By |

Weißensee – until 2001 an independent Berlin borough but now just a locality within the new super-borough of Pankow – is mostly known for three things: the Weißer See (a picturesque inner-city lake), the Jewish Cemetery (largest in Europe!) and the Delphi cinema (one of the oldest, still open Berlin picture shows, whose fabulously imperfect interior played the role of the 1929 “Moka Efti” café and dance hall in the TV series Babylon Berlin).

Jewish Cemetery in Weißensee opened in September 1880 (photo own).

The lake has been a cooling magnet for sun- and water-hungry crowds for well over a century. It still is. On warm days you will find said crowds strolling around its shore, clinging onto the precious lawn- or sand-spot along the waterline or bobbing on the latter’s surface like an inflatable armada of pink plastic flamingos (or rubber doughnuts). And sooner or later nearly all of these people will have visited the Milchhäuschen, an elegant mid-1970s café on the western shore of the lake, straight across the water from the lido.

“Milchhäuschen” and its guests photographed in 1982 by a brilliant photographer, Gerd Danigel (ddr-fotograf.de) (Licence: Creative Commons)

Ask anyone who grew up in Berlin-Weißensee and the Milchhäuschen is as certain to pop up in their long-forgotten tales of the sun-drenched days at the lake as the plastic inflatable flamingos are sure to appear on its surface today. You went to the lake, you went for a swim and after warming yourself up in the sun, you heard your parents say the magic words: “Ick schwitze wie ‘n Braten! Wolln wa Eis essen?“*

For generations of Berliners and Weißenseers this small place at the lake has been a thick thread in that warm worn-out cardigan known as childhood memories.

Interestingly, it is not the first Milchhäuschen that stood on this spot. Until 1965 that name belonged to a lovely half-timbered cottage with a closed wood-and-glass veranda. It was one of the only two buildings erected in the 1880s as part of a never-realised project, an amusement park “Kopenhagener Tivoli”. In 1905 local Weißensee authorities bought it along with the rest of the park and by 1913 had the cottage converted to a place where local families – and children in particular – could enjoy a glass of fresh milk and healthy dairy products.

The Weißer See in Weißensee in 1914 (from 1914 Berlin Baedeker guide).

Drinking good quality milk – fresh, free of pollution and, first of foremost, coming from healthy and TB-free cows (cows can pass tuberculosis onto humans) – was one of the basic measures to boost the health of the youngest city-dwellers (a practice which held in many places – like Poland, for instance – until late in the 1980s). That is why Berlin had more of such “milk bars” (one of the more famous ones stood in Viktoriapark in Kreuzberg).

The milk and dairy products sold at the original Milchhäuschen in Weißensee came not from the cowsheds and meadows of Brandenburg but from… the local hospital. The Säugling- und Kinderkrankenhaus (Infant and Children Hospital) in Hansastraße – the first municipal infant and children hospital in Prussia – kept its own herd to provide nourishing milk to its young patients. The excess of it could be sold at a small profit.

But it was not about money. The terrifying mortality rates among infants and young children in Berlin as well as its surrounding cities and rural communities – until 1920 Weißensee was one of the latter – made the local authorities act before it was too late. Just to give you a sense of how appalling and alarming the situation in Berlin was: in 1900 and 1901 around 30% of all new-borns died within the first year. Most of them in summer, in July and August, and mostly due to infections of the digestive system and diarrhoea.

Historische Postkarte Vorderansicht des Säuglings- und Kinderkrankenhaus Weißensee, Hansastraße (Kniprodeallee), um 1920.
Infant and Children Hospital (image via berlin.de)

Why were the numbers so high? And why in summer? The hygiene standards were only one factor. The other one was the plain fact that most mothers had no way of breastfeeding their infants: they spent most of their days working very hard indeed, forced to entrust their babies with relatives, neighbours or older children. Who fed them cow milk. On hot days even fresh milk went sour fast and bacteria spread.

Toddlers and older children were often undernourished, too, and cow milk was a source of many crucial nutritives for them. That explains the idea behind the Milchhäuschen – or Milchwirtschaften as they were sometimes called. They were one way of alleviating the dreadful situation.

The Weißensee Milchhäuschen did exactly that – it helped save and strengthen the children by improving their health. And it definitely made both them and their parents happy by offering fresh yoghurt, cottage cheese and sweet milk-pudding.

Neither the First nor the Second World War brought an end to that tradition. After Germany’s capitulation in May 1945 it did not take long for the place’s fans to return in the hope of finding a bit of normality and that taste of sun-drenched afternoons they remembered from before their world had fallen apart.

Bild
The original Weißensee Milchhäuschen demolished in 1965 (historic postcard).

Slowly Milchhäuschen regained its old charm and used it to enchant both old and new guests. Until 1965, that is. That year brought its end: rot damaged the half-timbered structure beyond repair and the historic building had to be demolished. It came as a great loss to both the locals and visitors from other boroughs and for a while it was uncertain what would follow.

