Bellevue Palace is a monument on Spreeweg 1 in the Tiergarten district of Berlin. It is located on the northern edge of the large animal garden between the Spree and the Victory Column. The classicist three -wing plant was built in 1785–1786 by Michael Philipp Boumann as a summer residence for the Prussian prince August Ferdinand and was rebuilt several times in the course of history. After severe damage in the Second World War, the castle was rebuilt from 1954-1959. Since 1994 it has served as the first official seat of the German Federal President.
The castle was built on behalf of the youngest brother of Friedrich
II, Ferdinand of Prussia, according to plans by Michael Philipp Bouann
from 1785 to 1786. Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff was one of the
numerous former property owners, who had built a summer house in 1746 a
little south of today's castle. Boumann had to include an existing
building, a leather factory converted to the house on the banks of the
Spree, into the new building as the right wing.
The castle was
created as a three -wing system, consisting of the elongated, two -and
-a -half -storey main building and the two two -storey side wings
(women's wings on the left, on the right Spreflügel) in the early
classicist style. The total of 19 windows axes of the middle wing
divides a three -axis middle risalite with a figure -crowned triangle
gable, which rests on four pilasters in the Corinthian style.
Bellevue owed his name to Bellevue from the Corps de Logis, the living
tract, west, which went far over the park and the meandering Spree to
the dome from Charlottenburg Castle. Since the 1880s, he has been
meeting the Viaduct of the Berlin Stadtbahn after 400 meters.
The
interior of the castle was repeatedly redesigned. Already three years
after his completion, Carl Gotthard Langhans built one of his famous
oval halls. Today this is the only largely preserved room of the castle.
In 1938, Paul Otto August Baumgarten was redesigned by the Reich
government. The two entrances that are recognizable as the curved
windows of the side risalite were bricked up and the current center
entrance and the free staircase were created. An L-shaped extension was
added to the left side wings, the so-called ministerial wing.
Knobelsdorff's Meierei had to give way to modern farm buildings. The
replacement building built in the park lived in the actor, director and
general director of the Prussian State Theater Gustaf Gründgens until
the actors' war destruction.
As early as April 1941, fire bombs
met and burned out at a British air raid, the castle was initially
secured after the end of the Second World War and rebuilt from 1954 to
1959 by the architect Carl-Heinz Schwennicke as the Berlin official
residence of the Federal President with the exception of the ministerial
wing. From a West German perspective, such an official residence in
Berlin was compatible with the city's four-powers status in accordance
with Article 23 of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany.
The only time of the creation of the ballroom designed by the architect
Carl Gotthard Langhans in 1791 was preserved on the upper floor of the
castle. It was set up in the style of the 1950s, which was later
ridiculed as a "mixture of film star sanatorium and ice cream parlor".
In 1986/1987, Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker had the castle
redesigned by the architect Otto Meitinger in order to adapt the rooms
to the character of the external historical appearance, whereby the
spatial sequences according to plans from the time before the
destruction were also restored. Weizsäcker had the castle furnished with
part of the valuable Empire furniture collection from Wilhelmshöhe
Castle in Kassel as a permanent loan and initiated the exchange of
paintings with German museums to present guests classical and modern
German art. However, two rooms were preserved with their equipment in
the style of post -war modernism.
