BERLIN TIME-TRAVEL: 1931 IN STRESEMANNSTRAßE

Europahaus

Hello Berlin & Beyond!

Nothing like a bit of time-tripping on a sunny Monday in February. Set your time-machine to “Berlin 1931” (still safe despite the brewing storm) and land in Stresemannstraße 92-94 to behold the city’s new (and then the tallest!) building, Europahaus.

Designed by Otto Firle (the man who also gave us the exquisite “Fliegender Kranich” Lufthansa logo) and erected next to the Expressionist cube of the 1926 Deutschlandhaus (now serving as Documentation Centre for Displacement, Expulsion and Reconciliation), it housed a dance hall, a restaurant, and a beer hall (because, you know, Germany) on the ground floor, and offered office space on the ten upper floors.

By the way, both Europahaus and Deutschlandhaus were built on the grounds which used to be belong to the park of Prince-Albrecht-Palais: at the read end of the famous garden.

Gardens of Berlin’s Prinz-Albrecht-Palais in Wilhelmstraße/Anhalter Straße/Königgrattzer Straße seen by Adolph Menzel from his apartment window in 1846 (painting in the collection of Berlin’s Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

The latter - the palace, not the would soon play a very grim role in history. In 1934 the Gestapo, Hitler’s Secret Police, and its head, Heydrich, moved there from Munich. Bombed during WW2 air-raids, the palace and the garden were almost annihilated. But Europahaus, with its massive steel frame and solid construction otherwise, miraculously survived with comparatively little damage.

Today the renovated (and out of necessity refurbished) Europahaus is the seat of, among others, Federal Ministry for Economic Development and Co-operation. And a reminder that the pre-war Berlin was so much more than just the Stadtschloß and the Olympiastadion.

Europahaus - with the famous dance-hall Europa Tanz Pavillon seen from the opposite direction (view south-east) in the 1930s). Photographer unknown.