The Harnack House in the Dahlem

Dahlem

Dahlem can refer to:*Dahlem , a district of Berlin, part of the borough Steglitz-Zehlendorf.*Dahlem, North Rhine-Westphalia, a municipality in western Germany.*Dahlem, Rhineland-Palatinate, a municipality in south-western Germany....

 district of Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 was opened in 1929 as a centre for German scientific and intellectual life. Located in the intellectual colony of Dahlem, seat for example of the Free University Berlin, it was founded by the Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft (KWG) on the initiative of its first president, the theologian

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

 Adolf von Harnack

Adolf von Harnack

Adolf von Harnack , was a German theologian and prominent church historian.He produced many religious publications from 1873-1912....

, and of its then chairman, Friedrich Glum. The project was supported politically by the Weimar Republic

Weimar Republic

The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...

 Chancellor Wilhelm Marx

Wilhelm Marx

Wilhelm Marx was a German lawyer, Catholic politician and a member of the Centre Party. He was Chancellor of the German Reich twice, from 1923 to 1925 and again from 1926 to 1928, and also served briefly as minister president of Prussia in 1925, during the Weimar Republic.-Life:Born in Cologne to...

 and Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann

Gustav Stresemann

was a German politician and statesman who served as Chancellor and Foreign Minister during the Weimar Republic. He was co-laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926.Stresemann's politics defy easy categorization...

, and an influential Centre Party deputy Georg Schreiber. The land for its construction was donated by the state of Prussia, and the costs of building and furnishing the house were defrayed partly by the government (which contributed 1.5 million marks), and partly by public subscription (which raised about 1.3 million marks).

The original purpose of the Harnack House was to provide a conference centre and visitor accommodation for major events designed to promote German science and overcome the isolation that German academics suffered after the First World War. Many notable German scientists resided or worked there, including Nobel prize

Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...

 winners Fritz Haber

Fritz Haber

Fritz Haber was a German chemist, who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his development for synthesizing ammonia, important for fertilizers and explosives. Haber, along with Max Born, proposed the Born–Haber cycle as a method for evaluating the lattice energy of an ionic solid...

, Otto Hahn

Otto Hahn

Otto Hahn FRS was a German chemist and Nobel laureate, a pioneer in the fields of radioactivity and radiochemistry. He is regarded as "the father of nuclear chemistry". Hahn was a courageous opposer of Jewish persecution by the Nazis and after World War II he became a passionate campaigner...

 and Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...

. After the Nazis' seizure of power in 1933 the House fell under their influence, for example becoming the seat of the Reichsfilmarchiv

Reichsfilmarchiv

The Reichsfilmarchiv was the state film archive of the Germany of the Third Reich. The first German national film archive, it was opened in 1935, and based in Berlin...

. However prominent members of the KWG did not always comply with the Nazi agenda; for example in 1935 the Harnack House was the scene of a major commemoration of the life of Fritz Haber, led by Max Planck

Max Planck

Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck, ForMemRS, was a German physicist who actualized the quantum physics, initiating a revolution in natural science and philosophy. He is regarded as the founder of the quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.-Life and career:Planck came...

, despite the fact that Haber had been exiled by the Nazis because of his Jewish origins. In 1941 Planck in a public lecture at the House warned of the consequences for humanity of attempts to split the atom, despite the ongoing German nuclear energy project

German nuclear energy project

The German nuclear energy project, , was an attempted clandestine scientific effort led by Germany to develop and produce the atomic weapons during the events involving the World War II...

, sponsored by the German government, led by Werner Heisenberg

Werner Heisenberg

Werner Karl Heisenberg was a German theoretical physicist who made foundational contributions to quantum mechanics and is best known for asserting the uncertainty principle of quantum theory...

 and based at one of the KWG institutes.

The House was not significantly damaged in the fall of Berlin in 1945 at the end of the Second World War, and after a short period in Soviet hands it became an officers' mess for the occupying U.S. Army, though because of its historical prestige it was also used for cultural and diplomatic events. In 1994 it was returned to German control and reverted to its original use in the hands of the Max Planck Gesellschaft, the post-war successor organisation to the KWG. It now offers excellent facilities for conferences, with meeting rooms and restaurants, and also accommodation for visitors to the various Max Planck Institutes in Berlin; the architecture and furniture remain in the original style. To provide additional accommodation, the House operates a guest house on the opposite side of the Ihnestrasse from the main building.

External links

• Harnack House official website; most of the information in this article can be found in more detail on this site.
• Google map showing the location of the house
• Veterans' site about US forces' use of the house