The Peacock Island/ Pfaueninsel is located in the Havel in the southwest of Berlin. It is a 67-hectare landscape park belonging to the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg and has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1990, along with the palaces and parks of Sanssouci in Potsdam and Glienicke Palace in Berlin. The Peacock Island is closely linked to important events and people in Brandenburg-Prussian history.
The island is located in the wooded and water-rich Wannsee district
of the Steglitz-Zehlendorf district in southwest Berlin. The distance to
the city center of Berlin is about 22 kilometers (as the crow flies),
the distance to the city center of Potsdam is about five kilometers.
Since 1924, the Peacock Island with an area of 88 hectares, of which 67
hectares are land, has been designated as a nature reserve. The nature
reserve is registered as a fauna-flora habitat and is part of the EU
bird sanctuary Westlicher Düppeler Forst. Embedded in a complex,
historically multi-layered cultural landscape, the partly different
interests of nature conservation and monument preservation must be
carefully coordinated.
The Pfaueninsel can be reached from the
west of the city center by bus line 218 from the Theodor-Heuss-Platz
subway station through the Grunewald forest and on to the Wannsee S-Bahn
station. This is followed by the short ferry crossing to Peacock Island.
Like a landscape in Samland in the past, the Pfaueninsel is known as the
"Prussian Paradise".
First uses
Iron Age bracelets and hair spirals made of bronze came
to light during earthworks in May 1843 on Peacock Island. Traces of a
Wendish settlement were found in the northeast of the island.
In
the second half of the 17th century, the Great Elector had a canine
garden, i.e. a rabbit farm, laid out on the island, as elsewhere in
Brandenburg, and a gamekeeper's house built for this purpose, roughly on
the site of today's castle. 800 rabbits brought in 200 thalers per year
for the electoral treasury. From this time comes the name Rabbit Werder,
a rather unofficial designation alongside the terms Pauwerder,
Pfau-Werder or Zu den Pfauen, which were used in old documents, although
nothing was known about peacocks on the island at the time - they came
much later. The name Peacock Island has been used throughout since 1795.
In 1685, the island was given to the alchemist and glassmaker
Johannes Kunckel as a "hereditary and peculiar" gift. Kunckel had
previously made the less efficient glass production in Brandenburg
competitive on behalf of the elector. Now this work should be continued
intensively on Peacock Island. Above all, it was about promoting the
country's economy, which was still badly damaged after the Thirty Years'
War. But it was also about the scientific and technical interests of the
sovereign, about his baroque pleasure in experiments with fire and glass
and the most diverse elixirs. While ordinary outsiders were forbidden
from entering the island under penalty of penalty, the elector often had
himself rowed over from the nearby Potsdam residence to inspect the
progress of his glassmaker and to experiment for hours himself. Plumes
of dark smoke and pungent odors drifted from the island to the mainland,
prompting local residents to speculate about gold-making and black
magic.
In 1689 the glassworks and the laboratory in the northeast
of the island burned down to the ground, Kunckel was economically
ruined. In any case, the son and successor of the Great Elector,
Friedrich III. (the later King Friedrich I.), had withdrawn all support
since 1688, even having him repaid 8,000 thalers because he had not
fulfilled the expectations placed in him. When he was asked what use his
costly experiments had been, Kunckel replied: "The blessed Herr Kurfürst
was a lover of rare and curious things and was happy when something
beautiful and dainty was achieved. I cannot answer this question as to
what use it was.” In 1692, Kunckel accepted an invitation to go to
Sweden and found great recognition there for his knowledge and skills.
Frederick William II
The project
The island was then unused
for about 100 years. Their actual rise began under King Frederick
William II, the nephew and successor of Frederick the Great. Even as
crown prince, he and Wilhelmine Encke, the daughter of a horn player in
the court orchestra, had himself ferried to the overgrown island for
romantic, erotic stays. At the age of 17, Wilhelmine became a mother;
the two then had four more children together. The relationship outlived
several other love affairs of the crown prince and later king (popular
nickname: the fat Lüderjahn), also two marriages, which he concluded for
reasons of state, and lasted until his death in 1797. The long-term
mistress had been responsible for the development of the Peacock Island
- since 1796 Wilhelmine Countess of Lichtenau - significant importance.