It took another decade for the new Milchhäuschen to take its place – even though plans for the new building were ready in 1966. From 1976 the bright pavilion with a terrace attracted crowds again – during the day they ate their ice-cream, sipped their milkshakes or iced-coffee and in the evening enjoyed strolling around the lake and the sight of the “Milchhäuschen” neon-sign installed on its roof.

The Wende (Reunification of Germany) in 1990 almost became its end. Luckily, after several years of post-Reunification limbo, when all cards were being dealt out anew, the popular lakeside café eventually found its new owners – before it was too late. Today’s “Master of the Milk Cottage”, Sebastian Wachenbrönner, took over from his father, Oswald, who leased and renovated the venue in 1995.

Before its re-opening in 1996, today’s Milchhäuschen had to undergo extensive restoration works. As a result the interior of the 1976 pavilion had to be made anew while the new owners retained the original outer shell. It was important to keep it – not only for sentimental reasons. Unbeknownst to many, that small pavilion at the Weißer See was designed by Ludmilla Herzenstein. Her name might not tell you much but go to Karl-Marx-Allee 102-104 or 126-128 where a row of poplar trees hides the slightly set back residential buildings known as Laubenganghäuser (Balcony-Access Blocks) – the very first two buildings built in 1952 along the planned Stalinallee – and you might see the common denominator. Clean-cut, practical, simple, accessible. And with a lot of light. “Too elitist”, “too modern”, “too pre-war-like”, said the Soviet-oriented Berlin authorities promptly and introduced a new ruling style along the Stalin Boulevard.

Laubenganghaus in today’s Karl-Marx-Allee (photo own).

The Laubenganghäuser, however, could stay but that row of poplar trees before them is not a coincidence. And even years later, Ludmilla Herzenstein still believed that her design for new accommodation for the working-class Berliners would have been the right path to follow. Just as it was in 1929 when the Berlin legend of German modernist movement Neues Bauen, Bruno Taut, employed Herzenstein as the building site manager for what is known today as Onkel-Toms-Hütte or Papageinsiedlung in Berlin-Zehlendorf, one of Berlin’s Modernist heritage sites.

Today’s Wilskistraße / Rimeisterstraße in Berlin-Zehlendorf’s Onkel-Tom-Siedlung (image by GYXMZ, licence CC Wikipedia):

So that is why, thanks to an almost forgotten female Berlin architect, Ludmilla Herzenstein, right now somewhere inside the Milchhäuschen at the Weißer See there lives the spirit of Bauhaus. And is probably having a milkshake.

*Ick schwitze wie ‘n Braten! Wolln wa Eis essen? – literally: “I’m sweating like a roast! How about an ice-cream?

By |

Eiergasse and Nikolaikirche seen from the corner of Molkenmarkt 7 around 1910 (photo by, most likely, Albrecht Meydenbauer for the Königliche Meßbildanstalt – Royal Photogrammetric Photography Office).

The longest of Berlin’s nearly 10,000 streets is Adlergestell: it stretches over 11.4 kilometres through the borough of Treptow-Köpenick. But where do you find the shortest? Well, that depends. On where you stand in your of appreciation of replicas.

If you are one of those people whose sense of aesthetic justice screams: “Nothing but the original!”, then look south towards Alt Mariendorf (a locality within the District of Tempelhof) – by these standards, the title of the Berlin’s shortest street should belong to their 19-metre long Pohligstraße. A little, pardon, stump of a road placed between Forddamm and Popperstraße.

If, however, you don’t mind a bit of solid make-believe and think that a replica is as good as the real thing (provided it traces the same lines), then you will find Berlin’s shortest street right in its middle: in Mitte. In Old Mitte, to be exact. Right next to the city’s oldest church, Nikolaikirche.

Eiergasse (Egg Lane) is but sixteen metres long but it was not always so short. In fact, it used to be almost twice as a long but the post-WW2 refurbishment of the historic plaza at its southern end – Molkenmarkt (Milk Market) – took a toll on Eiergasse’s dimensions.

The small medieval lane got its name from the tradition of placing egg-sellers’ stalls along its route. After in 1699 Elector Friedrich III (soon to become King Friedrich I) ordered that city markets be re-organised and set up anew following slightly more modern principles, like those of improved hygiene. But just as Molkenmarket kept its role as a “sales-point” for dairy products, so was Eiergasse allowed to keep its old, unbroken shell. Twice a week, always Wednesdays and Saturdays, farmers from around Berlin – but also local hen-holders – hurried to the small lane next to Nikolaikirche and offered their goods to hungry Berliners (eggs were one of the staples in their cuisine).

The lost Second World War brought an end to the historic district but the area was doomed whatever the war’s outcome would have been. The bombastic world-capital plans created by Albert Speer and his people for the Nazi Führer, the new über-city of Germania, had no need for the medieval. One of Berlin’s oldest neighbourhoods, inhabited for some 700 years and – admittedly – accordingly weathered, was to be demolished and replaced by an open-air museum presenting historic facades of other buildings torn down in other parts of the city to make space for Hitler’s new toy-town. For that purpose the church at its heart, Nikolaikirche, was promptly deconsecrated and since 1938 remains a profane building.

