Villa of Diringshofen

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Access on the street Am Lehnitzsee
View from Heinrich-Heine-Weg

The Villa von Diringshofen , also called Villa Sigismund or Haus Lehnitzsee , is an upper-class residential building in Potsdam , in the Neu Fahrland district , Am Lehnitzsee 8. The villa is named after its builder, Lieutenant General Max von Diringshofen (1855–1936) and his wife Margarete von Diringshofen born de Haën (1871-1915). They had the house built in 1912–1913 on the west bank of the Lehnitzsee as a retirement home. The architect of the three-story building was Ludwig Otte in Berlin-Lichterfelde.

architecture

Otte designed the house taking into account the excellent view of the lake, which was offered from the terrace on the ground floor as well as from the arbor on the first floor and especially from a small roof terrace (with flagpole). For the interior, the builders specified, on the one hand, the exact takeover of two rooms from the previous apartment (men's room and ladies' room) and, on the other hand, the creation of a ballroom to be connected to the music room. Corresponding to the larger floor area, this hall was given a higher room height than the other living rooms on the ground floor, so the bedrooms above were raised by several steps to the rest of the upper floor. As is customary for a middle-class household, which was geared towards the management of the house with servants, the kitchen and other utility rooms were housed in the basement ( basement ). Stylistically, the villa can be classified as reform architecture with neo-baroque and neoclassical influences.

Usage history

As a result of the First World War and inflation, the von Diringshofen family became impoverished and had to give up their property. The new owner was initially the Berlin banker Siegheim. In 1927 Prince Friedrich Sigismund of Prussia acquired the house. After his fatal riding accident on July 6, 1927, his widow Marie-Luise lived in this house until her death on October 1, 1938. The two children Luise Viktoria (1917–2009) and Friedrich Karl Prince of Prussia lived with their guardian in the villa until the end of the Second World War .

In 1945 the Red Army occupied the building and placed a hospital there . In 1947, after signing the Huebner-Malinin Agreement, the Soviet Union left the house to the USA, who set up their military liaison mission here. The area called Potsdam House by the Americans was now considered an extraterritorial area and could not be entered by the GDR authorities without consent. The villa was closely monitored, mainly to prevent espionage. During the Suez crisis in July 1958, there was a storm by demonstrators politically controlled by the GDR leadership. During the Vietnam War, demonstrations against US policy took place in front of the building. After the US Army withdrew in 1991, the Brandenburg Economic Development Corporation moved into the villa. From 1999 the house was empty.

In a legal dispute before the Potsdam Administrative Court in 2002, the claim of Friedrich Sigismund's two children to have the expropriation and repossession of the property lifted was confirmed, after which it was sold in 2003.

literature

  • o. V .: Landhaus v. Diringshofen in Nedlitz near Potsdam. In: Deutsche Bauzeitung . 59th year 1915, No. 67 (from August 21, 1915), pp. 382–384.
  • Ingrid Bartmann-Kompa, Aribert Kutschmar and others: Architectural Guide GDR, Potsdam District. Berlin 1981.
  • Paul Sigel, Silke Dähmlow, Frank Seehausen, Lucas Elmenhorst: Architectural Guide Potsdam. Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-496-01325-7 .
  • James R. Holbrook: Potsdam Mission. Memoir of a US Army Intelligence Officer in Communist East Germany. AuthorHouse, 2008, ISBN 978-1-4343-5743-4 . (English)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ History of the Villa am Lehnitzsee ( Memento of the original from May 20, 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.stoltefamilie.de
  2. ↑ Villa Sigismund on tagesspiegel.de
  3. ↑ Who moves where: Potsdam villa roulette. In: The world. from March 24, 2003 (online)

Coordinates: 52 ° 26 '32.6 "  N , 13 ° 3' 10.3"  E