Potsdam, Piccadilly and Vaterland: Who and why "rebranded" Berlin's legendary building?

Haus Vaterland around 1925. Photo by unknown. Image inn public domain.

Berlin’s tourist magnet Haus Vaterland at Potsdamer Platz was in fact a revamped version of an older building. Haus Postdam - designed by the architect of the Anhalter Bahnhof, Franz Schwechten - opened in 1912 as an office building and a cinema. It also housed the then largest Berlin cafe and allegedly one of the largest such establishments worldwide: “Cafe Piccadilly” with 2,500 seats for its delighted guests. Located on two floors, including the round front building, its balcony tables (under the house’s characteristic cupola) were immensely popular among them.

The former “Cafe Piccadilly” under its new, more “patriotic” name “Vaterland” Deutsches Kaffeehaus - the name was changed in 1914 but the postcard still bears the date when it was photographed as “Cafe Piccadilly” in 1907.Image in public domain via zeno.org.

With the outbreak of the First World War the cafe - bearing a name inspired by what had become an enemy location (London’s Piccadilly Circus) - it was re-branded to reflect the new approach: all foreign sounding names in languages spoken by Germany’s enemies were to vanish from the city. One of the better-known cases where the change did not take place (it would have produced an unnecessarily comical effect) was "“Chausseestraße” (Straße Straße or Road Straße in German).

The new name of the cafe also inspired the new name of the whole building: Haus Vaterland. In 1928-1929 architect Carl Stahl-Uhr carried out a refurbishment and modernisation, which produced the Haus Vaterland best known from many historic photos and films.

The legendary venue - with 12 bars and restaurants and with what was believed to have been the largest gas-cooker worldwide in the largest mass-kitchen in Europe (to prevent smells from bothering the guests the said kitchen was located in the top floor, right under the roof of the long main section of the building), was gutted by bombs during an Allied air-raid in 1943.

Haus Vaterland on fire after the air-raid in 1943 — one of a series of photos found in a flak bunker in Berlin in the last days of the Second World War. Photographer unknown, image via ullsteinbild.de.

In 1945 it found itself right on the border between the Soviet and the British sectors, belonging to the former. Some of the less damaged rooms were later used as a East-Berlin restaurant, HO Gaststätte Haus Vaterland. Unfortunately, on June 17, 1953 during the dramatic uprising in East Berlin (commemorated by renaming the old Charlottenburger Chaussee into Straße des 17. Juni), arsonists set the remains of the old Haus Vaterland on fire. The ferro-concrete structure survived also this time but the damage was done. East Berlin authorities had the windows bricked-up and the entrances sealed and the building fell into another uneasy slumber.

The border (the early version of the Berlin Wall) between East and West Berlin in 1962: Haus Vaterland was at the time still part of the Soviet Sector. View from Bellevuestraße down Stresemannstraße. Photo by Bernd Sass, image via Landesarchiv Berlin.

In July 1972 during the land-swap between East and West Berlin the ruins of the Haus Vaterland became part of the Western Sector. Plans for a new motorway - a pet project of many West-Berlin politicians at the time - brought the final blow to the building which could have easily been saved (its stability was astounding considering the damage). In 1976 the legend of Berlin’s gastronomy and entertainment as well as one of the most recognisable buildings in the city, Haus Vaterland, was eventually demolished.