleaned pool was ceremoniously reopened by Mayor Otto Burgemeister , but ended with the bathing of the swimming club BSV Friesen 1895, based in Tempelhof . V. in September 1950. Attempts to reopen it failed.
In May 1951 it was reported in the Tempelhofer Pohleschein that the tenant could not meet the requirements to improve the hygienic conditions and that there was no longer any swimming pool. Among other things, demands were made to clean the subsoil and cement or fill it with gravel, as well as to achieve sufficient visibility to rescue drowning people and a sufficient supply of fresh water. The separation of the carp pond from the swimming pool was refrained from due to the lessee's economic difficulties. Similar requirements were also placed on the paddling pools, which are said to have been used to transmit diseases to a large extent; the polio epidemic of 1948/1949 would also have started there. As early as September 1949, the Tempelhof district banned children up to the age of 14 from bathing in the Mariendorf seaside resort, the bathing establishment in the Werner factory in Marienfelde and the district's paddling pool.
On June 17, 1951, a fashion show took place in the garden of the seaside resort on the lake terraces , organized by shops and companies from Tempelhof. On this occasion, Der Tempelhofer reported that there was probably the first good visit in many years.
In 1952, Rudolf Dümchen , the youth councilor at the time, attempted to preserve the building as a house for young people for use by the youth promotion , but these plans were not implemented. On August 29, 1952, the last sporting event took place on the premises of the seaside resort, TSV Tempelhof-Mariendorf had organized a competition in which amateur boxers from Berlin clubs competed in different weight classes.
In 1953, the technical relief organization used the seaside pool as a practice area. The swimming pools and the carp pond were filled in and the structures of the bathing establishment were demolished.
Starting in 1954, the area was built on with several residential buildings - although there was still enough rubble land in Berlin that was undeveloped - and the Margaretenheim hospital opened on December 23, 1954 in the only residential building of the Lewissohn family that remained from the seaside resort . The hospital had 104 beds, mostly for women, while the men's ward had only 11 beds. The renovation was also carried out with the help of public funds, as the Tempelhof District Office had a strong interest in the company and supported it in order to relieve the hospitals of patients in geriatrics .
On April 17, 1957, Helene Lewissohn, who most recently lived in an apartment at Prühßstrasse 79 from probably 1952, died in the Wenckebach Hospital in Tempelhof. She was buried in her parents urn grave in the Mariendorf II cemetery on Friedenstrasse. The grave was leveled 30 years after her burial, but no reference to the Lewissohn family is now available in the Tempelhof-Schöneberg district or the Mariendorf district.
The former home of the Lewissohns was then probably demolished in the early 1980s at the latest, when the Tempelhof hospital was rebuilt on the property at Ullsteinstrasse 159 (opening 1983).
Honor and memory
Since 2016 there has been an initiative to name the construction of the new multifunctional pool in Mariendorf on Ankogelweg after Helene Lewissohn.
On September 13, 2016, the parliamentary group of the Left together with the parliamentary group of the SPD in the BVV Tempelhof-Schöneberg submitted the application. Because of this, it was decided at the meeting on November 16, 2016, against the votes of the AfD parliamentary group, to lobby the district office and the responsible authorities to ensure that the name of the Lewissohn family receives public recognition in Mariendorf.
On March 20, 2019, another application on the life and work of the Lewissohn family was submitted to BVV Tempelhof-Schöneberg, and a traveling exhibition on sports history in Mariendorf is intended to keep the memory of Adolf and Helene Lewissohn alive.
Relics
Some old trees, a remnant of the grotto built by Adolf Lewissohn made of boulders and a newly created small ornamental pond are still present on the site of today's senior citizen center on Ullsteinstraße . In the entrance area of the senior citizen center, the large-format replication of a postcard from a photograph at the beginning of the 19th century is reminiscent of the former seaside resort there.
Literature and Sources
- Rudolf Szagun: The seaside resort Mariendorf , 1989.
- Matthias Heisig: From the Lewisson ice works to the Tempelhof hospital. The Mariendorf seaside resort as a place of history , in: Matthias Heisig / Sylvia Walleczek (eds.): Tempelhofer Insights , Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-932482-97-2 , pp. 202-233.
- Tempelhof Hospital. In: Berliner Abendblatt , June 11, 2003.
- Archive of the BSV Friesen 1895 e. V.
- From Margaretenheim to the senior center on Ullsteinstrasse in Mariendorf (25th anniversary in 2008, p. 10).
- Uta Maria Bräuer, Jost Lehne: Pool construction in Berlin: Architectural water worlds from 1800 to today , Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-86732-129-7 , p. 95 f.
Individual evidence
- ^ Albert Grzesinski Papers 1915–1937 International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam
- ↑ Karl Schuchardt - Life and Work Dissertation to obtain the degree of doctor of dentistry, Hamburg 2001
- ↑ bearing database Documentation Center Nazi forced labor
- ↑ Tempelhof warehouse locations 35.) Mariendorf, Zastrowstr. 163
- ↑ File number 2 WGA 662/50 to 2 WGA 666/50 and 8 WGA 1116/50 WGA database
- ↑ Where to go in summer? In: Neue Zeit , May 12, 1946, p. 5
- ^ "Landscape in Summer" art exhibition of the Berlin culture collective in: Berliner Zeitung , August 26, 1946, p. 3
- ^ Art in Tempelhof . In: Neues Deutschland , October 23, 1947, p. 4
- ↑ Small Berlin Chronicle . In: Berliner Zeitung , September 1, 1949, p. 8
- ^ Technical Relief Organization, Berlin Regional Association, Historical Collection
- ↑ Development plan VIII-49/5 of October 15, 1961 (PDF)
- ↑ Development plan VIII-111 from September 25, 1969 (PDF)
- Jump up ↑ The Tempelhofer postcard number 28 from July 9, 1955
- ^ Family Lewissohn and the seaside resort Mariendorf schwimm-blog-berlin.de
- ↑ Application: Name the new multifunctional bathroom after Helene Lewissohn
- ↑ Excerpt - Name the new multifunctional bathroom after Helene Lewissohn
- ↑ Printed matter - 1997 / XIX
- ↑ Printed matter - 1076 / XX Remembrance of Adolf & Helene Lewissohn keep awake - Remember sports history in Mariendorf
Coordinates: 52 ° 27 ′ 5.7 " N , 13 ° 22 ′ 56.2" E