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63-517: Köllnischer Park is a public park located near the River Spree in Mitte , Berlin . It is named after Cölln , one of the two cities which came together to form Berlin; the park location was originally just outside it. Approximately 1 hectare (2.5 acres) in area, the park came into existence in the 18th and 19th centuries on the site of fortifications. It was redesigned as a public park in 1869–1873 and

126-597: A hospital, a workhouse, and a men's lunatic asylum. The Märkisches Museum was later built there. Splitgerber's heirs sold the garden and in 1799 it was acquired by a Freemason lodge, the Große National-Mutterloge zu den drei Weltkugeln ( Grand National Mother Lodge of the Three Globes). The Freemasons built a lodge building which opened in December 1800, and developed the remainder into a landscape garden , one of

189-630: A large office building designed by Alfred Messel , to be the headquarters of the Landesversicherungsanstalt, an insurance company. The fourth building is the AOK building, a six-storey steel-framed office building built from purplish brick, on the south side of the park, opposite the Bärenzwinger. The final building is the Volksbadeanstalt, on the western side of the park. It was built in 1888 as

252-719: A music school, and on the north side, facing the river, is the Märkisches Museum . The western edge is dominated by a large office building built in 1903/04 as the headquarters of the Landsversicherungsanstalt, which has been used for the past few years by the Department of Urban Development of the Senate of Berlin , and the southern by the 1931/32 building of the German health insurance group Allgemeine Ortskrankenkasse , which under

315-513: A public bath. The park lies between Wallstraße on the north side, the Straße am Köllnischen Park on the east side, Rungestraße on the south side and Inselstraße on the west side. Its boundaries are not clearly delimited; on the west side there are some buildings between the park and the street, including the former building of the Köllnisches Gymnasium , built in 1865–68 and now used as

378-619: A stretch of about 20 kilometres (12 mi) east of and flowing through Fürstenwalde, the river forms part of the Oder-Spree Canal . On this reach, and on the reach west of the confluence with the River Dahme at Köpenick, the river forms part of secondary commercial link between Berlin and the River Oder and hence Poland . The canal diverges from the Spree just east of Fürstenwalde and later joins

441-805: A whole. In English, "the Wilhelmstrasse" usually referred to the German Foreign Office. The Wilhelmstraße runs south from the Spree riverside through the historic Dorotheenstadt quarter to the Unter den Linden boulevard near Pariser Platz and Brandenburg Gate , where it takes on a line slightly east of south through adjacent Friedrichstadt , until its juncture with Stresemannstraße near Hallesches Tor in Kreuzberg, an overall distance of about 2.4 km (1.5 mi). Further south of Unter den Linden it passes

504-417: A window of a modern chancellery annex building erected in 1930. Styling himself " Führer and Reich Chancellor" from 1934, he regarded the residence inadequate and ordered the construction of the vast New Reich Chancellery according to plans designed by Albert Speer . This building, a prime example of Nazi architecture , stood immediately south of the old Chancellery, on the corner of the Wilhelmstrasse and

567-474: Is a listed Berlin landmark. It was threatened with closure in 1990 due to lack of funds for needed modernisation, but after public protest, the Berlin Senate undertook to pay for the project. Underfloor heating in the cages and a skylight dome were added, and the electricity supply was overhauled. The facility reopened in 1993 and celebrated its 70th anniversary in 2009. Some animal protection advocates, including

630-561: Is an island in the Spree. In 2004 the Badeschiff floating swimming pool opened on the Spree in Berlin. Small craft, such as punts , are widely used in wetlands of the Spreewald. Larger craft can reach as far upstream as Leibsch, although the upper reaches are relatively shallow and are generally only used by leisure craft. Some intermediate reaches are unnavigable and by-passed by canals. For

693-473: Is known as the Neo-Renaissance Fountain. It is currently enclosed for repairs. The Wusterhausener Bär (or Wusterhausischer Bär) is a small round tower, with tiled walls and a helmet-shaped sandstone cupola topped with a carved trophy display of weaponry, which was formerly part of a weir regulating the water level in the ditch that formed part of the wall defences. Bär in this case derives from

