Haus Vaterland
Encyclopedia
Haus Vaterland was a pleasure palace on the southwest side of Potsdamer Platz
in central Berlin
. Preceded by Haus Potsdam, a multi-use building including a large cinema and a huge cafe, from 1928 to 1943 it was a large, famous establishment including the largest cafe in the world, a major cinema and numerous theme restaurants, promoted as a showcase of all nations. It was partially destroyed by fire in World War II
, reopened in a limited form until 1953, and was finally demolished in 1976.
, who was also the architect of the Anhalter Bahnhof
and the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church
, and constructed between 1911 and 1912 as Haus Potsdam. It was primarily an office building; from 1917 or 1919 until 1927 Universum Film AG
or UfA, which owned the site, was headquartered there; but the lower floors contained a 1,196-seat cinema, called the Lichtspieltheater im Piccadillyhaus or the Kammerlichtspiele im Haus Potsdam (Cinematograph in the Piccadilly House, Moving Pictures in Haus Potsdam), and the Café Piccadilly. The building was faced with sandstone and gave the impression of masonry, but had a steel frame and the cinema space was spanned by five girders. At the northern end, facing the square, was a circular pavilion topped by a copper dome rising 35 metres above the pavement, with a row of Attic
statues beneath it; this was essentially a recreation of the mausoleum of the Ostrogoth
ic king Theodoric the Great
in Ravenna
. The cafe entrance was on the bottom two floors of this section. Behind it, a long, narrow section in a simplified Wilhelmine
architectural style, with a mansard roof
, extended some 100 metres alongside the Potsdamer Bahnhof
.
The Café Piccadilly could accommodate some 2,500 guests and was lavishly decorated with wall and ceiling paintings and Sienese
marble. Operated by Heinrich Braun, it was an attraction comparable to the Moulin Rouge
in Paris, drawing "white collar workers, business people and tourists" by day, "amusement seekers, restaurant and variety patrons and also prostitutes" at night. One of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
's Street Scenes cycle of paintings, Potsdamer Platz in Berlin (1914), depicts two prostitutes on a traffic island in front of the building and the Potsdamer Bahnhof. After World War I
began in 1914, it was renamed to the more patriotic Café Vaterland.There is disagreement about the exact new name of the cafe and about when the building was renamed. According to Jeffrey Verhey, The Spirit of 1914: Militarism, Myth and Mobilization in Germany, Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2000, p. 87, Café Piccadilly became Deutsches Café (German Café); according to Werner Hecht, et al., ed., Bertolt Brecht, Werke: grosse kommentierte Berliner und Frankfurter Ausgabe, Volume 1, Stücke I, [East] Berlin: Aufbau/Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1989, ISBN 9783351004026/9783518400616, p. 561 , it became Deutsches Kaffeehaus 'Vaterland' ('Fatherland' German Coffeehouse); according to Mark R. McGee, Berlin: A Visual and Historical Documentation from 1925 to the Present, Woodstock, New York: Overlook, 2002, ISBN 9781585672134, p. 136, it became the Deutsches Cafehaus (German Coffeehouse), and he and Zeitz among others state that the entire building was renamed Haus Vaterland in 1914; Hänsel and Schmitt, p. 193, also implies this, saying that the cinema became the Kammerlichtspiele im Haus Vaterland in 1914, and Kreimeier, p. 43, refers to it as "the Fatherland House (formerly the Piccadilly)" in 1919. However, according to Green, the building was Haus Potsdam for 16 years. Also Elfi Pracht, M. Kempinski & Co., Historische Kommission zu Berlin, Berlin: Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung Beuermann, 1994, ISBN 9783875844580, p. 72 dates the renaming of the building to 1 February 1928.
family of restaurateurs. They had an exclusive contract to provide all food and drink and to manage the business, which became their flagship.A history in Der Spiegel
, "Kino - das grosse Traumgeschäft: Bei der UfA machte man das so ...", 29 November 1950 represents it as a direct sale to Kempinski. In 1928, the building was reopened as Haus Vaterland, based on an idea by Leo Kronau, who had visited Coney Island
in New York
and wanted to emulate the international attractions in the amusement park
s there and improve on Berlin's own imitation, Lunapark. He persuaded the Kempinski
family, who had a 65-year track record of success as restaurateurs in Berlin, to convert Haus Potsdam into a Haus der Nationen (house of nations), and became its first artistic director, arranging entertainment to suit the flavour of each of the gastronomic units.
