 |
The Prinz-Albrecht-Palais was a Rococo city palace in the historic Friedrichstadt suburb of Berlin, Germany. It was located on Wilhelmstrasse 102 in the present-day Kreuzberg district, in the vicinity of Potsdamer Platz.
| |
The Prinz-Albrecht-Palais was a Rococo city palace in the historic Friedrichstadt suburb of Berlin, Germany. It was located on Wilhelmstrasse 102 in the present-day Kreuzberg district, in the vicinity of Potsdamer Platz.
The building was erected in 1737–39 in the course of the city development of the boggy grounds in southern Friedrichstadt at the behest of King Frederick William I of Prussia, it was to serve as a residence for the French Baron François Mathieu Vernezobre de Laurieux (1690–1748). The well-off baron and his family had left Paris after the collapse of John Law's Mississippi Company in 1720 and befriended with the king. The three-storey building had a courtyard open to the street, two economic wings on the left and right of the entrance, as well as extended gardens in the rear, stretching up to the Berlin Customs Wall in the west. When the King ordered Vernezobre to marry his daughter to Friedrich Wilhelm Quirin von Forcade de Biaix, who she rejected, the marriage was only averted when he agreed to undertake the construction of a prestigious city residence for the King in the Husarenstraße, later renamed Wilhelmstrasse in honor of the King, who died in 1740.
Vernezobre's heirs had to sell the premises in 1760, and in 1772 they were acquired by the royal House of Hohenzollern as a summer residence of King Frederick William's daughter Princess Anna Amalia, the youngest sister of Frederick the Great. Upon her death in 1787 it served in 1796 as a quarantine station for the then spectacular smallpox vaccination of the Prussian Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm. Occupied by Napoleon's troops after the 1806 Battle of Jena-Auerstedt and temporarily used as a depository, the building decayed and fell into disrepair afterwards.
Finally, in 1830 it was acquired by Prince Albert of Prussia, youngest son of King Frederick William III of Prussia, upon his marriage with Princess Marianne of the Netherlands. He had the Palais remodeled as his residence by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, surrounded by a park laid out according to plans designed by Peter Joseph Lenné, including a riding stable and an ice rink open to the public. However, the prince's marriage turned out to be an unhappy one, the couple divorced in 1849 and Albert entered into a morganatic marriage with Rosalie von Rauch, wherefore he had to leave the Prussian court. He moved to the Saxon capital Dresden, where he had Schloss Albrechtsberg erected by architect Adolf Lohse, who from 1860 to 1862 also refurbished the Berlin palace. Meanwhile, the formerly remote area had become a major hub with the opening of the nearby Potsdamer Bahnhof and Anhalter Bahnhof railway stations in 1838 and 1841.
After Prince Albert's death in 1872, the building was inherited by his son Prince Albrecht. The property was managed by the valet August Sabac el Cher, an Afro-German descending from Sudanese Kurdufan, who had been "presented" to his father by Wāli Muhammad Ali of Egypt at Cairo in 1843. The building remained in private hands of the Hohenzollern dynasty even after the German Revolution of 1918–1919.
In 1926 the large Europahaus was built in the rear gardens. From 1928 to 1931, the Palais was rented by the German government and used as a state guesthouse, hosting such guests as King Amānullāh Khān of Afghanistan in 1928 and King Fuad I of Egypt in 1929.
The last chapter in the Palais' history began after the Nazi Machtergreifung in 1933. In May, the headquarters of the newly established Gestapo secret police moved into a neighbouring building around the corner on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. When in 1934 the Sicherheitsdienst intelligence agency of the Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler took control over the Gestapo, Sicherheitsdienst chief Reinhard Heydrich moved from Munich to the Berlin Prinz-Albrecht-Palais. In 1935 also the neighbouring buildings at 101 Wilhelmstrasse and 103/104 Wilhelmstrasse were taken over and integrated into the large complex, which in 1939 became the main administrative seat of the SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA).
The Palais and the adjacent buildings were destroyed during the Battle of Berlin in a RAF air attack on 23 November 1944. Seized by the Soviet Military Administration in Germany after the war, the realty was incorporated into the American sector of Allied-occupied Berlin. The ruins were cleared in 1955, but the site was left vacant. In 1961 Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, head of the House of Hohenzollern, officially renounced all claims to the realty. Today the area is used for the Topography of Terror exhibition, which focuses on the human rights abuses of the Nazi police state.
The House of Hohenzollern is a formerly royal German dynasty whose members were variously princes, electors, kings and emperors of Hohenzollern, Brandenburg, Prussia, the German Empire, and Romania. The family came from the area around the town of Hechingen in Swabia during the late 11th century and took their name from Hohenzollern Castle. The first ancestors of the Hohenzollerns were mentioned in 1061.