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756-831: Is the main river of Berlin, Brandenburg, Lusatia, and the settlement area of the Sorbs , who call the river Sprjewja ; the name derives ultimately from Proto-Germanic * spreutaną "to spring forth". For a very short distance close to its sources, the Spree constitutes, as Spréva , the border between Germany and the Czech Republic . The Spree's longest tributaries are Dahme (confluence in Berlin- Köpenick ) and Schwarzer Schöps ( Čorny Šepc ; confluence in Boxberg/O.L. - Sprey  [ de ] ), other well-known tributaries (since they are Berlin rivers) are Panke and Wuhle . It rises in

819-765: The German Democratic Republic was the Parteihochschule Karl Marx . The park is accessible via the Märkisches Museum U-Bahn station on line U2 and bus number 147. It is also close to the promenade which has been created along the bank of the Spree south of the Jannowitzbrücke. The site of Köllnischer Park was just outside Cölln in the Middle Ages. Until the mid-17th century, it was undeveloped low-lying, swampy land prone to flooding by

882-644: The Lusatian Mountains and flows north through Bautzen and Spremberg . In the Spreewald the river passes through the towns of Lübbenau , Lübben and Leibsch . Just below Leibsch, the Dahme Flood Relief Canal diverts water from the Spree to run into the River Dahme at Märkisch Buchholz . The Spree continues north from Leibsch before flowing into the Neuendorfer See at the northern edge of

945-680: The Mark Brandenburg and North Germany in general in the Romanesque , Gothic , and Renaissance periods. Next to the south entrance to the park is the Bärenzwinger (bear pit). This was built in 1938–39 on the site of a former sanitation depot, also designed by Ludwig Hoffmann and already decorated with more than 50 plaques by Otto Lessing depicting bears, and a public lavatory, and opened on 17 August 1939. It consists of indoor sleeping quarters and outdoor exercise areas which have held as many as five bears (the armorial animal of Berlin) who are

1008-687: The Soviet occupation zone , its People's Chamber successor and several East German ministries and government departments. As Haus der Ministerien it was at the centre of the popular demonstrations during the workers' uprising of 17 June 1953 . The building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 cut the street in half. In 1964 the East Berlin section of the street was named after the former GDR Minister-president Otto Grotewohl , who had died in office on September 21. Several embassies of "befriended" countries were erected on

1071-622: The Voss Strasse , and its official address was Voßstraße 4 . The Foreign Office moved into the former Reich President's palace, the old building being refurbished in grandiose style at the behest of Nazi Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop . Vis-à-vis on Wilhelmplatz, the Baroque Ordenspalais was refurbished as seat of the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda led by Joseph Goebbels . In 1935/36 his party fellow Hermann Göring had

1134-527: The AOK. As of 2007, it houses their legal division. It is a registered city landmark. On the western side of the park is the Volksbadeanstalt , which was designed by Ende und Böckmann and built in 1888 as a public bath. The Berliner Verein für Volksbäder erected it and another in the Gartenstraße with assistance from the city, for the purpose of "enabling the less prosperous inhabitants of Berlin to receive

1197-520: The Assembly of City Deputies ( Stadtverordnetenversammlung ) decided to establish a public playground (probably one of the first in the city) and 'promenade location' there on plans drawn up by the first city director of gardens, Gustav Meyer , dedicated the necessary funds, and urged rapid execution of the plan. The plan involved some new plantings, fencing, and benches. This renovation was completed in 1873. The park reached its current dimensions in 1883 after

1260-599: The French Baron François Mathieu Vernezobre de Laurieux, who took his residence in the later Prinz-Albrecht-Palais . The street was renamed Wilhelmstraße in honour of the king, who had died in 1740. Originally a wealthy residential street, with a number of palaces belonging to members of the Hohenzollern royal family, the Wilhelmstrasse developed as a Prussian government precinct from the mid 19th century. In 1858 King Frederick William IV acquired