In 1793, the king considered expanding the New Garden parkland he
had laid out on the banks of the Holy See in Potsdam. This gave rise to
the idea of not doing this on the directly adjacent site, but on Peacock
Island, which he always had in mind from Potsdam and which he had fond
memories of for over 30 years. Through a cabinet order of November 12,
1793, the king conveyed his wish: "[...] An island in the Havel, called
the Caninchenwerder, belongs to the Bornstedt office, which I want to
take over for some of the facilities myself for the sake of the
situation". A financial arrangement was quickly made with the then
owner, the military orphanage in Potsdam; The island was handed over as
early as November 24, 1793, and the necessary work began in the spring
of 1794.
Two areas in particular were designed under Friedrich Wilhelm II: the
castle and its surroundings on the western tip of the bank, and the
dairy farm and its surroundings in the damp meadowland in the east of
the island. The small white castle was placed in such a way that it
could be seen from afar, from the Potsdam bank, as an architectural
accent in a beautiful landscape. It was to have a private character, to
be a place of rest and retreat for the king and his beloved Wilhelmine.
She was significantly involved in the planning and was mainly
responsible for the interior design. She didn't feel obligated to a
certain style. The scale of their ideas ranged from Greek bronzes to the
furnishing of a tower room as an Oteihitic cabinet, i.e. a bamboo hut in
the South Seas style. The overall impression nevertheless shows
excellent taste; the quality of each piece is outstanding. The original
furnishings are almost completely preserved in their original form,
because the castle was no longer inhabited after 1840 and was spared
fire or war damage - a rare stroke of luck.
In the heyday of
landscape parks, islands had a certain sentimental and symbolic value -
one could be crossed over a dividing water to a place of seclusion. In
other parks, such a situation had to be painstakingly created with
artificial watercourses. It has always existed here, with a wide reed
belt and a stock of around 300 oak trees that were several centuries
old. Larger new plantings were therefore not necessary, rather it was
necessary to interpret and enhance the existing through landscape
gardening interventions and suitable architecture. Contrary to a view
that is often expressed, the castle and dairy were not built to
seriously deceive the viewer's view as ruins. Rather, they were visibly
functional buildings that, to a certain extent, took part in a
production disguised as actors. In it, the castle was supposed to
present a “ruined Roman country house”.
The dairy, built in
1794-1795 in the remote north-east of the island, appears as the ruins
of a Gothic monastery, but was actually the main building of a "jewelry
farm" with dairy cattle, horses and sheep. The Meierei consists of a
two-storey tower-like building with a farmer's apartment, whey parlor
and, on the upper floor, a magnificently decorated, well-preserved
ballroom in neo-Gothic style with stucco work by Constantin Philipp
Georg Sartori. The cowshed is in the single-storey eastern extension.
While the tower roof is hidden from the outside behind an artistically
ruinous attic, a high, hipped arched roof rises above the stable part
behind a similar attic. This plank roof represents a special feature in
the history of building technology and is at the same time one of the
oldest surviving examples of this roof construction in Germany.
An architect was not employed. In addition, neither the Hofbauamt in
Potsdam nor the Oberhofbauamt in Berlin were involved. Court carpenter
Johann Gottlieb Brendel from Potsdam oversaw the construction of the
palace and the dairy according to the ideas of his employer.
Contemporary reports do not mention where the king got his ideas from.
However: In a magazine at the time, "English tableaus" were offered as
wall decorations with a clock, on which an amazingly similar building
can be seen; and in the royal library there was a view of the island of
Capri with a comparable motif.
Two landing sites have been
created for visitors to the island; one was reserved for the royal
family, the other for other visitors and freight traffic. In the
mid-1790s, almost at the same time as the palace and dairy, a kitchen
was built, a wooden "ice carriage" in the form of a four-meter-high
arched tent with a cellar for storing ice and perishable food
(dismantled in 1904), the house of the Castle castellans, several
fountains, a bowling alley and accommodation disguised as a haystack for
the peacocks, which were bought in Gut Sacrow and now settled on the
island. The "hunting umbrella" was brought from Beelitz, also known as
the bark house because of the tree bark-covered exterior - most of the
island was still wild overgrown hunting grounds. When everything was
completed in 1797, the long-ailing king died. His mistress, Countess
Wilhelmine von Lichtenau, was accused of unlawful enrichment, acquitted,
but banned for a long time.