Unter den Linden is a boulevard in the central Mitte district of Berlin, Germany. Running from the Berlin Palace to the Brandenburg Gate, it is named after the linden trees that line the grassed pedestrian mall on the median and the two broad carriageways. The avenue links numerous Berlin sights, landmarks and rivers for sightseeing.
Prince Albert of Prussia was a Prussian general field marshal, Herrenmeister of the Order of Saint John from 1883 until his death, and regent of the Duchy of Brunswick from 1885, also until his death.
Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia is a German heir who is the current head of the Prussian branch of the House of Hohenzollern, the former ruling dynasty of the German Empire and of the Kingdom of Prussia. He is the great-great-grandson of Wilhelm II, the last German Emperor and King of Prussia, who abdicated and went into exile upon Germany's defeat in World War I in 1918.
The Order of the Black Eagle was the highest order of chivalry in the Kingdom of Prussia. The order was founded on 17 January 1701 by Elector Friedrich III of Brandenburg. In his Dutch exile after World War I, deposed Emperor Wilhelm II continued to award the order to his family. He made his second wife, Princess Hermine Reuss of Greiz, a Lady in the Order of the Black Eagle.
Prince August Wilhelm Heinrich Günther Viktor of Prussia, nicknamed "Auwi", was the fourth son of German Emperor Wilhelm II by his first wife, Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein. A vocal supporter of Nazism and of Adolf Hitler, he joined the Nazi party in 1930 and rose to the rank of SA-Obergruppenführer.
Wilhelmstrasse is a major thoroughfare in the central Mitte and Kreuzberg districts of Berlin, Germany. Until 1945, it was recognised as the centre of the government, first of the Kingdom of Prussia, later of the unified German Reich, housing in particular the Reich Chancellery and the Foreign Office. The street's name was thus also frequently used as a metonym for overall German governmental administration: much as the term "Whitehall" is often used to signify the British governmental administration as a whole. In English, "the Wilhelmstrasse" usually referred to the German Foreign Office.
Prince Frederick Henry Albert of Prussia was the fifth son and youngest child of King Frederick William III of Prussia and Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. His parents had fled to East Prussia after the occupation of Berlin by Napoleon, and Albert was born in Königsberg. Two of Albert's elder brothers were Frederick William IV, King of Prussia from 1840 till 1861, and William I, King of Prussia from 1861 to 1888 and German Emperor from 1871 until 1888.
Niederkirchnerstraße is a street in Berlin, Germany and was named after Käthe Niederkirchner. The thoroughfare was known as Prinz-Albrecht-Straße until 1951 but the name was changed by the East German government. The street was the location of the SS Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), the headquarters of the Sicherheitspolizei, SD, Einsatzgruppen and Gestapo. The site is now marked by the Topography of Terror memorial and a museum, which includes a permanent exhibition showing the crimes of Nazism.
Friedrichstadt was an independent suburb of Berlin, and is now a historical neighbourhood of the city itself. The neighbourhood is named after the Prussian king Frederick I.
Leipziger Straße is a major thoroughfare in the central Mitte district of Berlin, capital of Germany. It runs from Leipziger Platz, an octagonal square adjacent to Potsdamer Platz in the west, to Spittelmarkt in the east. Part of the Bundesstraße 1 highway, it is today one of the city's main east–west road links.
Prince Frederick Charles Alexander of Prussia was a younger son of Frederick William III of Prussia. He served as a Prussian general for much of his adult life and became the first Herrenmeister of the Order of Saint John after its restoration as a chivalric order. Nevertheless, he is perhaps remembered more often for his patronage of art and for his sizable collections of art and armor.
The House Order of Hohenzollern was a dynastic order of knighthood of the House of Hohenzollern awarded to military commissioned officers and civilians of comparable status. Associated with the various versions of the order were crosses and medals which could be awarded to lower-ranking soldiers and civilians.
Princess Marianne of the Netherlands, Princess of Orange-Nassau was the youngest child of King William I of the Netherlands and Princess Wilhelmine of Prussia.
Wilhelmplatz was a square in the Mitte district of Berlin, at the corner of Wilhelmstrasse and Voßstraße. The square also gave its name to a Berlin U-Bahn station which has since been renamed Mohrenstraße. A number of notable buildings were constructed around the square, including the old Reich Chancellery, the building of the Ministry of Finance and the Kaiserhof grand hotel built in 1875.
The Ordenspalais was a building on the northern corner of Wilhelmplatz with Wilhelmstraße in Berlin.
Princess Marie of Prussia, was a princess of the House of Hohenzollern. She was the daughter of Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia and later became second wife of Prince Henry of the Netherlands then the first wife of Prince Albert of Saxe-Altenburg. She was also the great-niece of Wilhelm I, German Emperor.
Prince Frederick William Louis of Prussia was a Prussian prince and military officer.
The Reich President's Palace was from 1919 to 1934 an official residence of the President of the Reich and the official seat of the German head of state.
Media related to Prinz-Albrecht-Palais at Wikimedia Commons