From the mid -1990s, the
technical breakdowns such as failing electricity or water, a stuck
elevator or poor air conditioning in summer, piled up, so that Federal
President Roman Herzog described the castle as "Bruchbude". That is why
a renovation and fundamental renewal of the technical equipment was
carried out in 2004/2005. The representation rooms can also be seen
after this recent renovation in the style of the 1980s, in which a
careful approach to old decorative forms with some new materials was
tried. For reasons of monument protection, two salons are preserved with
the dark -horned interior of the 1950s. The former living rooms in the
left side wing have been converted into an office wing for the
president. The Federal President has been used as the residence since
2004 Villa Wurmbach in Berlin-Dahlem.
Until his death in 1813, Ferdinand used it as a pleasure palace
and country seat. Afterwards his son Prince August von Prussia, the
boss and reformer of the Prussian artillery lived there. In 1843 it
fell to King Friedrich Wilhelm IV in 1843, who had the first Museum
of Contemporary Art in Prussia set up on a wing of the ground floor
in 1844 - this fatherland gallery was the predecessor of the
National Gallery. After the move in 1865, the castle was used again
by 1918, partly as a place of residence for members of the royal
family, partly as a guest house; Kaiser Wilhelm II had private
lessons given to his seven children.
The maintenance of the
court was an expensive and personnel -proof affair, as a look at the
court of the Bellevue Castle in 1870 shows:
Cafétier
Terryur
Coat
Gardener
Court ladyjung
Court gardener
Chamber woman
Sweeper
Cellar
Children's women
cook
coachman
Valet
Lachai
Body hunter
Mouth
Porter
Riding servants
Saddle master
Castle servant and castle
servant
Pioneer
During the First World War, the castle
served as a meeting place from 1916 to the top army management, the
government and the middle powers allied with Germany
(Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria). General Erich
Ludendorff was released here on October 26, 1918 by the head of the
state and the last German emperor on October 26, 1918, without
agreeing to form a other use for soldiers. The process in Bellevue
Castle, 14 days before the fall of the emperor, marked the recovery
of the primacy of politics, which has been lost in military, the
recovery of the primary of politics lost since the fall of the
Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg.
After the First World War, the
castle was initially empty. In 1928 it went from the Hohenzollern
house to the Free State of Prussia. From 1929 it served as an office
building, folk kitchen and exhibition hall. The side wings contained
rental apartments until the State Museum of German Folklore was
housed there in 1935. In 1938 the empire acquired it. After the
renovation in 1938, however, the castle only fulfilled the function
as the guest house of the Reich government until the beginning of
the Second World War. In 1939 the Reich Minister and Head of the
Presidential Chancellery, Otto Meissner, moved into the castle as a
new residence and apartment after he had had to give up his previous
premises in the Reich President Palace to Reich Foreign Minister
Joachim von Ribbentrop.
With the foundation of the Federal
Republic of Germany in 1949, the Bundes' property was made. From
1957, in addition to Villa Hammerschmidt in Bonn, it served as the
second and Berlin official seat of the Federal President, who only
used it occasionally, for example for concert events. On June 18,
1959, Theodor Heuss officially took over the buildings.
In
1991, the castle of the castle was given by the Berlin police to the
then Federal Border Guard (today: Federal Police).
In 1994
Richard von Weizsäcker moved his first office here. From 1996 to
1998 the Federal Presidential Office was built in the immediate
vicinity of the architects Gruber + Kleine-Kraneburg. Roman Herzog
was the only Federal President who also lived in the castle himself
(1994–1999).
During the renovation (2004/2005), the Federal
President moved his office to the neighboring Federal Presidential
Office. The Charlottenburg Castle was used for representative
purposes, for example for the appointment of Angela Merkel as
Chancellor on November 22, 2005. At the beginning of January 2006,
Bellevue was again handed over to the Federal President.
Flag
Most of the state's standard blows on the roof of the castle. It is
only obtained as soon as the Federal President leaves the Berlin
city area,
To stay outside the Federal Republic of Germany (for
example during a state visit), or
About appointments in his Bonn
official seat, Villa Hammerschmidt, or
to make appointments in a
guest house in the federal states.
When he arrived in the Berlin
city area, she is raised again.
Miscellaneous
In the
cladding of the Dutch Queen Beatrix, the comedian Hape Kerkeling
managed to drive up in 1991 to drive up the real queen at Bellevue
Castle before the real queen arrived.
In front of the Bellevue
Castle is an often photographed, historic red fire alarm.