The architect for the conversion, Carl Stahl-Urach, the architect for Fritz Lang
's Doctor Mabuse
films,McGee, p. 136, describes him as an entrepreneur. modernised the exterior by applying stucco and in particular by wiring the domed section to be illuminated at night as an example of Architecture of the Night
(Architektur der Nacht) or Light Architecture (Licht-Architektur) which also emulated Coney Island lighting effects. The lettering around the rotunda was illuminated, and approximately 4,000 bulbs arranged in intersecting arcs on the dome turned on and off to create the illusion of spinning motion. A reporter in Germania applauded the "Babylonian dome" as irrefutable evidence that "here, world-capital life is pulsing." David Clay Large describes it as "a beacon of commercial kitsch". Inside, the cafe was renovated and the building extended and the cinema moved to make room for a new entrance block in the centre of the building; in the rest of the space, restaurants dedicated to different countries and regions of the world were constructed. Each was decorated appropriately with dioramas up to 6 metres deep, panoramas, and lighting effects, and served appropriate food; it was an early example of modern theme dining or experiential gastronomy. While the main shows took place in the ballroom, each theme restaurant also had musicians of the appropriate origins on staff to complete the dining experience, including at least six dance bands.Green notes (http://books.google.com/books?id=La9PAAAAMAAJ&q=Haus+Vaterland+%22According+to+Fleischer+the+Wild+West+cowboys+were+actual+American+performers,+while+most+of+the+other+entertainers+were+Germans+in+fancy+dress%22&dq=Haus+Vaterland+%22According+to+Fleischer+the+Wild+West+cowboys+were+actual+American+performers,+while+most+of+the+other+entertainers+were+Germans+in+fancy+dress%22&hl=en&ei=HAWzTcWzKoqmsQPmiJnyCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAAp. 223, note 40]) that Richard Fleischer, the artistic director from 1935 to 1943, told him that the Wild West cowboys were Americans, but most of the other performers were Germans playing parts. A central kitchen occupied the entire top floor, connected to the different dining establishments by pneumatic tubes, through which orders came up, and dumbwaiters, by means of which food was sent down and dirty dishes sent back up; conveyor belts at kitchen level transferred the dishes to be machine washed, dried and stacked. The whole was run on American-influenced principles of industrial efficiency. It published a house magazine called Berolina - Latin for Berlin and most famously embodied in the statue in the Alexanderplatz
.
It was an enormous and popular establishment, and like Haus Potsdam before it, is frequently alluded to in both artistic and tourist contexts, for example in Irmgard Keun
's 1932 novel Das kunstseidene Mädchen (The Artificial Silk Girl). Its combination of spectacle, variety performances, international dining and cinema was unique. Large sees it as having been "a kind of proto-Disney World". The building could accommodate up to 8,000 people; the 4,454 square metres of theme restaurants had a capacity of 3,500 people and Café Vaterland was the largest in the world; the one millionth guest was recorded in October 1929, barely a year after the opening.
. In 1943 the building was damaged, particularly in the central section, in the raid on the night of 22 November that destroyed much of the centre of the city. On 2 February 1945 it was bombed out, only the walls left standing.
's Columbushaus
, during the East German strike and protest
. It was then left in ruins, the windows simply being walled up. It was adjacent to the Berlin wall
after its construction in 1961. In 1966 Der Spiegel
described the desolation of the Potsdamer Platz during those years, with birch trees growing out of the rubble of what had been the busiest traffic intersection in Europe and kestrel
s nesting in the ruin of Haus Vaterland and hunting rats which emerged from locked S-Bahn
entrances.
In 1972, the Senate of West Berlin bought the building as part of 8.5 hectares of land to build a road, and had it demolished in 1976. The 600 tonnes of iron and steel were sold as scrap.
Ironically, when Potsdamer Platz was rebuilt after German reunification
, the site of Haus Vaterland was the only parcel on which no entertainment facility was sited, only offices, because it was felt to be too small. The building abutting the square was given a semi-circular façade in homage to the round section of the building which had once stood there.
said, "Haus Vaterland includes the entire globe". He also pointed out the contrast between the "exaggerated" New Objectivity
in the style of the "immense" lobby and the "luxuriant sentimentality" of the dining establishments as little as one step away. To Franz Hessel
, it was a "perfectly planned city of entertainment" which demonstrated the nascent totalitarianism of "monster Germany". Sydney Clark summed it up in his guide for British tourists as a must-see because it typified Berlin:
The original attractions were:
. It was decorated with silver palm fronds and sculptures by Josef Thorak
, who was to be popular during the Nazi era. Jazzmeister Bill Bartholomew led the house dance band and the "Vaterland-Girls" performed.
