Harnack House

The Harnack House, named after Adolf von Harnack, is a building in Berlin -Dahlem, which is now used as a meeting site of the Max Planck Society.

History

In 1926 the Senate of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society decided to establish the Harnack House as lecture and meeting center, at the same time as a guesthouse for the institutes based in Berlin- Dahlem. The Free State of Prussia donated the land available to the German Reich in funding of 1.5 million Reichsmarks. After this sum was far from sufficient, additional funds were raised roughly the same amount through donations. A large single donation came from the industrialist Carl Duisberg, but also many other institutions to trade unions participated in the financing. Was very supportive to the project by Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann, who was also a keynote speaker at the dedication of the house in May 1929.

In the following years, the house developed on the scientific core tasks, but also a cultural center with an international reputation. This development was from 1933 thrown back with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, not least by the expulsion of many Jewish scientists from Germany.

Contrary to a ban imposed by the national government, a memorial service for exactly one year before the late Fritz Haber was held at the Harnack House on January 29, 1935 by Max Planck, the keynote speaker was Otto Hahn.

On February 4, 1935, the Reich Film Archive was opened at the Harnack House in the presence of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels.

After the war the house was rededicated by the American occupying power to an officer's club " Harnack House ". Among the guests were, among others, Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

On April 11, 1972, housed at the Harnack House Officer's Club was the scene of a botched terrorist attack. Members of the June 2 Movement, among them Brigitte Mohn head, placed around midnight, a 10- liter jerrycan of a basement window. Although the firing mechanism of the explosive device was set to the period 3-4 clock at night, the bomb did not detonate. A member of the terrorist organization, Harald Sommerfeld, then alerted the police to prevent innocent civilians would die again.

After the Allied withdrawal from the West Berlin House of the Max Planck Society was passed. Since then, it fulfills his original role as an international scientific conference and meeting center.