General development
The new king sometimes used Peacock Island
with his wife, Queen Luise, as a summer residence. However, Luise didn't
particularly like the island. She spoke of "the cramped peacock
dwelling, where no lock and no bolt protects against burglary, where, as
is well known, the walls are made of paper [...]" and preferred the
nearby Paretz Castle. Friedrich Wilhelm III, who ultimately returned
victorious after the turmoil of war and expulsion during the Napoleonic
Wars, soon turned his attention to Peacock Island, which he valued as
the epitome of the peaceful pre-war period.
Ferdinand Fintelmann
had been court gardener there since 1804. After the occupation of
Prussia by Napoleon's troops in 1806, food became scarce all around, and
Fintelmann also knew of the king's preference for estate management - so
he planted various arable land on some previously wooded parts of the
island according to landscape gardening principles, but spared the old
oak trees and left them also stand in the fields. The result was a prime
example of the "ferme ornée" (a "decorated", i.e. horticulturally
designed "agriculture"). In Berlin, the sober, linguistically
inexpressive king curbed the imagination of his architects with terse
words - such as the Neue Wache planned by Karl Friedrich Schinkel in the
form of a Romanesque castle gate and a Gothic cathedral on the water -
"Very, very beautiful. But I prefer the Greek style" - and thus promoted
the classical character of the old city center. On the Peacock Island,
on the other hand, he created a colorful collection of the most diverse
buildings and attractions.
In 1824/1825, Schinkel expanded the
Kavaliershaus, which had existed since 1804. The King had had the court
marshal's office in Danzig buy the late Gothic Schlieffhaus from 1520,
which was threatened with demolition. It was transported on ships to
Peacock Island in numbered individual parts. The patrician house had
allegedly been in Nuremberg since 1360 and was rebuilt in Danzig in
1480. Now Schinkel connected it with the old Kavaliershaus, which could
no longer accommodate the occasional guests. In 1829/1830, the "Swiss
House" was also built according to Schinkel's designs, and since 1829
there has been a portico made of sandstone within sight of the dairy in
memory of Queen Luise, which was very likely designed by Schinkel. This
is the original pillar front of her mausoleum from 1810 in the
Charlottenburg Palace Park, which was later remade there from the harder
material granite.
From August 1830, Harry Maitey worked as an
assistant to the machine master Franciscus Joseph Friedrich on Peacock
Island.
Already at the time of the summer stays with Queen Luise, some
strange animals had been brought to the island. Gradually, Friedrich
Wilhelm III. almost a passion for animals that are as exotic as
possible. In Paris in 1815 he had come across the Jardin des Plantes -
more zoological than botanical despite the name - and wished for a
similar menagerie. In 1821, the master gardener and later Prussian
General Garden Director Peter Joseph Lenné began fundamentally
redesigning the Peacock Island. His concept envisaged a section with a
palace, rose garden and palm house in the west, with a focus on gardens
and plants, and a predominantly rural area with the dairy farm in the
east, with the expansion of arable land being significantly reduced in
favor of meadows. Because the new garden landscape needed a regulated
water supply, a steam engine in the engine house on the south bank had
been pumping the Havel water to the highest point of the island since
1822, from where it was distributed over the island through pipes made
of clay pipes.
Lenné concentrated the menagerie buildings in the
central part of the island. Ever since the king's preference became
known, living gifts continued to arrive, including two Hawaiian geese
(nēnē) brought to Prussia on the ship Princess Louise in the summer of
1834, and a group of reindeer in 1836 as a gift from the king of Sweden
, who had traveled to Brandenburg under the care of two Laplanders. In
an inventory of the menagerie from 1842, however, the reindeer are no
longer mentioned. The pheasantry of the New Garden was moved to Peacock
Island, cages and buildings for llamas, monkeys, lions and kangaroos
were built, as were aviaries for many different species of birds, a
buffalo and beaver bay, a deer enclosure and - after the brown bears
kept on the island had torn loose several times - a bear pit. In 1832 a
separate menagerie administration was set up; at this time one already
counted 847 animals.
Heir to the throne Friedrich Wilhelm IV did
not share his father's special interests. The larger part of the animal
population and several of the buildings and facilities were transferred
to the newly founded Berlin Zoological Society in 1842 and served as the
basis for the Berlin Zoological Garden, which opened its doors in 1844
as Germany's first zoo. Today you can still find an aviary and a water
bird pond in the center of Peacock Island.