, on the third floor. The menu included Sachertorte
prepared from the authentic recipe; the Kempinskis had an exclusive licence to offer it in Berlin. Guests sampled the new wine looking out at the steeple of St. Stephen's cathedral against a starry sky, and a tram with interior lights lit crossed the bridge over the Danube
. In the Berliner Tageblatt
, the Austrian writer Arnold Höllriegel declared the place to be far more genuine than the real thing.
and the Lorelei rock
. A troupe of twenty "Rhine maidens" danced between the tables under hoops twined with grape vines. Hourly thunderstorms were created by lighting and sound effects; one American visitor reputedly "beam[ed] like a movie theater façade on Broadway" when told about this. The establishment used the motto:
n bierkeller and looked out on a painted view of the Zugspitze
, behind which diners could watch the sun set. An "original Bavarian band" provided the entertainment.
peasant tavern, on the fifth floor, with gypsy violinists.
, also on the fifth floor. Dancing was to American jazz, and cowboys in full western get-up, some of them black, twirled their lasso
s. Beautiful chorus girls also performed there. Sidney Bechet
played there in the early 1930s, with "The McAllan Blackband", which was led by the Somali-German drummer William 'Willi' Mac Allan, and the "Tom Bill Nigger Band". It was later renamed the Kolonialstube (colonial parlour).
There were no British or French rooms because Kempinski was too patriotic to forgive them for the Treaty of Versailles
. In 1930, the Bodega was relocated to make room for two more regional German rooms:
Galley
, named for the ship-board cooking of the North German seaport.
, near Berlin.
Two small rooms were also added to honour friends of the Third Reich, although before the Tripartite Pact
of 1940:
bar, replacing the Hungarian Czardas.
Reflecting changing political situations, there were also at one point a Russian vodka bar and a French bistro
.
Potsdamer Platz
Potsdamer Platz is an important public square and traffic intersection in the centre of Berlin, Germany, lying about one kilometre south of the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag , and close to the southeast corner of the Tiergarten park...
in central 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...
. Preceded by Haus Potsdam, a multi-use building including a large cinema and a huge cafe, from 1928 to 1943 it was a large, famous establishment including the largest cafe in the world, a major cinema and numerous theme restaurants, promoted as a showcase of all nations. It was partially destroyed by fire in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, reopened in a limited form until 1953, and was finally demolished in 1976.
History
Haus Potsdam
The six-storey building was designed by Franz Heinrich SchwechtenFranz Heinrich Schwechten
Franz Heinrich Schwechten was one of the most famous German architects of his time, and has contributed to the development of the historicist architecture....
, who was also the architect of the Anhalter Bahnhof
Anhalter Bahnhof
The Anhalter Bahnhof is a former railway terminus in Berlin, Germany, approximately 600 metres southeast of Potsdamer Platz. Although the station was closed in 1952, the name lives on in the Berlin S-Bahn station of the same name.- Early days :...
and the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church
Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church
The Protestant Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church is located in Berlin on the Kurfürstendamm in the centre of the Breitscheidplatz. The original church on the site was built in the 1890s. It was badly damaged in a bombing raid in 1943...
, and constructed between 1911 and 1912 as Haus Potsdam. It was primarily an office building; from 1917 or 1919 until 1927 Universum Film AG
Universum Film AG
Universum Film AG, better known as UFA or Ufa, is a film company that was the principal film studio in Germany, home of the German film industry during the Weimar Republic and through World War II, and a major force in world cinema from 1917 to 1945...
or UfA, which owned the site, was headquartered there; but the lower floors contained a 1,196-seat cinema, called the Lichtspieltheater im Piccadillyhaus or the Kammerlichtspiele im Haus Potsdam (Cinematograph in the Piccadilly House, Moving Pictures in Haus Potsdam), and the Café Piccadilly. The building was faced with sandstone and gave the impression of masonry, but had a steel frame and the cinema space was spanned by five girders. At the northern end, facing the square, was a circular pavilion topped by a copper dome rising 35 metres above the pavement, with a row of Attic
Attic style
In classical architecture, the term attic refers to a story or low wall above the cornice of a classical façade. This usage originated in the 17th century from the use of Attica style pilasters as adornments on the top story's façade...
statues beneath it; this was essentially a recreation of the mausoleum of the Ostrogoth
Ostrogoth
The Ostrogoths were a branch of the Goths , a Germanic tribe who developed a vast empire north of the Black Sea in the 3rd century AD and, in the late 5th century, under Theodoric the Great, established a Kingdom in Italy....
ic king Theodoric the Great
Theodoric the Great
Theodoric the Great was king of the Ostrogoths , ruler of Italy , regent of the Visigoths , and a viceroy of the Eastern Roman Empire...
in Ravenna
Ravenna
Ravenna is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy and the second largest comune in Italy by land area, although, at , it is little more than half the size of the largest comune, Rome...
