Prinz-Albrecht-Palais

The Prinz -Albrecht- Palais was a grand city palace in Berlin's Friedrichstadt. It was located at Wilhelmstrasse 102, opposite the western end of the cooking road.

History

The building was built in 1737-1739 by order of the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm I to the Baron de Vernezobre Laurieux. The three-storey main building with a courtyard open to the street and two economic wings on either side of the entrance was at the beginning of its history still a little off near the city wall and the park located behind the house extended to the present Stresemannstraße.

After the exodus of Vernezobres it was first used as a summer residence of the Berlin Abbess of Quedlinburg, the Princess Anna Amalie. After her death in 1787, it served in 1796 as a quarantine station for the then spectacular smallpox vaccination of the Prussian Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm III.

Then it fell into disrepair and was purchased in 1830 by Prince Albert of Prussia, who had it renovate and remodel of Karl Friedrich Schinkel. 1860 to 1862 there was a further redesign by the architect Adolf Lohse. After the death of Albert and his son Albrecht used the building as a dwelling. In the service of the Prince Albrecht was the valet August Sabac el Cher. Even after the November Revolution of 1918, the building was the property of the House of Hohenzollern.

From 1928 to 1931, the Reich government rented the palace as a guest house, for example, for the kings of Afghanistan ( 1928) and Egypt ( 1929).

After the " seizure of power" of the Nazis moved in 1934, the Security Service of the Reichsführer- SS, the building and used it for the SD Main Office and as a seat of the chief of the Gestapo, Reinhard Heydrich. In 1935, the neighboring building Wilhelmstrasse were 101 and 103/104 integrated into the complex Prinz-Albrecht -Strasse.

An air raid on 23 November 1944, the palace was extensive damage with it. After the occupation of Berlin, the Soviet Military Administration in Germany expropriated all private property of the Hohenzollern compensation. The house came into the possession of the city of Berlin.

The Berlin Senate in 1949 was beyond the still " impressive ruin " without regard to historic preservation concerns. The 1955 was clearing land he leased later to the operator of a Autodrome with the company motto " Driving without a license ". Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, head of the House of Hohenzollern, abandoned in 1961, the property claims of his family.

Since 1987, located on the grounds of the Prinz-Albrecht- Palais and the adjacent Arts School since 1992 operated by the same Foundation Memorial Topography of Terror. There, opened on May 6, 2010, the Topography of Terror documentation center on the history of the Reich Main Security Office and the Gestapo.