From Prussia's point of view, the course of the war during the clashes with Napoleon made a close connection with Russia advisable. The goal was reached in 1817 when the daughter of Friedrich Wilhelm III. married the Grand Duke Nicholas. In 1826, the son-in-law became Nicholas I even as Tsar of Russia. In his honor, the Nikolskoë blockhouse was built on the hill opposite Peacock Island in 1819, and the Russian Church (today the Evangelical Church of St. Peter and Paul) was built in 1834-1837. The church building was not quite as Russian as the king had expressly wished. Rather, the architects Friedrich August Stüler and Albert Dietrich Schadow oriented themselves to the Prussian brick churches that Schinkel had designed in 1832. The onion dome, the actual Russian accent, was added at Schinkel's suggestion. When the royal family visited Prussia, the families by marriage went sailing together on the small royal frigate stationed on Peacock Island. A large slide, modeled on one in Saint Petersburg, was used for children's amusement on Peacock Island, although the name is misleading insofar as it was actually a 60-meter-long wooden ramp, on which several lanes were divided, within which one could drive down small carts. Today only the substructure of the ramp, a cube-shaped wooden hut, can be seen.
A botanical equivalent to the menagerie's exotic variety was the Palm
House, built between 1829 and 1831. At that time, a private collection
of palm trees that was famous throughout Europe was for sale in Paris,
and the director of the Berlin Botanical Garden drew the king's
attention to it - certainly in his own interest. He had the collection
purchased and determined that Peacock Island would be the location. For
this purpose, Schinkel designed a strictly shaped, heatable glass palace
made of 126 uniform window units with narrow wooden struts, a building
that anticipated elements of later modernism. The front length was 34.5
meters, width and height each 14 meters.
The interior design was
in clear contrast to the restrained facade. First, a small marble pagoda
was integrated, an English booty from Bengal, enriched with a fountain
and a goldfish basin. Accordingly, the entire interior design was based
on Indian designs and ornaments. Plants on display included date palms
and Japanese fan palms, lianas, sago palms, elephant's foot, pineapple
and banana trees, dragon's blood trees, lychee trees, spice and coffee
plants. At the center of the house was a sprawling fan palm that grew
rapidly and soon reached the glass roof. In order to create space for
the tree, the building was first given a roof attachment with an
Indian-style dome, and later the floor under the planter had to be
lowered. The painter Carl Blechen captured scenes from the interior of
the palm house in oil paintings. These paintings are exhibited at the
Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin, the Hamburger Kunsthalle and the Art
Institute of Chicago. Other unusual plants were planted in the immediate
vicinity of the palm house. Gustav Adolph Fintelmann described the
situation: "[...]in which many of the most beautiful plants of striking
growth from the most distant parts of the world are united. Apart from
that, if the weather favors it, rice, sugar cane and the old papyrus
tree[…] thrive.”
The palm house was a popular attraction,
especially after the dissolution of the menagerie. Since 1821 it has
been possible to visit the island three days a week - Tuesday, Wednesday
and Thursday - but only when the king is not there. In a public
statement on May 4, 1821, it was announced that it was not permitted to
consume food and drink that you had brought with you, and that you could
not buy anything of the sort there. The appeal was aimed at the "better
off public" - public transport did not yet exist, so it was hardly
possible for ordinary people from Berlin to reach the island.
In
the night from May 18th to 19th, 1880, the palm house caught fire for
unknown reasons. Although fire brigades were on the spot relatively
quickly, the fragile wooden construction burned down to the foundations
and all plants were lost. A restoration was discussed, and money was
initially made available for it, which eventually found other uses. In
1882 the remains of the building were completely leveled. Today, stone
markings and beds with historical foliage plants are reminiscent of the
building.
As early as 1821, when Lenné began to fundamentally redesign
Peacock Island, an extensive private collection of roses was
purchased for 5,000 thalers. A rose garden was laid out between the
palace and the castellan house, the first of its kind in Prussia.
After a few years of intensive care, it contained 2000 vines and 140
different varieties. The facility, which has since been largely
destroyed, was restored in 1989.