. The cafe entrance was on the bottom two floors of this section. Behind it, a long, narrow section in a simplified Wilhelmine
Wilhelminism
The Wilhelmine Period comprises the period between 1890 and 1918, embracing the reign of Wilhelm II and the First World War. By Wilhelminism is not meant a conception of society associated with the name Wilhelm, and traceable to an intellectual initiative of the German Emperor...
architectural style, with a mansard roof
Mansard roof
A mansard or mansard roof is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterized by two slopes on each of its sides with the lower slope at a steeper angle than the upper that is punctured by dormer windows. The roof creates an additional floor of habitable space, such as a garret...
, extended some 100 metres alongside the Potsdamer Bahnhof
Berlin Potsdamer Bahnhof
The Potsdamer Bahnhof is a former railway terminus in Berlin, Germany. It was located at Potsdamer Platz, about 1 km south of the Brandenburg Gate, and kick-started the transformation of Potsdamer Platz from an area of quiet villas near the south-east corner of the Tiergarten into the bustling...
.
The Café Piccadilly could accommodate some 2,500 guests and was lavishly decorated with wall and ceiling paintings and Sienese
Siena
Siena is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena.The historic centre of Siena has been declared by UNESCO a World Heritage Site. It is one of the nation's most visited tourist attractions, with over 163,000 international arrivals in 2008...
marble. Operated by Heinrich Braun, it was an attraction comparable to the Moulin Rouge
Moulin Rouge
Moulin Rouge is a cabaret built in 1889 by Joseph Oller, who also owned the Paris Olympia. Close to Montmartre in the Paris district of Pigalle on Boulevard de Clichy in the 18th arrondissement, it is marked by the red windmill on its roof. The closest métro station is Blanche.The Moulin Rouge is...
in Paris, drawing "white collar workers, business people and tourists" by day, "amusement seekers, restaurant and variety patrons and also prostitutes" at night. One of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was a German expressionist painter and printmaker and one of the founders of the artists group Die Brücke or "The Bridge", a key group leading to the foundation of Expressionism in 20th century art. He volunteered for army service in the First World War, but soon suffered a...
's Street Scenes cycle of paintings, Potsdamer Platz in Berlin (1914), depicts two prostitutes on a traffic island in front of the building and the Potsdamer Bahnhof. After World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
began in 1914, it was renamed to the more patriotic Café Vaterland.There is disagreement about the exact new name of the cafe and about when the building was renamed. According to Jeffrey Verhey, The Spirit of 1914: Militarism, Myth and Mobilization in Germany, Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2000, p. 87, Café Piccadilly became Deutsches Café (German Café); according to Werner Hecht, et al., ed., Bertolt Brecht, Werke: grosse kommentierte Berliner und Frankfurter Ausgabe, Volume 1, Stücke I, [East] Berlin: Aufbau/Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1989, ISBN 9783351004026/9783518400616, p. 561 , it became Deutsches Kaffeehaus 'Vaterland' ('Fatherland' German Coffeehouse); according to Mark R. McGee, Berlin: A Visual and Historical Documentation from 1925 to the Present, Woodstock, New York: Overlook, 2002, ISBN 9781585672134, p. 136, it became the Deutsches Cafehaus (German Coffeehouse), and he and Zeitz among others state that the entire building was renamed Haus Vaterland in 1914; Hänsel and Schmitt, p. 193, also implies this, saying that the cinema became the Kammerlichtspiele im Haus Vaterland in 1914, and Kreimeier, p. 43, refers to it as "the Fatherland House (formerly the Piccadilly)" in 1919. However, according to Green, the building was Haus Potsdam for 16 years. Also Elfi Pracht, M. Kempinski & Co., Historische Kommission zu Berlin, Berlin: Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung Beuermann, 1994, ISBN 9783875844580, p. 72 dates the renaming of the building to 1 February 1928.
