Cecilienhof
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Cecilienhof Palace () is a palace in
Potsdam Potsdam () is the capital and largest city of the Germany, German States of Germany, state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the Havel, River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...
,
Brandenburg Brandenburg, officially the State of Brandenburg, is a States of Germany, state in northeastern Germany. Brandenburg borders Poland and the states of Berlin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony. It is the List of Ger ...
,
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
, built from 1914 to 1917 in the layout of an English Tudor manor house. Cecilienhof was the last palace built by the
House of Hohenzollern The House of Hohenzollern (, ; , ; ) is a formerly royal (and from 1871 to 1918, imperial) German dynasty whose members were variously princes, Prince-elector, electors, kings and emperors of Hohenzollern Castle, Hohenzollern, Margraviate of Bran ...
that ruled the
Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (, ) was a German state that existed from 1701 to 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Rev. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946. It played a signif ...
and the
German Empire The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...
, until the end of
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
. It is famous for having been the location of the Potsdam Conference in 1945, in which the leaders of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States made important decisions affecting the shape of post-World War II Europe and Asia. Cecilienhof has been part of the Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin UNESCO
World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...
, since 1990. It closed to the public on 1 November 2024, for renovations.


Location

Cecilienhof is located in the northern part of the large '' Neuer Garten'' park, close to the shore of the '' Jungfernsee'' lake. The park was laid out from 1787 at the behest of King Frederick William II of Prussia, modelled on the Wörlitz Park in Anhalt-Dessau. Frederick William II also had the Marmorpalais (''Marble Palace'') built within the ''Neuer Garten'', the first Brandenburg palace in the Neoclassical style erected, according to plans designed by Carl von Gontard and
Carl Gotthard Langhans Carl Gotthard Langhans (15 December 1732 – 1 October 1808) was a Prussian master builder and royal architect. His churches, palaces, grand houses, interiors, city gates and theatres in Silesia (now Poland), Berlin, Potsdam and elsewhere belo ...
, which was finished in 1793. Other structures within the park close to Schloss Cecilienhof include an orangery, an artificial grotto ('), the "Gothic Library", and the Dairy in the New Garden, also constructed for king Frederick William II. The park was largely redesigned as an
English landscape garden The English landscape garden, also called English landscape park or simply the English garden (, , , , ), is a style of "landscape" garden which emerged in England in the early 18th century, and spread across Europe, replacing the more formal ...
according to plans by Peter Joseph Lenné from 1816 onwards, with lines of sight to nearby Pfaueninsel, Glienicke Palace, Babelsberg Palace, and the Sacrow Church.


Construction

Since the Marmorpalais, which had been the traditional Potsdam residence of the Hohenzollern crown prince, had become inadequate for current tastes, Emperor Wilhelm II ordered the establishment of a fund for constructing a new palace at Potsdam for his oldest son, Crown Prince Wilhelm (William) and his wife, Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin on 19 December 1912. After their marriage in 1905, Wilhelm and Cecilie had previously lived at the Marmorpalais for most of the year and at the Berlin '' Kronprinzenpalais'' in winter. In 1911, the Crown Prince had been appointed commander of the Prussian ''1. Leibhusaren-Regiment'' and moved to Danzig-Langfuhr. On 13 April 1914 the Imperial Ministry and the ''Saalecker Werkstätten'' signed a building contract that envisaged a completion date of 1 October 1915 and a construction cost of 1,498,000 Reichsmark for the new palace. The architect was Paul Schultze-Naumburg, who visited the couple in Danzig to work out the design for the palace. It was based on English Tudor style buildings, arranged around several courtyards featuring half-timbered walls, bricks and 55 different decorative chimney stacks. With the start of World War I in August 1914, construction stopped but was resumed in 1915.