Ferdinand Fintelmann and
then his nephew Gustav Adolph undertook various experiments with
useful and ornamental plants on the island in the first half of the
19th century. They repeatedly reported on their experiences in
publications by the Association for the Promotion of Horticulture in
the Royal Prussian States, and they presented their botanical
specialties at the Association's meetings. Ferdinand cultivated two
plants that were still rare at the time: hydrangeas, which took on a
blue hue with the help of the reed soil, and dahlias, which were
still called georgines at the time. In 1838, the nephew wrote
retrospectively: "The garden became ever richer, even famous,
through the culture of georgines or dahlias, which were shipped from
here to America, from where they were imported, and were the most
beautiful of their time known." The breeder himself also recommended
the plant as fodder and suspected: "Maybe this plant will be taken
up by farmers as a usable fodder herb in the future, even if the
tubers are not as beneficial as potatoes [...] should be."
Gustav Adolph Fintelmann, on the other hand, devoted himself
specifically to rhubarb. In an essay he presented five different
species of them as more or less common ornamental plants, but he
also published a text on the culture of rhubarb and its use in the
economy instead of fresh fruit, apparently a new idea at the time;
because he assures right at the beginning "[...]that nobody has
anything to fear from the rhubarb as an appetizer or cake
filling[...]"
The Royal Louise and the frigate shed
In
1833, Albert Dietrich Schadow erected the wooden frigate shed, a
boathouse for the sailing ship Royal Louise, on the east bank of
Pfaueninsel as an arched plank construction. This ocean-going copy
of a frigate, reduced to just under 18 meters deck length, was named
in memory of Queen Luise, who died in 1810. The pleasure yacht was
sold in 1831 as a gift from the British King Wilhelm IV to the
Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III after the joint victory over
Napoleon. built in the Royal Dockyards at Woolwich and transferred
to Peacock Island in 1832. In 1841 the ship was moved to the
Kongsnæs sailors' station on Jungfernsee near Potsdam near the
Glienicker Bridge and kept its winter quarters in the frigate shed.
It was stored there during World War I. The abdicating German Kaiser
Wilhelm II left the inherited ship to the Verein Seglerhaus am
Wannsee for use by the youth department. In 1926, the Sacrow fishing
school took over the ship's hull, which had meanwhile been
cannibalized. In 1935 the Reichsmarine restored the ship and
exhibited it as a memorial in Kiel. After the end of the Second
World War, it was destroyed by order of the Allied Control Council
because of its poor condition.
Between 1997 and 1999, a
replica was built in Berlin-Köpenick as part of an
"employment-boosting measure", which has been cruising the waters of
the Unterhavel from the Scharfen Lanke in Spandau to the Lehnitzsee
near Fahrland since 2004 under the responsibility of a newly founded
association. Since then, the frigate shed has served its original
purpose as the winter storage of the (new) Royal Louise.
The continuous use of the Peacock Island by Prussian rulers ended
when Friedrich Wilhelm III. died in 1840. His successor Friedrich
Wilhelm IV occasionally had himself rowed to the island for a few hours
in summer, but did not live in the castle. He and his family connected
some special moments with the Peacock Island.
His brother
Wilhelm, the Prince of Prussia, sought refuge there for two days in
1848. In Berlin there were revolutionary riots; the prince, who had
campaigned for a military solution to the conflict, was erroneously
attributed a direct fire order against the insurgents (canister prince);
he fled via Spandau in civilian clothes to Pfaueninsel. There he arrived
at two o'clock on the night of March 21, 1848, and took up lodgings;
Instead of staying in the castle, however, he hid for two days and two
nights in the house of the court gardener, Fintelmann. Meanwhile, the
angry citizens of Berlin demanded his permanent removal from the court.
The king apparently gave in, while Prince Wilhelm secretly left the
island and went to London under the pseudonym Lehmann. At the beginning
of June of the same year he was back in Berlin. In 1861 he became King
of Prussia as Wilhelm I, and in 1871 German Emperor. After the
involuntary stay of 1848, no report mentions a single visit by him to
Peacock Island.
Another notable date was July 15, 1852. The
Russian relative, Tsar Nicholas I, was visiting, and the king wished to
arrange a special performance of the famous actress Rachel on Peacock
Island in his honor. The diva, currently on guest performances in
Berlin, found an outdoor performance without any stage to be
unreasonable: "Am I a tightrope walker? I will not play!“. She was
finally persuaded with difficulty. She seemed undesirable to the
arch-conservative Tsar because she had sung the Marseillaise on the open
stage in 1848. Her main argument for appearing now was the hope that
Russia might be open to her again in the future. The performance, in
which she recited an excerpt from Jean Racine's Athalie, was a success,
the king and court society congratulated her, and the tsar invited her,
as hoped, to St. Petersburg. The event is commemorated on the one hand
by Theodor Fontane in his Havelland volume from the Wanderings through
the Mark Brandenburg, and on the other hand by a marble statuette of the
tragedian created by Bernhard Afinger, a student of the sculptor
Christian Daniel Rauch.
