3366 x 4207 px | 28,5 x 35,6 cm | 11,2 x 14 inches | 300dpi
Data acquisizione:
30 giugno 2022
Ubicazione:
Villa Schöningen,Potsdam,Brandenburg,Germany
Altre informazioni:
Round concrete structure in garden of Villa Schoningen, 19th-century villa next to the historic Glienicke Bridge & former East-West border. Berliner Strasse 86, Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany Villa Schöningen is a historic building designed by Ludwig Persius in 1843 for the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. It changed hands several times and in 1878 Anna, wife of the banker Hermann Wallich, one of the first Directors of the Deutsche Bank, became the registered owner. In 1913 their son, Paul Wallich, moved into the house and in, 1931, he transferred the property to his non-Jewish wife Hildegard. 56-year-old Paul Wallich took his own life after Kristallnacht on November 11, 1938. His adult children were already living abroad at that time, and his wife Hildegard left the villa in 1939, shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, to visit her family and did not return to Germany. During the Second World War, the house was occupied by the former cook of the Wallich family and the building was used by the Nazis for a time. It served as a Soviet military hospital after the war and became a children's home during the GDR years. When the Berlin Wall was built in 1961, a section of the fortified border system ran along Schwanenallee and a concrete element wall ran parallel to the property on the east side of the house about fifty feet from the front door After reunification, the Wallich heirs had the house reassigned to them and sold the house in 1997 to the Berlin architect Dieter Graalfs. His plans to redevelop the property were rejected by the Potsdam city and in 2007 by the CEO of Axel Springer AG Mathias Döpfner and the banker Leonhard H. Fischer acquired & refurbished the property that is now used as an exhibition space. In 2009, it was reopened after refurbishment and now hosts art exhibitions and presents the history of this place where East once met West.