Architecture and interior design

Crown Prince Wilhelm was so impressed with cottage and Tudor style homes like Bidston Court in
Birkenhead Birkenhead () is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England. The town is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the west bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liverpool. It lies within the Historic counties of England, historic co ...
(England) that Cecilienhof was inspired by it. Also, due to Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin's family ties, German Tudor-styled Gelbensande Manor near Rostock in Mecklenburg-Schwerin was an inspiration. The palace was designed in such a way as to be inhabitable for most of the year. Its low structure and multiple courts conceal the fact that it boasts a total of 176 rooms. Besides the large ''Ehrenhof'' (three-sided courtyard) in the centre, which was used only for the arrival and departure of the Crown Prince and his wife, there is a smaller garden court, the ''Prinzengarten'', and three other courts around which the various wings of the building are arranged. The "public" rooms were located in the centre part on the ground floor, around a central great hall, while above on the first floor were the "private" bedroom, dressing rooms and bathrooms. The living area of the great hall also features a massive wooden stairway made of oak. This was a gift from the city of Danzig. The ground floor rooms included an area for the Crown Prince with smoking room, library and breakfast room as well as an area for his wife with music salon, writing room and a room designed like a cabin on an ocean liner. The latter was used by Cecilie as a breakfast room. Like some of the other rooms it was designed by Paul Ludwig Troost, who also designed actual interiors of ocean liners for the Norddeutscher Lloyd shipping line.


History


History before 1945

The palace was finished in August 1917. It was named Cecilienhof after the Duchess and the couple moved in immediately. Cecilie gave birth at Cecilienhof to her youngest child, Princess Cecilie, who was born on 5 September 1917. However, when the
revolution In political science, a revolution (, 'a turn around') is a rapid, fundamental transformation of a society's class, state, ethnic or religious structures. According to sociologist Jack Goldstone, all revolutions contain "a common set of elements ...
erupted in November 1918, for security reasons Cecilie and her six children moved for a while to the '' Neues Palais'', where the wife of Emperor Wilhelm II, Empress Augusta Victoria, was living. After the Empress followed her husband into exile in the Netherlands, Cecilie remained in Potsdam and returned to Cecilienhof where she lived until 1920. As the property of the Hohenzollern family had been confiscated after the revolution, Cecilie then had to move her residence to an estate at Oels in Silesia, which was a private property. Only her sons Wilhelm (William) and Louis Ferdinand remained at Cecilienhof while they attended a public ''Realgymnasium'' (school) in Potsdam. Crown Prince Wilhelm had gone into exile in the Netherlands on 13 November 1918 and was interned on the island of Wieringen. He was allowed to return to Germany—as a private citizen—on 9 November 1923. In June 1926, a referendum on expropriating the former ruling Princes of Germany without compensation failed and as a consequence, the financial situation of the Hohenzollern family improved considerably. A settlement between the state and the family made Cecilienhof property of the state but granted a right of residence to Wilhelm and Cecilie. This was limited in duration to three generations. Wilhelm subsequently broke the promise he had made to
Gustav Stresemann Gustav Ernst Stresemann (; 10 May 1878 – 3 October 1929) was a German statesman during the Weimar Republic who served as Chancellor of Germany#First German Republic (Weimar Republic, 1919–1933), chancellor of Germany from August to November 1 ...
, who allowed him to return to Germany, to stay out of politics. He supported the rise to power of
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
, who visited Cecilienhof three times, in 1926, in 1933 (on the "Day of Potsdam") and in 1935. However, when Wilhelm realized that Hitler had no intention of restoring the monarchy, their relationship cooled. After the assassination attempt on 20 July 1944, Hitler had Wilhelm placed under supervision by the
Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...
and had Cecilienhof watched. In January 1945, Wilhelm left Potsdam for Oberstdorf for a treatment of his gall and liver problems. Cecilie fled in early February 1945 as the
Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...
drew closer to Berlin, without being able to salvage much in terms of her possessions. At the end of the war, Cecilienhof was seized by the Soviets.