In the decades that followed, the funds for maintenance were cut
several times and the maintenance-intensive areas suffered from the
savings. The rose garden was renovated again in 1870, but soon
undisciplined day trippers caused serious damage here and in the other
areas. After the First World War, the island was the target of purely
commercial interests for a few years. The utilization plans ranged from
the construction of a villa colony to the operation of a private school
with boarding school to a luxury sanatorium for seniors. Only in 1924
such plans became irrelevant and the decline of the island was over. On
February 28, 1924, the island received the status of a nature reserve on
the basis of a study written by Wolfgang Stichel in 1922 about the flora
and fauna of the Pfaueninsel that are worthy of protection.
On
the occasion of the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, the National
Socialists chose Peacock Island as the venue for a festive spectacle,
and on August 15 the conclusion of the Games was celebrated with an
Italian Night. Pioneers had laid a ship bridge to the island, young
girls in Renaissance costumes served as pages, the opera ballet danced
by torchlight, there were garlands of lanterns everywhere in the trees,
and the event ended with fireworks – according to the will of the host
Goebbels, the largest in the world had ever seen. A total of 1,000
celebrities were on the guest list: a king and a duke, several crown
princes, lords and ladies, the International Olympic Committee and the
German Reich government, a number of ambassadors, not least Mussolini's
sons. Some guests were embarrassed by the effort put on display. The
sprawling, noisy fireworks aroused unpleasant associations. French
Ambassador André François-Poncet noted: "The crackling rockets gave the
impression of a massive artillery fire", American Ambassador William
Dodd noted that "many people complained about this form of wartime
propaganda". But the fascist organizers were satisfied with the festival
and the games as a whole; they owed them a remarkable propaganda
success.
With a brief episode, the Peacock Island was then
involved in the downfall of the National Socialist regime. Berlin had
already been largely conquered by the Red Army, and the city's
capitulation was imminent. In this absolutely hopeless situation, on
April 29, 1945, two small troops of soldiers were marched out of the
Führer bunker one after the other. They were supposed to make their way
to Peacock Island to deliver Hitler's messages to two planes that had
been ordered there to get the documents out of town. The papers were the
"political testament" of Hitler, who committed suicide a day later, and
an urgent call for help to General Walther Wenck, commander of the 12th
Army, which was already on its way west at the time. to surrender to the
Americans. The messengers from the bunker did reach Peacock Island;
nevertheless, the enterprise failed in the confusion of the last days of
the war. At night and under Russian fire, the first machine had to start
again in a hurry, another one came too late - the bearers of the news
had already left the island. The campaign did not affect the outcome of
the war and the end of the National Socialist era.
In 1811 there was a first ferry connection
from the mainland to Peacock Island. It was not until 1821 that a public
ferry was established as the island was opened to visitors on Tuesdays
through Thursdays. There was also a pleasure boat from Potsdam to
Peacock Island. The wooden boat, put into service in 1905 for the
purpose of the ferry connection, sank in 1945, badly damaged. In 1948 it
was raised and in 1950 the ferry service could be reopened. In the same
year, an application was made for the establishment of a ferry service
between the Kladower excursion restaurant Brüningslinden and the
Pfaueninsel, which was rejected because of low profitability and the
route too close to the border installations. In 1956 a cable ferry for a
maximum of two vehicles and 60 people was set up between Nikolskoer Weg
and Pfaueninsel, which was replaced in 1968 by a new motorized car
ferry.
The small passenger ferry Louise (built in 1968), which
takes 25 people, and a twenty ton (22 meter) wagon ferry, which can
carry one car and 150 people, operate between the mainland and the
island. The ferry is operated by the Prussian Palaces and Gardens
Foundation and operates during the day. A new ferry (built in 2011) has
been operating since 2011, which - like the old one - can transport
people and vehicles.