1323-518: The Latin berum , meaning "weir", and it was apparently named for Wusterhausen because the road to that town passed by its original location at Bastion VII. It was moved to the park in 1893 and is now incorporated into the Lapidary. It is listed as a Berlin landmark. The Märkisches Museum was built between 1901 and 1907. It was designed by Ludwig Hoffmann as a complex of buildings representing architecture of

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1386-511: The Märkisches Museum to one of his generals, Friedrich Sebastian Winnibald Truchseß, Count of Waldburg, who built a house there and laid out an extensive garden. After his death in the Battle of Hohenfriedberg , David Splitgerber , a merchant and banker, bought the land and was also given the remaining eastern bastion section; from 1750 onwards, he operated Berlin's first sugar processing plant on

1449-463: The Märkisches Museum, which was built at the same time, in the use of red brick on its façade and is in Expressionist -Baroque style, with giant pilasters which rise uninterrupted from the street to the roofline, between which are limestone decorative elements in the form of similated balustrades, allegorical figures, and cartouches with craft symbols, such as an iron between pairs of scissors. Over

1512-437: The River Dahme at the (lake) Seddinsee . In Berlin, the Spree forms part of a dense network of navigable waterways, many of which are artificial, and which provide a wide choice of routes. Several important commercial harbors can be found on this network, and tugs and barges move sand, grain, bricks, and beer. Tour boats tour the central section of the Spree and its adjoining waterways on a frequent basis. Many people died in

1575-456: The Spree during the Cold War while trying to cross the Berlin Wall , including children who drowned when rescuers were not allowed to enter the river to save them. Wilhelmstra%C3%9Fe Wilhelmstrasse ( German : Wilhelmstraße [ˈvɪlhɛlmˌʃtʁaːsə] , see ß ) is a major thoroughfare in the central Mitte and Kreuzberg districts of Berlin, Germany. Until 1945, it

1638-855: The Spree is where it is best known. It flows through the city centre of Berlin to join the River Havel in Spandau , one of Berlin's western boroughs, which itself ultimately merges with the Elbe to enter the sea in Cuxhaven , after flowing through Hamburg . On its route through Berlin, the river passes Berlin Cathedral ( Berliner Dom ), the Reichstag and the Schloss Charlottenburg . The renowned Museum Island ( Museumsinsel ), with its collection of five major museums ,

1701-480: The Spree. Following the decision by Frederick William, the 'Great Elector' to encircle Berlin with fortifications, this became the location of Bastion VII, which was known at the time as "the bulwerk in the morass'. The work required the creation of large embankments and lasted until 1683; the swampland around the bastion was not fully drained until 1687. After such lengthy construction, the works were already out of date militarily, and after 1700 served only to control

1764-572: The Spreewald. From the Neundorfer See it then flows in an easterly direction to the Schwielochsee , and then in a northerly and westerly direction to the town of Fürstenwalde . From Fürstenwalde the river continues to flow westwards, through the Dämeritzsee and Müggelsee , to Köpenick in the southeastern part of Berlin , where it is joined by its tributary, the River Dahme. The final reach of

1827-634: The Wall's towards West Berlin . The former "death strip" is today the site of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe . Today, the Wilhelmstraße is an important traffic artery, but has not regained its former status. Since German reunification , some federal ministries have moved their seats to Wilhelmstraße, such as the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs on former Wilhelmplatz, the Ministry of Finance in

1890-668: The Wilhelmstrasse from Unter den Linden to the Leipziger Strasse. The only major surviving public building in the Wilhelmstrasse was just Göring's Reich Air Ministry , which had escaped major damage during the war. As one of the few intact government buildings in central Berlin, it was used by the Soviet Military Administration in Germany and the (East) German Economic Commission , later by the German People's Council of

1953-401: The bastions; a windmill and a house for the miller were built on Bastion VII, and these caused the eastern portion to be left standing longer than other parts of the fortifications. Some of the rubble from the demolished fortifications was used to build up Wilhelmstraße ; the rest was thrown into the defensive ditch outside the walls. In 1736, Frederick William I gave the site of the park and