Eiergasse and Nikolaiviertel on the 1910 map of Berlin.

The war solved the problem of the open-air museum for good but what to do with whatever was left? After the ruins and the rubble had been removed, a new idea entered the stage: the now East Berlin authorities decided to include it in their planning for the future government centre around today’s Lustgarten and Marx-Engels-Forum. This “inclusion” would have meant turning the site into a Spree-basin, a river harbour for tourist boats operating along the river and the Spree Canal. 

Like with everything in life, some plans are best left unfulfilled. A failure to succeed can be a blessing. Once more such failure saved Berlin’s Nikolaiviertel from irreparable damage. The government’s plans had to be adjusted to the lean DDR reality and the fact that perhaps no everyone thought the idea the best possible option. 

And so, with a view towards celebrating the 750th birthday of Berlin (both East and West Berlin did it their own way), a new idea was born – to recreate what was lost. To rebuild the vanished quarters. To bring back what was gone forever. By that time it had become obvious that it would possible to combine the resurrection with East Berlin’s ambitious housing programme and that when realised, some 2,000 people could new homes in the new-old district.

Nikolaviertel Straße Am Nussbaum with a view towards Nikolairkiche in 1997 (photo by Steffen Ritter, via Bundesarchiv).

The new Nikolaiviertel built within the silhouette respected its grid but is only vaguely a replica of the old. The pre-fab concrete residential buildings – often mocked for their being “painfully DDR” by those who forget that pre-fab concrete architecture was something their architect, Manfred Prasser, learnt how to design them in Paris from an eminent Spanish architect, Ricardo Bofill – stood the test of the public and the test of the time. Go for a walk through the narrow lanes on a quiet evening in May and you are almost certain to oversee the concrete and focus on the pleasant instead.

Turn into the new-old Eiergasse, Berlin’s shortest street, from Molkenmarkt and you are almost certain to feel that even a 1980s East German architecture can become a time-machine.

By |

“The title ‘Berliner’ had nothing to do with geography. It was an honour granted for loyal service. Some got it even before they reached Berlin’s soil, others not after a whole lifetime spent idly on imperial asphalt. For Berlin “being there” and “BEING there” were not the same thing. The former, the mere ‘being’, meant nothing. No more than a word in your passport copied onto a hotel registration card.

Egon Jameson “Mein Lachendes Spree-Athen” (own translation)

Schlesischer Bahnhof (not Ostbahnhof) in Berlin-Friedrichshain after the refurbishment of the station (among oithers, new shed roofs installed) completed in 1928-1937. Photo: Scherl Bilderdienst, Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-J00861.

By |

Bahnhof Friedrichstraße (Friedrichstraße Railway Station) – whether you have ever been to Berlin or not, you must have encountered this name. You will find it in novels, in newspapers, in films and in history books.

From the moment it was completed in 1882 and opened as Berlin’s first central railway station (in the presence of Kaiser Wilhelm I), Bahnhof Friedrichstraße, has consequently played a huge role in Berlin’s history. The last chapter was probably the least glorious one: the station famously served as terminus for trains arriving from West Berlin and as a nearly insurmountable barrier for the travellers from the East (whose departures in the direction of the setting sun were strictly controlled and even more strictly regimented).

The postcard shows the station as it was in its original form – today’s looks practically nothing like it after the refurbishment carried out in the 1920s, additional “tweaking” in the 1930s and then, unavoidably, the World-War-Two “adjustments”.

But despite those extensive changes, one thing remained as it always was: the 160-metre long station building stands on a gentle curve and its body had to be constructed along that line. For not only was it erected on quite swampy ground but it also had to fit into the long line of land-plots used for erecting both the viaduct and the stations – a line consisting principally of the city’s own land: filled in canals, old royal wood storage sites, etc. And it had to fit into the gaps between the already erected buildings.

Vollmer Johannes (1845-1920), Bahnhof Friedrichstraße, Berlin. (In: Atlas zur Zeitschrift für Bauwesen, publ. by F. Endell, Jg. 35, 1885): seen from the south. Architekturmuseum der Technischen Universität Berlin Inv. Nr. ZFB 35,001.

You can see that curve very clearly from the outside, especially if looking at Bahnhof Friedrichstraße from the south: from Georgenstraße and from Dorothea-Schlegel-Platz (one of the those Berlin plaza’s whose name hardly anyone knows and hardly anyone realises that it is a legitimate plaza in the first place; vide Marlene-Dietrich-Platz). But it is upstairs, on the platforms that this curved line becomes most obvious. As it already was in 1882.

Bahnhof Friedrichstraße / Zentralbahnhof in 1882.
Photo by Wilhelm Hermes, Teknik- och industrihistoriska arkivet / Tekniska museet (ARK-K93-G4))

Learn more about Bahnhof Friedrichstraße and the area around it by joining me for my Voicemap.me walking audio-tour of northern section of Friedrichstraße (the audio-tour can also be purchased as a present for your befriended Berlin-fan).