The Peacock
Island originally consisted of two parts: a larger South Island and a
smaller North Island. The pike spawning meadow to the east of today's
Parschenkessel bay is the moored part of the former gully. Although the
island was inhabited as early as the Bronze Age, nature was left to its
own devices for a long time. The island was first used for agriculture
around 1683 for rabbit breeding and later as a leased Hutewald. The
dairy, built in 1795 as part of the construction of the castle in the
northern part of the island, still uses the surrounding areas for animal
husbandry. From the menagerie of exotic animals that used to be on the
island, only the peacocks associated with the island by name are settled
today. In the immediate vicinity of Pfaueninsel Palace, the Round Garden
and the Rose Garden are horticulturally tended. Like the rest of the
island, they are part of the landscape park designed by Lenné. Lenné's
concept envisaged the preservation of the old tree population for large
parts of the island, so that in addition to a well thought-out network
of paths, the main intervention by the garden architect in the nature of
the island was primarily due to the lines of sight that have been
preserved to this day.
After there had been plans at the
beginning of the 20th century to build villas on the Pfaueninsel similar
to the Havelinsel Schwanenwerder, the entomologist Wolfgang Stichel,
together with the state agency for the preservation of natural
monuments, succeeded on February 28, 1924 in making the island one of
the first nature reserves in Berlin to report. This measure was
justified with the occurrence of rare plants and bird breeding grounds
worthy of protection. The currently valid ordinance dates from June 28,
1941. Today, as a Natura 2000 area according to the Fauna-Flora-Habitat
Directive, the island is part of the Western Düppeler Forest Special
Protection Area. The nature reserve covers 88.3 hectares, with 68
hectares being the island's land area and the rest being the surrounding
shore and peri-island water area.
Much of the island is forest.
The remarkable trees include the oaks, some of which are several hundred
years old and some of which are also freestanding. Above all, the
partially or completely dead trees offer ideal habitats for birds and
insects, mosses, lichens and fungi. For example, the rare beetle species
Eremit and Großer Eichenbock can be found here. In addition to oaks and
other native tree species, there are numerous exotic trees on the island
that date back to 19th century plantings. These trees include the
ginkgo, Colorado fir, swamp oak, tulip tree, and white mulberry. A
Lebanon cedar that is well over 100 years old, originally a gift from
the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Abdülhamid II, to Kaiser Wilhelm II,
fell victim to Hurricane Kyrill in January 2007 and was later replaced
by a new planting.
In addition to forest areas, meadows are part
of the landscape of the island. Created as part of Lenné's landscape
planning, dry sandy grassland with typical plants such as early sedge,
common thrift, heather pink or robber-leaved Schauf's fescue can often
be found here. Plants such as speedwell, blue-green iris, spring sedge
or Carthusian carnation, which prefer base-rich soils, are rarer on the
island. In addition, there are characteristic heather plants such as
broom, heather and juniper in the area of the heath meadow. The boggy
isthmus in the north of the island, known as the pike spawning meadow,
is now a wet meadow. The flora of this area includes the golden sedge,
the marsh sedge, the stiff sedge, the bank sedge, the cuckoo campion,
the reed canary grass, the reed, the marsh fern, the marsh pea and the
water swath. At the edge of the pike spawning meadow there are also
specimens of eyebright, rattlesnakes, leeks, long-leaved loosestrife and
lady's grass.
In the flat areas of the shore zones belonging to
the nature reserve, reed beds are part of the landscape. The species
found there include the brown stinging nettle, the reed nettle and the
marsh pond thread. The reed beds are a preferred breeding ground for
various bird species, such as the reed warbler or the great reed
warbler. Other bird species found on Peacock Island are the black kite,
spotted woodpecker, black woodpecker, green woodpecker, middle
woodpecker, lesser woodpecker, cormorant, nightingale and oriole,
occasionally a white-tailed eagle resident in the Unterhavel area.
The historic buildings of the island are not only part of the world
cultural heritage, but also serve as a habitat for various animal
species. Bats like the greater mouse-eared bat or the water bat use the
buildings as winter quarters.
The appearance of Peacock Island has not changed significantly in
decades. Gardening and construction efforts are constantly required to
preserve the historical structures and, in individual cases, to restore
them. It is based on the time around 1835, the heyday of the island.
Currently, the traditionally free-roaming peacocks are back on the
island. Their number is given in different sources with 35-100.
As it has been since 1821, the island is still a popular destination
today. It can only be reached via a narrow arm of water by ferry, which
normally runs every 15 minutes, but more often if there is a large
number of people. Cars and bicycles are only allowed for the few
permanent residents of the island, for visitors' vehicles there is a
parking lot at the jetty on the mainland.