Haus Vaterland
Haus Potsdam became less successful during the 1920s, and in 1927 was sold to the Bank für Handel und Grundbesitz, which leased it for ten years to the KempinskiKempinski
Kempinski Hotels S.A. is a luxury hotel group. Kempinski Hotels, the trading name for Kempinski Hotels S.A., is an independent Swiss delisted S.A., which is involved in a number of luxury hotel and hospitality related businesses, including conference, catering and hotel supplies.Kempinski Hotels...
family of restaurateurs. They had an exclusive contract to provide all food and drink and to manage the business, which became their flagship.A history in Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. It is one of Europe's largest publications of its kind, with a weekly circulation of more than one million.-Overview:...
, "Kino - das grosse Traumgeschäft: Bei der UfA machte man das so ...", 29 November 1950 represents it as a direct sale to Kempinski. In 1928, the building was reopened as Haus Vaterland, based on an idea by Leo Kronau, who had visited Coney Island
Coney Island
Coney Island is a peninsula and beach on the Atlantic Ocean in southern Brooklyn, New York, United States. The site was formerly an outer barrier island, but became partially connected to the mainland by landfill....
in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
and wanted to emulate the international attractions in the amusement park
Amusement park
thumb|Cinderella Castle in [[Magic Kingdom]], [[Disney World]]Amusement and theme parks are terms for a group of entertainment attractions and rides and other events in a location for the enjoyment of large numbers of people...
s there and improve on Berlin's own imitation, Lunapark. He persuaded the Kempinski
Kempinski
Kempinski Hotels S.A. is a luxury hotel group. Kempinski Hotels, the trading name for Kempinski Hotels S.A., is an independent Swiss delisted S.A., which is involved in a number of luxury hotel and hospitality related businesses, including conference, catering and hotel supplies.Kempinski Hotels...
family, who had a 65-year track record of success as restaurateurs in Berlin, to convert Haus Potsdam into a Haus der Nationen (house of nations), and became its first artistic director, arranging entertainment to suit the flavour of each of the gastronomic units.
The architect for the conversion, Carl Stahl-Urach, the architect for Fritz Lang
Fritz Lang
Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute...
's Doctor Mabuse
Doctor Mabuse
Doctor Mabuse is a fictional character created by Norbert Jacques in the novel Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler, and made famous by the three movies director Fritz Lang made about the character; see Dr. Mabuse the Gambler. Although the character was designed deliberately to mimic pulp magazine-style...
films,McGee, p. 136, describes him as an entrepreneur. modernised the exterior by applying stucco and in particular by wiring the domed section to be illuminated at night as an example of Architecture of the Night
Architecture of the night
Architecture of the night or nocturnal architecture, also referred to as illuminated architecture and, particularly in German, light architecture, is architecture designed to maximize the effect of night lighting, which may include lights from within the building, lights on the facade or outlining...
(Architektur der Nacht) or Light Architecture (Licht-Architektur) which also emulated Coney Island lighting effects. The lettering around the rotunda was illuminated, and approximately 4,000 bulbs arranged in intersecting arcs on the dome turned on and off to create the illusion of spinning motion. A reporter in Germania applauded the "Babylonian dome" as irrefutable evidence that "here, world-capital life is pulsing." David Clay Large describes it as "a beacon of commercial kitsch". Inside, the cafe was renovated and the building extended and the cinema moved to make room for a new entrance block in the centre of the building; in the rest of the space, restaurants dedicated to different countries and regions of the world were constructed. Each was decorated appropriately with dioramas up to 6 metres deep, panoramas, and lighting effects, and served appropriate food; it was an early example of modern theme dining or experiential gastronomy. While the main shows took place in the ballroom, each theme restaurant also had musicians of the appropriate origins on staff to complete the dining experience, including at least six dance bands.Green notes (http://books.google.com/books?id=La9PAAAAMAAJ&q=Haus+Vaterland+%22According+to+Fleischer+the+Wild+West+cowboys+were+actual+American+performers,+while+most+of+the+other+entertainers+were+Germans+in+fancy+dress%22&dq=Haus+Vaterland+%22According+to+Fleischer+the+Wild+West+cowboys+were+actual+American+performers,+while+most+of+the+other+entertainers+were+Germans+in+fancy+dress%22&hl=en&ei=HAWzTcWzKoqmsQPmiJnyCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAAp. 223, note 40]) that Richard Fleischer, the artistic director from 1935 to 1943, told him that the Wild West cowboys were Americans, but most of the other performers were Germans playing parts. A central kitchen occupied the entire top floor, connected to the different dining establishments by pneumatic tubes, through which orders came up, and dumbwaiters, by means of which food was sent down and dirty dishes sent back up; conveyor belts at kitchen level transferred the dishes to be machine washed, dried and stacked. The whole was run on American-influenced principles of industrial efficiency. It published a house magazine called Berolina - Latin for Berlin and most famously embodied in the statue in the Alexanderplatz
Alexanderplatz
Alexanderplatz is a large public square and transport hub in the central Mitte district of Berlin, near the Fernsehturm. Berliners often call it simply Alex, referring to a larger neighborhood stretching from Mollstraße in the northeast to Spandauer Straße and the City Hall in the southwest.-Early...