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2016-499: The benefit of a warm bath in every season of the year, at the most economical price conceivable". The buildings had an "English-industrial" appearance and were horizontally organised with a taller central section giving an impression of "importance, balance and pragmatism" and ornamented with round arches over doors and windows and an acorn motif. 52°30′47″N 13°24′53″E  /  52.51306°N 13.41472°E  / 52.51306; 13.41472 Spree (river) The Spree

2079-501: The building housed the Party Academy of the governing Socialist Unity Party from 1955 onwards; a modern extension was built in the mid-1970s, designed by an architectural team led by Friedrich Kalusche. During this period, the building was renamed the Haus am Köllnischen Park . In summer 1990, after German reunification , the institution closed and the building reverted to the possession of

2142-532: The city's own animal protection officer, have called for it to be closed as old-fashioned and inhumane. East of the park at Am Köllnischen Park 3 is a large office building which was designed by Alfred Messel as the headquarters of the Landesversicherungsanstalt Berlin, the social insurance for Berlin within Bismarck's old age and disability insurance system . Built in 1903/04, the building echoes

2205-528: The comings and goings of visitors and residents, prevent desertion, and enable the collection of tolls on those entering the city. By 1700, Mulberry trees had been planted on the walls, but only 'persons of rank' were permitted to promenade along them. After Berlin had grown considerably and the Customs Wall had been built around it, King Frederick William I (1688–1740) ordered the defensive walls to be demolished. Civilian buildings had already grown up on

2268-553: The corner with Unter den Linden from about 1970 onwards. The new embassy building of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was erected from 1974 to 1978 on Wilhelmplatz. In the 1980s, several Plattenbau (concrete slab) apartment blocks were built on the cleared premises along East Berlin Otto-Grotewohl-Straße . The flats were quite popular among the nomenklatura , as they provided an undisturbed view across

2331-442: The courtyards has been roofed over and houses a permanent exhibition of plans for the redevelopment of the city. It forms part of an ensemble of buildings to either side of the Märkisches Museum which are registered as a city landmark. The 6-storey steel-framed office building in purplish brick on the south side of the park at Rungestraße 3–6 and 7, opposite the Bärenzwinger, was designed by Albert Gottheiner (his last work before he

2394-411: The ditch was filled in. Ludwig Hoffmann , the architect of the Märkisches Museum (completed in 1907), then made some changes, including creating views across the park to the new museum. The last major modification of the park took place in 1969–71 to designs by Eberhard Jaenisch, Stefan Rauner and Roswitha Schulz: a mound which remained on the site of the bastion was levelled, a children's playground

2457-472: The earliest reconstructions was the 1948-built provisional wooden church hall of the Moravian Brethren congregation on Wilhelmstrasse 138. The communist GDR regime regarded the former government precinct as a relic of Prussian and Nazi militarism and imperialism, and had all the ruins of the government buildings demolished in the early 1950s. In the late 1950s there were almost no buildings at all along

2520-579: The first Reich President of Germany, Friedrich Ebert . Until the death of his successor Paul von Hindenburg in 1934, the President's official residence was at Wilhelmstraße 73 , where he could watch the torchlight parade on the night of the Nazi Machtergreifung on 30 January 1933, after he had sworn in Adolf Hitler as German chancellor. Hitler addressed the cheering crowds on Wilhelmstasse from

2583-744: The former Palais Schwerin on No. 73. This building now called Palace of the Reich President housed an administrative seat of the Prussian minister for the Royal Household, from 1861 led by Alexander von Schleinitz . In 1869 the nearby Palais Schulenburg residence of late Prince Antoni Radziwiłł , built in 1738/39 on No. 77, was purchased by the Prussian state government at the behest of Schleinitz' opponent Minister-President Otto von Bismarck . Rebuilt from 1875 until 1878, it served as his official seat as German chancellor . The next door building on No. 76