To protect the island
and its facilities, there are stricter park regulations than in other
parks of the foundation. It prohibits, among other things, bringing dogs
or other animals, bicycles, inline skates and skateboards, smoking,
leaving the paths, fishing or swimming, skiing, making fires, trading or
holding demonstrations. In the case of gross violations, there is a risk
of being expelled from the island.
A description of the clockwise circumnavigation of the island may be as follows. From the southern ferry terminal, the path leads past the castellan's apartment to a garden that opens onto Pfaueninsel Castle. From there there is a view of peacocks and the Havel. Then the circular path opens up to the former palm house, the floor plan of which is only marked by four stone pillars. Various foliage plants are still cultivated within this marker. This is followed by the Parschenkesselbucht with a wide reed belt and wild waterfowl. It goes to the Dutch house from 1802, which is located in the northern part of the island and is used as a stable for cattle. On the way back from the circular route, the Meierei is passed in the form of an artificial ruin of a medieval abbey. From here there is a direct line of sight to the Luisentemple in the form of a Greek temple. The shaggy black cattle graze in a wetland between the dairy and the Luisentemple. Further on the path passes a grove with large acorns modeled in stone and the terrain of the alchemist Johannes Kunckel, who invented the ruby red glass. After crossing two bridges, you will reach the "Beelitzer Jagdschirm" located directly on the shore, a bark-clad shelter the dimensions of a large hunting lodge. From its protection, the royal hunting rounds shot the waterfowl. In terms of "closeness to nature", this was already a clear departure from the battue. Also on the shore, the Frigate Port is a building to protect the small-scale replica frigate named Royal Louise. Slightly uphill, the path touches the aviaries, nursery and rose garden and leads back to the ferry dock. The aviaries are mainly used to protect the young peacocks so that they do not fall victim to foxes.
literary memories
"A trip to Peacock Island was considered by the
Berliners to be the most beautiful family celebration of the year, and
the young people felt extremely happy to see the cheerful leaps of the
monkeys, the funny clumsiness of the bears, the strange hopping of the
kangaroos here. The tropical plants were admired with many an alas of
delight. One dreamed of being in India and saw, with a mixture of joy
and horror, the southern animal world, alligators and snakes, yes, the
wonderful chameleon, which often seemed to reflect all the colors of the
blooming surroundings in opalescent colors."
– August Kopisch:
History of the royal palaces and gardens in Potsdam (published in 1854)
"Peacock Island! A picture from my childhood days rises before me
like a fairy tale: a castle, palm trees and kangaroos; parrots screech;
Peacocks sit on high perches or wheel around, aviaries, fountains,
shaded meadows; meandering paths that go everywhere and nowhere; an
enigmatic island, an oasis, a carpet of flowers in the midst of the
Mark.”
– Theodor Fontane: Walks through the Mark Brandenburg. Third
volume: Havelland (published 1873)
Peacock Island as a film
backdrop
Exterior shots for the Edgar Wallace films The Door with the
Seven Locks (1962), The Witcher's News (1965), The Monk with the Whip
(1967), The Dog from Blackwood Castle (1968) were made on Peacock Island
in the 1960s. and The Uncanny (1968). In addition to the English
landscape park, the Kavaliershaus often served as a backdrop for outdoor
shots, as its architecture is reminiscent of English country houses. In
2005, Peacock Island served as the backdrop for Verliebt in Berlin.
Stamp motifs
As part of the Castles and Palaces stamp series, a
20-Pfennig stamp was issued by the Deutsche Bundespost Berlin on April
14, 1977 and one by the Deutsche Bundespost on February 14, 1979 with
the motif of the Peacock Island Castle. On February 16, 1977, both
postal organizations issued a 190-pfennig stamp with the same motif.
The legend of the nuclear power plant on Peacock Island
There are
isolated reports that the Berlin Senate under Willy Brandt considered
building a nuclear power plant on Peacock Island in order to make the
city energy self-sufficient. In fact, from 1959 the state-owned
electricity supplier Bewag pushed ahead with plans for the construction
of a 150-megawatt pressurized water reactor in the western part of the
city. A piece of forest west of the Berlin district of Wannsee was
intended as the location. The "Legend of the nuclear power plant on
Peacock Island" came about when the geographical indication "Wannsee
Island" was confused with Peacock Island.