.
It was an enormous and popular establishment, and like Haus Potsdam before it, is frequently alluded to in both artistic and tourist contexts, for example in Irmgard Keun
Irmgard Keun
Irmgard Keun was a German author noteworthy both for her portrayals of life in the Weimar Republic as well as the early years of the Nazi Germany era.-Biography:...
's 1932 novel Das kunstseidene Mädchen (The Artificial Silk Girl). Its combination of spectacle, variety performances, international dining and cinema was unique. Large sees it as having been "a kind of proto-Disney World". The building could accommodate up to 8,000 people; the 4,454 square metres of theme restaurants had a capacity of 3,500 people and Café Vaterland was the largest in the world; the one millionth guest was recorded in October 1929, barely a year after the opening.
Third Reich and World War II
In the Nazi years, the mix of restaurants was modified and the Jewish Kempinskis had to sell the building for a pittance to "Aryans" and leave the country. A 1936 French film, Les Loups entre eux (English title: The Sequel to Second Bureau), features scenes in Haus Vaterland, including "the Horst Wessel song booming from the loud-speaker". The business continued to host throngs of customers even after Berlin began to suffer heavy bombing by the AlliesBombing of Berlin
Berlin, the capital of Nazi Germany, was subject to 363 air raids during the Second World War. It was bombed by the RAF Bomber Command between 1940 and 1945, and by the USAAF Eighth Air Force between 1943 and 1945, as part of the Allied campaign of strategic bombing of Germany...
. In 1943 the building was damaged, particularly in the central section, in the raid on the night of 22 November that destroyed much of the centre of the city. On 2 February 1945 it was bombed out, only the walls left standing.
Under occupation
After the war, Potsdamer Platz was the centre from which the four Allied occupation zones were demarcated. The ruined Haus Vaterland was in the Russian sector, but had doors to both the British and the American. In 1947, Café Vaterland was reopened in an acclaimed gesture of will to rebuild the city, and in 1948 the Communist cabaret Frischer Wind was playing there, while because of its position on the sector lines, it was a hotbed of spying, flight from the East, and black marketing in currency and goods.Destruction
The building was finally completely burnt out on 17 June 1953, along with Erich MendelsohnErich Mendelsohn
Erich Mendelsohn was a Jewish German architect, known for his expressionist architecture in the 1920s, as well as for developing a dynamic functionalism in his projects for department stores and cinemas.-Early life:...
's Columbushaus
Columbushaus
The Columbushaus was a nine-storey modernist office and shopping building in Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, designed by Erich Mendelsohn and completed in 1932...
, during the East German strike and protest
Uprising of 1953 in East Germany
The Uprising of 1953 in East Germany started with a strike by East Berlin construction workers on June 16. It turned into a widespread anti-Stalinist uprising against the German Democratic Republic government the next day....
. It was then left in ruins, the windows simply being walled up. It was adjacent to the Berlin wall
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...
after its construction in 1961. In 1966 Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. It is one of Europe's largest publications of its kind, with a weekly circulation of more than one million.-Overview:...
described the desolation of the Potsdamer Platz during those years, with birch trees growing out of the rubble of what had been the busiest traffic intersection in Europe and kestrel
Common Kestrel
The Common Kestrel is a bird of prey species belonging to the kestrel group of the falcon family Falconidae. It is also known as the European Kestrel, Eurasian Kestrel, or Old World Kestrel. In Britain, where no other brown falcon occurs, it is generally just called "the kestrel".This species...
s nesting in the ruin of Haus Vaterland and hunting rats which emerged from locked S-Bahn
S-Bahn
S-Bahn refers to an often combined city center and suburban railway system metro in Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Denmark...
entrances.
In 1972, the Senate of West Berlin bought the building as part of 8.5 hectares of land to build a road, and had it demolished in 1976. The 600 tonnes of iron and steel were sold as scrap.
Ironically, when Potsdamer Platz was rebuilt after German reunification
German reunification
German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...
, the site of Haus Vaterland was the only parcel on which no entertainment facility was sited, only offices, because it was felt to be too small. The building abutting the square was given a semi-circular façade in homage to the round section of the building which had once stood there.