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2646-501: The former Reich Ministry of Aviation complex (renamed Detlev-Rohwedder-Haus in 1992), as well as the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection on Wilhelmstraße 72 – the only German government ministry now located on its prewar site although in a partly reconstructed building. The British Embassy, whose original building had been destroyed by bombing, was rebuilt on the site. Queen Elizabeth II officiated at

2709-829: The grand opening in July 2000. Other public institutions on Wilhelmstraße include the ARD-Hauptstadtstudio (television studio) of the ARD broadcasting organization at the northern Spree riverside, the E-Werk techno club, the Topography of Terror museum at the former Reichssicherheitshauptamt site, and the Willy-Brandt-Haus headquarters of the Social Democratic Party of Germany on the southern corner with Stresemannstrasse. Many of

2772-401: The huge Ministry of Aviation edifice designed by Ernst Sagebiel built on the corner with Leipziger Strasse. The adjacent Prinz-Albrecht-Palais in the south became notorious as the seat of the Sicherheitsdienst of the Reichsführer-SS and the Sicherheitspolizei chief-of-staff; merged into the SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt terror complex under Reinhard Heydrich in 1939. Most of

2835-402: The keystones over windows, supposed to be from the Old City Hall of Berlin in Spandauer Straße and attributed to Georg Gottfried Weiyhenmeyer ; two allegorical reliefs; 17th- and 18th-century building signs; a late Gothic vault keystone; and a 16th-century sandstone relief from the Stadtschloß . The freestanding sculptures include, among others: Modern and thus atypical of the sculptures in

2898-445: The most attractive gardens in Berlin. In 1858/59 Inselstraße was extended through the garden to connect Köpenicker Straße to the city centre, and the Lodge was forced to sell the larger, eastern portion of the site to the city. The Köllnisches Gymnasium was then built there. How to use the remainder of the site was discussed for years; a desire to preserve the trees led to the rejection of several commercial proposals. On 15 April 1869,

2961-399: The nowadays built-over former Wilhelmplatz vis-à-vis Voss-Straße , it crosses Leipziger Straße near Leipziger and Potsdamer Platz , and Niederkirchnerstraße , known until after World War II as Prinz-Albrecht-Straße . At its southern end, Wilhelmstraße originally met with Friedrichstraße , which runs roughly parallel to the east, on the Belle-Alliance circus, before the street course

3024-414: The occupants of the GDR apartment blocks are recent immigrants, and there are a number of shops and restaurants catering to Russians and Turks . In recent years the City of Berlin has placed a series of historical markers along Wilhelmstraße, showing where the well-known buildings of the pre-war era stood. On 8 November 2011 a memorial in honour of the failed assassin Johann Georg Elser was inaugurated at

3087-442: The official bears or mascots of the city. The impetus for building the Bärenzwinger was a letter to the newspaper Berliner Zeitung am Mittag (now B.Z. ) from Wilfried Bade which appeared the day after the end of the celebration of the city's 700-year anniversary, and the Lord Mayor, Julius Lippert , had it completed despite objections from some Nazi functionaries that there were more important things to be done in what proved to be

3150-417: The park is the bronze statue of the artist Heinrich Zille , which was created in 1964–65 by Heinrich Drake for an exhibition in the Treptower Park and afterwards moved to Köllnischer Park. It is listed as a landmark by the City of Berlin. At the Rungestraße corner of the park there is a historic fountain from a private garden in Hirschgarten. Moved to the park in 1971, it was made in about 1860 and

3213-497: The premises up to the Berlin Customs Wall (on present-day Stresemannstrasse) were developed as an affluent residential area. In 1731 the Husarenstraße (Street of the Hussars ) was built as a north-south thoroughfare of the Baroque city layout, where many Huguenots , who had fled from France , as well as expelled members of the Moravian Church settled. Several personal confidants of the king had large city palaces erected, most notably General Kurt Christoph Graf von Schwerin and

