Fasanenstrasse synagogue
Encyclopedia
The Fasanenstraße Synagogue was a liberal Jewish
synagogue in Berlin, Germany opened on 26 August 1912. It was located in an affluent neighbourhood of Charlottenburg
on Fasanenstraße off Kurfürstendamm
at numbers 79–80, close to the Berlin Stadtbahn and Zoo Station
.
style with distinctive Byzantine elements and was large enough to accommodate up to 1,720 worshippers. While older synagogues had been erected in courtyards, the temple with its richly decorated frontage was meant as a built statement of the advanced Jewish emancipation
in the German Empire
. A scholar of Progressive Judaism
rabbi Leo Baeck was one of its leaders. Its main cantor for many years was Magnus Davidsohn
and Richard Altmann (who was blind) was its organist.
Emperor Wilhelm II presented the synagogue with a ceremonial marriage hall richly adorned with Maiolica
tiles from his manufacture in Kadyny
, dedicated to the Jews of Germany, and, as Magnus Davidsohn
's daughter, Ilse Stanley
, describes in her book The Unforgotten, visited the temple upon its opening. Kurt Tucholsky
on this occasion criticized a voluntary assimiliation of German Jews while the ruling class had nothing but contempt for them.
The synagogue functioned for only twenty four years until the Nazi
authorities forced it to close in 1936. The building was destroyed during the Kristallnacht pogrom
during the night of 9–10 November 1938. From the Beer Hall Putsch
commemoration in Munich, Minister Joseph Goebbels
personally gave the orders to smash the synagogue, at that time the largest in Berlin. SA
troopers broke into the building, shattered the interior and finally set the synagogue on fire with fuel they got from a nearby filling station—in the presence of the fire department, which confined itself to prevent the flames from spreading to neighbouring houses.
In 1943, the remains of the building were again devastated during an Allied air raid.
, most of the few Jews who returned to Berlin were immigrants from the Eastern Europe
. Chairman Heinz Galinski
promoted the grounds of the former Fasanenstraße Synagogue to be chosen for the building of a new of a Jewish Community Center
(Jüdisches Gemeindehaus Fasanenstraße). On 10 November 1957, the West Berlin
mayor Willy Brandt
attended the ceremony of laying its cornerstone
. The old ruins were removed, but a few surviving elements, such as the main portal, were kept for the decoration of the new building designed in the Modern
style of the 1950s. The Gemeindehaus was inaugurated on September 27, 1959; since 2006 it hosts the Jewish adult education centre and administrative departments as the Community Center has moved to the New Synagogue on Oranienburger Straße.
Liberal Judaism
Liberal Judaism , is one of the two forms of Progressive Judaism found in the United Kingdom, the other being Reform Judaism. Liberal Judaism, which developed at the beginning of the twentieth century is less conservative than UK Reform Judaism...
synagogue in Berlin, Germany opened on 26 August 1912. It was located in an affluent neighbourhood of Charlottenburg
Charlottenburg
Charlottenburg is a locality of Berlin within the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, named after Queen consort Sophia Charlotte...
on Fasanenstraße off Kurfürstendamm
Kurfürstendamm
The Kurfürstendamm, known locally as the Ku'damm, is one of the most famous avenues in Berlin. The street takes its name from the former Kurfürsten of Brandenburg. This very broad, long boulevard can be considered the Champs-Élysées of Berlin — full of shops, houses, hotels and restaurants...
at numbers 79–80, close to the Berlin Stadtbahn and Zoo Station
Berlin Zoologischer Garten railway station
Berlin Zoologischer Garten station was the central transport facility in West Berlin during the division of the city, and thereafter for the western central area of Berlin until opening of the new Berlin Central Station on 28 May 2006...
.
Construction
The synagogue was built from 1910 on in a Neo-RomanesqueRomanesque Revival architecture
Romanesque Revival is a style of building employed beginning in the mid 19th century inspired by the 11th and 12th century Romanesque architecture...
style with distinctive Byzantine elements and was large enough to accommodate up to 1,720 worshippers. While older synagogues had been erected in courtyards, the temple with its richly decorated frontage was meant as a built statement of the advanced Jewish emancipation
Jewish Emancipation
Jewish emancipation was the external and internal process of freeing the Jewish people of Europe, including recognition of their rights as equal citizens, and the formal granting of citizenship as individuals; it occurred gradually between the late 18th century and the early 20th century...
in the German Empire
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
. A scholar of Progressive Judaism
Progressive Judaism
Progressive Judaism , is an umbrella term used by strands of Judaism which affiliate to the World Union for Progressive Judaism. They embrace pluralism, modernity, equality and social justice as core values and believe that such values are consistent with a committed Jewish life...
rabbi Leo Baeck was one of its leaders. Its main cantor for many years was Magnus Davidsohn
Magnus Davidsohn
Magnus Davidsohn was chief cantor of the Fasanenstrasse synagogue from its opening in 1912 until its closing by the Nazis in 1936. A trained opera singer, he played the part of King Heinrich in Gustav Mahler's 1899 production of Lohengrin. After leaving Berlin in 1939, he helped found Belsize...
and Richard Altmann (who was blind) was its organist.