Description
Haus Vaterland promised die Welt in einem Haus - "the world in one house". Siegfried KracauerSiegfried Kracauer
Siegfried Kracauer was a German-Jewish writer, journalist, sociologist, cultural critic, and film theorist...
said, "Haus Vaterland includes the entire globe". He also pointed out the contrast between the "exaggerated" New Objectivity
New Objectivity
The New Objectivity is a term used to characterize the attitude of public life in Weimar Germany as well as the art, literature, music, and architecture created to adapt to it...
in the style of the "immense" lobby and the "luxuriant sentimentality" of the dining establishments as little as one step away. To Franz Hessel
Franz Hessel
Franz Hessel was a German writer and translator.With Walter Benjamin, he produced a German translation of Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu....
, it was a "perfectly planned city of entertainment" which demonstrated the nascent totalitarianism of "monster Germany". Sydney Clark summed it up in his guide for British tourists as a must-see because it typified Berlin:
I can think of no better way to top off a Berlin night . . . than an hour or two or three in Haus Vaterland. The place is certainly not "high hat," nor is it low hat, but it is of the very essence of Berlin.
The original attractions were:
Kammerlichtspiele im Haus Vaterland
The cinema, from about 1920 renamed UFA-Haus am Potsdamer Platz, was moved and enlarged to 1,415 seats in Stahl-Urach's renovation. The auditorium was strikingly modern, on a circular plan and with vibrant red carpeting and gold-painted wooden trim on the seats. It was one of five Berlin cinemas Sydney Clark recommended to the American tourist in 1933 as worth seeing (the others being the Titania-Palast, the UFA-Palast am Zoo, the Primus-Palast and the Phoebus Palast).Ballroom
The ballroom, also called the Palmensaal (palm room) was under the dome, and intended as a re-creation of the Garden of EdenGarden of Eden
The Garden of Eden is in the Bible's Book of Genesis as being the place where the first man, Adam, and his wife, Eve, lived after they were created by God. Literally, the Bible speaks about a garden in Eden...
. It was decorated with silver palm fronds and sculptures by Josef Thorak
Josef Thorak
Josef Thorak was an Austrian-German sculptor.In 1922 Thorak's reputation increased when he created Der sterbende Krieger, a statue in memory to the dead of World War I of Stolpmünde.In 1933 and in following years, Thorak joined Arno Breker as one of the two "official sculptors" of the Third Reich...
, who was to be popular during the Nazi era. Jazzmeister Bill Bartholomew led the house dance band and the "Vaterland-Girls" performed.
Grinzinger Heuriger
A re-creation of a Viennese Heuriger in GrinzingGrinzing
Grinzing was an independent municipality until 1892 and is today a part of Döbling, the 19th district of Vienna.- Geography :- Location :...
, on the third floor. The menu included Sachertorte
Sachertorte
Sachertorte is a chocolate cake. It was invented by chance by Austrian Jewish Franz Sacher in 1832 for Klemens Wenzel von Metternich in Vienna, Austria. It is one of the most famous Viennese culinary specialties. The Original Sachertorte is only made in Vienna and Salzburg, and it is shipped from...
prepared from the authentic recipe; the Kempinskis had an exclusive licence to offer it in Berlin. Guests sampled the new wine looking out at the steeple of St. Stephen's cathedral against a starry sky, and a tram with interior lights lit crossed the bridge over the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
. In the Berliner Tageblatt
Berliner Tageblatt
The Berliner Tageblatt or BT was a German language newspaper published in Berlin from 1872-1939. Along with the Frankfurter Zeitung, it became one of the most important liberal German newspapers of its time.-History:...
, the Austrian writer Arnold Höllriegel declared the place to be far more genuine than the real thing.
Rheinterrasse
The Rheinterrasse (Rhine terrace) on the third floor in the circular section of the building, had a diorama to give the illusion of sitting outdoors overlooking the river between Sankt GoarSankt Goar
Sankt Goar is a town on the left bank of the Middle Rhine in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Sankt Goar-Oberwesel, whose seat is in the town of Oberwesel....
and the Lorelei rock
Lorelei
The Lorelei is a rock on the eastern bank of the Rhine near St. Goarshausen, Germany, which soars some 120 metres above the waterline. It marks the narrowest part of the river between Switzerland and the North Sea. A very strong current and rocks below the waterline have caused many boat...