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3276-475: The public buildings along Wilhelmstrasse were destroyed by Allied bombing during 1944 and early 1945 and during the following Battle of Berlin . After the war, Wilhelmstrasse as far south as Niederkirchnerstrasse was in the Soviet sector of Allied-occupied Berlin, and apart from clearing the rubble from the street little was done to reconstruct the area until the founding of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1949, with East Berlin as its capital. One of

3339-532: The run-up to World War II. Two of the original bears were gifts from Bern , which also has a bear on its arms. It remains largely unchanged, although it had to be reconstructed after the war; it reopened in 1949 with two new bears, again from Bern; one of these, Jente, produced 33 cubs (including 4 sets of triplets and 9 pairs of twins) before being retired to the zoo. The last official city bear, Schnute, lived there until her death in 2015; her daughter Maxi also lived there until her death in August 2013. The Bärenzwinger

3402-399: The site, and also enlarged and improved the garden. In 1779, the baroque garden was mentioned by the bookseller and author Friedrich Nicolai : "It has very charming areas, in particular it includes an open pavilion on a rise, which is small, but has tall trees growing upon it". The sugar plant was forced to close in 1788. The buildings on the site were then used succeeding as tobacco storage,

3465-409: The southern entrance is a sculpture of a group of men in classical style with the motto "Einer für alle—alle für einen" (One for all—all for one). The building originally had a tower, which was destroyed in World War II. After the war it was the headquarters of the East German Social Security Administration. It now houses offices of the Berlin Senate Department of Urban Development, and one of

3528-431: Was added, a terrace was built behind the museum, and the Lapidary was created. The Lapidary is an open-air museum of primarily stone artworks, both originals and copies, which formerly decorated buildings that no longer exist. Some are set into the walls around a 1969 terrace, while others are freestanding at various locations in the park. For example, in the walls of the terrace there are fragments of five carved heads from

3591-408: Was bought by Prince Hugo of Hohenlohe in an 1876 auction and rented out to the British ambassador Lord Ampthill , until it was finally purchased by the United Kingdom in 1884. In 1877 the Borsig Palace was erected on the corner with Voss-Strasse. After World War I the Palais Schwerin was sold by exiled Emperor Wilhelm II to the Weimar Republic government and in 1919 became the residence of

3654-405: Was forced to leave Berlin) and built in 1931–32 as the headquarters of the Berlin affiliate of the Allgemeine Ortskrankenkasse (AOK) insurance group. The façade is "an outstanding example of late Expressionist architecture", featuring decorative brickwork and pillars, of which the six on the flanking staircase sections are emphasised by terracotta statues. Under the German Democratic Republic,

3717-412: Was further modified in the 20th century with the addition of first a bear enclosure, the Bärenzwinger, and later a permanent exhibition of sculpture, the Lapidary. The park is a registered Berlin landmark . The park contains five buildings, the first of them being the Märkisches Museum, a complex of buildings. The complex was built between 1901 and 1907, and was designed by Ludwig Hoffmann . The second

3780-401: 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

3843-417: Was the Bärenzwinger, next to the south entrance to the park. This was built between 1938 and 1939 on the site of a former sanitation depot, and was designed by Ludwig Hoffmann. The Bärenzwinger has contained up to five bears at once, however no longer contains any following the death of Schnute, Berlin's last official city bear in 2015. At the east end of the park there is the Landesversicherungsanstalt building,

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3906-474: Was used for the chancellery's Foreign Office department. Several further governmental departments took their seat on Wilhelmstrasse, such as the Reich Ministry of Finance (No. 61), the Imperial Colonial Office (No. 62), the Prussian state ministry (No. 63), the Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture (No. 72), and the Reich Ministry of Transport (No. 79, from 1919). The lavish Palais Strousberg of bankrupt "railway king" Bethel Henry Strousberg on No. 70

3969-399: Was westerly redirected to the Stresemannstraße junction about 1970. Between Unter den Linden and parallel Behrenstraße, the road is closed for motor vehicles as a protection of the Embassy of the United Kingdom . Frederick William I , from 1713 King in Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg , had the southwestern Friedrichstadt quarter of his Berlin residence significantly enlarged, whereby

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