Emperor Wilhelm II presented the synagogue with a ceremonial marriage hall richly adorned with Maiolica
Maiolica
Maiolica is Italian tin-glazed pottery dating from the Renaissance. It is decorated in bright colours on a white background, frequently depicting historical and legendary scenes.-Name:...
tiles from his manufacture in Kadyny
Kadyny
Kadyny is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Tolkmicko, within Elbląg County, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, in northern Poland. It lies on the Vistula Lagoon of the Baltic Sea, approximately south-west of Tolkmicko, north of Elbląg, and north-west of the regional capital Olsztyn...
, dedicated to the Jews of Germany, and, as Magnus Davidsohn
Magnus Davidsohn
Magnus Davidsohn was chief cantor of the Fasanenstrasse synagogue from its opening in 1912 until its closing by the Nazis in 1936. A trained opera singer, he played the part of King Heinrich in Gustav Mahler's 1899 production of Lohengrin. After leaving Berlin in 1939, he helped found Belsize...
's daughter, Ilse Stanley
Ilse Stanley
Ilse Stanley , , was a German Jewish woman who, with the collusion of a handful of people ranging from Nazi members of the Gestapo to other Jewish civilians, secured the release of 412 Jewish prisoners from concentration camps between 1936 and 1938.During that time she also helped countless others...
, describes in her book The Unforgotten, visited the temple upon its opening. Kurt Tucholsky
Kurt Tucholsky
Kurt Tucholsky was a German-Jewish journalist, satirist and writer. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Kaspar Hauser, Peter Panter, Theobald Tiger and Ignaz Wrobel. Born in Berlin-Moabit, he moved to Paris in 1924 and then to Sweden in 1930.Tucholsky was one of the most important journalists of...
on this occasion criticized a voluntary assimiliation of German Jews while the ruling class had nothing but contempt for them.
Closure and Kristallnacht
The synagogue functioned for only twenty four years until the Nazi
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
authorities forced it to close in 1936. The building was destroyed during the Kristallnacht pogrom
Pogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
during the night of 9–10 November 1938. From the Beer Hall Putsch
Beer Hall Putsch
The Beer Hall Putsch was a failed attempt at revolution that occurred between the evening of 8 November and the early afternoon of 9 November 1923, when Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler, Generalquartiermeister Erich Ludendorff, and other heads of the Kampfbund unsuccessfully tried to seize power...
commemoration in Munich, Minister Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
personally gave the orders to smash the synagogue, at that time the largest in Berlin. SA
Sturmabteilung
The Sturmabteilung functioned as a paramilitary organization of the National Socialist German Workers' Party . It played a key role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s...
troopers broke into the building, shattered the interior and finally set the synagogue on fire with fuel they got from a nearby filling station—in the presence of the fire department, which confined itself to prevent the flames from spreading to neighbouring houses.
In 1943, the remains of the building were again devastated during an Allied air raid.
Jewish Community Center
After the HolocaustThe Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
, most of the few Jews who returned to Berlin were immigrants from the Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
. Chairman Heinz Galinski
Heinz Galinski
Heinz Galinski was president of the Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland also known as Central Council of Jews in Germany from 1988 until his death in 1992....
promoted the grounds of the former Fasanenstraße Synagogue to be chosen for the building of a new of a Jewish Community Center
Jewish Community Center
A Jewish Community Center or Jewish Community Centre is a general recreational, social and fraternal organization serving the Jewish community in a number of cities...
(Jüdisches Gemeindehaus Fasanenstraße). On 10 November 1957, the West Berlin
West Berlin
West Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...
mayor Willy Brandt
Willy Brandt
Willy Brandt, born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm , was a German politician, Mayor of West Berlin 1957–1966, Chancellor of West Germany 1969–1974, and leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany 1964–1987....
attended the ceremony of laying its cornerstone
Cornerstone
The cornerstone concept is derived from the first stone set in the construction of a masonry foundation, important since all other stones will be set in reference to this stone, thus determining the position of the entire structure.Over time a cornerstone became a ceremonial masonry stone, or...
. The old ruins were removed, but a few surviving elements, such as the main portal, were kept for the decoration of the new building designed in the Modern
Modern architecture
Modern architecture is generally characterized by simplification of form and creation of ornament from the structure and theme of the building. It is a term applied to an overarching movement, with its exact definition and scope varying widely...
style of the 1950s. The Gemeindehaus was inaugurated on September 27, 1959; since 2006 it hosts the Jewish adult education centre and administrative departments as the Community Center has moved to the New Synagogue on Oranienburger Straße.
Further reading
- Beit HatefutsotBeit HatefutsotBeth Hatefutsoth or Diaspora Museum — the Nahum Goldmann Museum of the Jewish Diaspora, is located on the Tel Aviv University campus in Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel...
- Museum of the Jewish People - Nazi Germany and the Jews, Volume I, by Saul FriedlanderSaul FriedländerSaul Friedländer is an award-winning Israeli historian and currently a professor of history at UCLA.-Biography:...
, published 1997, ISBN 0060928786, soft cover edition page 272. - New Jewish Museum Berlin tells tales of past, present that unfold 2,000-year history of Jews in Germany by Alexandra Wall, September 14, 2001
- Jewish Community Center The Jewish Site of Berlin Jüdisches Gemeindehaus Fasanenstrasse