. A troupe of twenty "Rhine maidens" danced between the tables under hoops twined with grape vines. Hourly thunderstorms were created by lighting and sound effects; one American visitor reputedly "beam[ed] like a movie theater façade on Broadway" when told about this. The establishment used the motto:
Haus Vaterland machts gründlich – im Haus Vaterland gewitterts stündlich
(Haus Vaterland does it thoroughly - in Haus Vaterland it storms hourly)Some sources have Im Haus Vaterland ißt man gründlich, hier gewitterts stündlich - In Haus Vaterland one dines thoroughly, here it storms hourly.
Türkisches Café
The Türkisches Café (Turkish cafe), on the fourth floor, had gilded arches and marble floors.Löwenbräu
The Löwenbräu, across from the Türkisches Café on the fourth floor, emulated a BavariaBavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
n bierkeller and looked out on a painted view of the Zugspitze
Zugspitze
The Zugspitze, at 2,962 metres above sea level, is the highest peak of the Wetterstein Mountains as well as the highest mountain in Germany. It lies south of the town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, and the border between Germany and Austria runs over its western summit. South of the mountain is...
, behind which diners could watch the sun set. An "original Bavarian band" provided the entertainment.
Puszta Czardas
A HungarianHungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
peasant tavern, on the fifth floor, with gypsy violinists.
Wild West Bar
A frontier saloon in the Rocky MountainsRocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...
, also on the fifth floor. Dancing was to American jazz, and cowboys in full western get-up, some of them black, twirled their lasso
Lasso
A lasso , also referred to as a lariat, riata, or reata , is a loop of rope that is designed to be thrown around a target and tighten when pulled. It is a well-known tool of the American cowboy. The word is also a verb; to lasso is to successfully throw the loop of rope around something...
s. Beautiful chorus girls also performed there. Sidney Bechet
Sidney Bechet
Sidney Bechet was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer.He was one of the first important soloists in jazz , and was perhaps the first notable jazz saxophonist...
played there in the early 1930s, with "The McAllan Blackband", which was led by the Somali-German drummer William 'Willi' Mac Allan, and the "Tom Bill Nigger Band". It was later renamed the Kolonialstube (colonial parlour).
There were no British or French rooms because Kempinski was too patriotic to forgive them for the Treaty of Versailles
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...
. In 1930, the Bodega was relocated to make room for two more regional German rooms:
Bremer Kombüse
The BremenBremen
The City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A commercial and industrial city with a major port on the river Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan area . Bremen is the second most populous city in North Germany and tenth in Germany.Bremen is...
Galley
Galley (kitchen)
The galley is the compartment of a ship, train or aircraft where food is cooked and prepared. It can also refer to a land based kitchen on a naval base or a particular formed household kitchen.-Ship's kitchen:...
, named for the ship-board cooking of the North German seaport.
Teltower Rübchen
An "old Berlin beerhall" named for the variety of turnips named for TeltowTeltow
Teltow is a town in the Potsdam-Mittelmark district, in Brandenburg, Germany.-Geography:Teltow is part of the agglomeration of Berlin. The distance to the Berlin city centre is , while the distance to Potsdam is ....
, near Berlin.
Two small rooms were also added to honour friends of the Third Reich, although before the Tripartite Pact
Tripartite Pact
The Tripartite Pact, also the Three-Power Pact, Axis Pact, Three-way Pact or Tripartite Treaty was a pact signed in Berlin, Germany on September 27, 1940, which established the Axis Powers of World War II...
of 1940:
Osteria
An ItalianItaly
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
bar, replacing the Hungarian Czardas.
Reflecting changing political situations, there were also at one point a Russian vodka bar and a French bistro
Bistro
A bistro, sometimes spelled bistrot, is, in its original Parisian incarnation, a small restaurant serving moderately priced simple meals in a modest setting. Bistros are defined mostly by the foods they serve. Home cooking with robust earthy dishes, and slow-cooked foods like cassoulet are typical...
.
Sources
- Peter Lummel. "Erlebnisgastronomie um 1900 – Das „Haus Vaterland“ in Berlin". Herbert May and Andrea Schilz, eds. Gasthäuser: Geschichte und Kultur. Arbeit und Leben auf dem Lande 9. Exhibition catalogue, Museen des Ausstellungsverbundes. Petersberg: Imhof, 2004. 193–206.
External links
- Haus Vaterland at PotsdamerPlatz.org
- Haus Vaterland Berlin, documentation by Klaus Lindow, 2006
- Haus Vaterland Berlin, documentation by Klaus Lindow, 2007
- Cross-section of the ruin showing location of the different restaurants, ballroom and cinema on de.wikipedia