Potsdam Conference of 1945

The Potsdam Conference (officially the "Berlin Conference") took place from 17 July to 2 August 1945. It was the third and longest summit between the heads of government of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States, the major forces in the anti-Hitler-coalition that had just won the war after VE day, 8 May 1945. The conference was mainly organized by the Soviets. Although the British prime minister
Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...
had refused to hold a summit "anywhere within the current Soviet military zone", US President
Harry Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. As the 34th vice president in 1945, he assumed the presidency upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt that year. Subsequen ...
and Soviet leader Josef Stalin had agreed in late May 1945 to meet "near Berlin". As Berlin itself had been too heavily damaged by Allied bombing and street-to-street fighting, Cecilienhof in Potsdam was selected as the location for the conference. The delegations were to be housed in the leafy suburb of Potsdam-Babelsberg, which had suffered only slight damage in the bombing raids and also offered the advantage that the streets to the conference venue were easy to guard. Soviet soldiers repaired the streets connecting Babelsberg to Cecilienhof, built a pontoon bridge to replace the Glienicker Brücke, which had been destroyed during the last days of the war, planted trees, bushes and flower beds—including the Soviet red star in the ''Ehrenhof'' of the palace. At Cecilienhof, 36 rooms and the great hall were renovated and furnished with furniture from other Potsdam palaces. The furniture of Wilhelm and Cecilie had been removed by the Soviets and stored at the Dairy. The main rooms used for the conference were as follows: * Cecilie's music salon—White Salon, used by the Soviet delegation as a reception room (on the first day of the conference, this was also the site of a buffet Stalin provided to the other delegations), * Cecilie's writing room—Red Salon, used by the Soviet delegation as a study, * Great hall—this was the conference hall, fitted by the Soviets with a round table of 10 feet diameter (probably custom-made by a Moscow-based furniture company), * Wilhelm's smoking room—study of the American delegation, * Wilhelm's library—study of the British delegation, * Wilhelm's breakfast room—possibly used as a secretary's office. However, according to the official guide to the palace, evidence has recently emerged that indicates that the current designation of the British and American studies may have been switched by the Soviets after the conference.


Post World War II and today

After the conference ended, Soviet troops used the palace as a clubhouse. It was handed over to the state of
Brandenburg Brandenburg, officially the State of Brandenburg, is a States of Germany, state in northeastern Germany. Brandenburg borders Poland and the states of Berlin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony. It is the List of Ger ...
and in 1952 a memorial for the Conference was set up in the former private chambers of Wilhelm and Cecilie. The government of Eastern Germany also used the palace as a reception venue for state visits. The rest of the complex became a hotel in 1960. Some of the rooms were used by the ruling party ( SED) for meetings. However, after 1961, a part of the ''Neuer Garten'' was destroyed to build the southwest section of the
Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (, ) was a guarded concrete Separation barrier, barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the East Germany, German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germany). Construction of the B ...
(as part of the '' Grenzsicherungsanlagen''), which ran along the shore of ''Jungfernsee''. Beginning in 1985, the ''VEB Reisebüro'' (state-owned travel agency) modernised the hotel. Today, parts of Cecilienhof are still used as a museum and as a hotel. In 1990, it became part of the UNESCO
World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...
, called Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin. The private rooms were opened to the public in 1995, after comprehensive restoration work.
Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 19268 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. ...
visited Cecilienhof on 3 November 2004. On 30 May 2007, the palace was used for a summit by the G8
foreign minister In many countries, the ministry of foreign affairs (abbreviated as MFA or MOFA) is the highest government department exclusively or primarily responsible for the state's foreign policy and relations, diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral r ...
s. In 2011, Schloss Cecilienhof was awarded the European Heritage Label. The redesigned permanent exhibition on the Potsdam Conference was reopened in April 2012.


References


External links


Cecilienhof Palace – official site
{{Authority control Castles in Brandenburg Palaces in Potsdam Royal residences in Brandenburg Buildings and structures in Potsdam Hotels in Germany Tudor Revival architecture Museums in Potsdam Historic house museums in Germany Houses completed in 1917
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
History museums in Germany World War II sites in Germany 1917 establishments in Germany Wilhelm, German Crown Prince Wilhelm II