We can read the following lines written by Friedrich Nicolai in 1786: "As is well known, King Frederick William had a particular love for this town. Under his reign began the glorious period for Potsdam. He had two large sections added to the town, and benefited it immensely by stationing his soldiers there, by developing many industries, and by his own almost permanent presence."
"Frederick Williams' decision in 1713 to make Potsdam the permanent post of his guard, was so overwhelming that all the previously normal local standards had to be broken," Friedrich Mielke wrote in his book "The Potsdam Architecture."
Frederick William I initiated the First Town Extension in 1722 to create a suitable environment for stationing soldiers, locating the related services, and promoting handicrafts and trade. The town's area grew well beyond the City Canal and doubled in size. The whole town was surrounded by a town wall, which, inter alia, ran along today's Charlottenstraße and Lindenstraße. The newly-built residential buildings featured standardized large parlor rooms, each of 25 square meters, for billeting soldiers.
Only 11 years later, the size of the town had again proven too small for the growing garrison. Starting in 1733, the baroque city received its final limits with the Second Town Extension (1733-1742). The town wall was shifted, and now ran to the north along the Kurfürstenstraße, Behlertstraße, and Schopenhauerstraße, and between the Nauen, Jäger, and Brandenburg Gates.
When Frederick William I died in 1740, the Second Town Extension was completed, except for parts of the Dutch Quarter. Out of a small village with 199 houses and 1,500 inhabitants (in 1715), grew a town with 1,154 houses and 11,708 inhabitants.
Today, instead of the town wall, a promenade links the three gates.
Brandenburg Gate, Luisenplatz Square
You reach Luisenplatz square from the Potsdam main station by tram or bus (route to Sanssouci).
A guidebook dating from 1900 had this to say about the Brandenburg Gate: "In the place of the old wooden gate Frederick II set this beautiful triumphal arch, adorned with Corinthian columns. The side facing away from town has been executed by Unger according to the King's own drawing. ... The town side is from Gontard."
And so it came to pass in 1770. The outward-facing side of the gate is richly ornamented, the fascia decorated with trophies. Above the cartouche sits the gilded Prussian crown. On the right pillar of the side facing the city, the command 'Schritt' - walking speed! - is still seen today, a reminder of the warning given to the drivers of horse-drawn trams to look out for pedestrians.
The Brandenburg Gate is one of the three predominantly intact Potsdam town gates which can still be seen.
The dark red building at Luisenplatz Square Nr. 9, now occupied by the Savings Bank, was built as the barracks for the First Ulans Guard Regiment in 1833-1836. In 1900, the Emperor's Guard was stationed here.
The Luisenplatz itself was laid out around 1733, as the Town Wall was also being built here. On December 21 1793, the 17-year-old princess Luise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1776-1810), later famous as Queen Luise, was received here.
By order of Frederick Williams IV, Lenné redesigned the square in 1854. Ornamental bushes and trees, lawns, and hedges adorned the square. In its center stood a fountain which was richly decorated with sculpted figures. In 1903 they were replaced by a statue of the Ninety-Nine Day Emperor, Frederick III. Instead of a garden, the square was used as a parking lot after 1939. It remained a parking lot and traffic junction until the 1990s.
The Luisenplatz was then redesigned again in conjunction with the National Horticulture Show 2001. An underground parking lot was constructed below the square, while double and triple rows of lime trees were planted in the square itself. The fountain in the center of the square is a shallow dish with a border fashioned from Chinese granite. The bottom of the fountain consists of slabs of the same material. The fountain spray can attain a height of up to 8 meters and the fountain's diameter is 16 meters.
To the south of the square is the restaurant Alter Stadtwächter - the Old Town Watchman. One wall of the house, which protected as a historic monument, is formed by the town wall of 1733, whose arches can still be seen. The inn located directly at the gate was a meeting point for the gate watchmen and soldiers from the surrounding barracks.
Tip: It will take you just a few minutes walk from Luisenplatz square via the "Allee nach Sanssouci" to arrive at the Green Grating, one of the main entrances to Sanssouci park. Approaching Sanssouci Palace from this direction affords one a particularly impressive view.
Villa Tieck, Friedenshaus
Schopenhauerstraße 24
If you go along the promenade, which follows the course of the town wall, you will reach the far western point of the town wall. The Villa Tieck is located opposite this corner.
In the time of Frederick Williams I, there was a hops garden here (hops for the beer brewed in Potsdam). The cultivation stopped under Frederick II. In 1787, the Bornstedt chief bailiff had a grand villa built here on the site of the residential home of the hops gardener. This is today's Friedenshaus - House of Peace.
On March 11, 1843, Persius purchased the house and the estate by royal order to secure access and a storage area for the building equipment for the construction of the Peace Church. After the completion of the work at the church, the garden was included in the park and redesigned as the Peace Garden.
From 1841 to 1849, the residence served as the summer home for the prominent romantic poet Ludwig Tieck (1773-1853), who had been summoned to Berlin by Frederick William IV. A biography of Tieck from 1855 informs us that, "For the last time, in 1850 he moved into his home in Potsdam. Here he sat on the sheltered balcony taking in the sun practically the entire day. This enjoyment of fresh air gave him great strength. The view out to the green park of Sanssouci was the last onto that kingdom of nature which had often irresistibly attracted him."
In 1874, the kindergarten of the Peace Church Parish opened in 1852, finding a new home in these buildings. The house also got a new name: Queen Elisabeth House. The facilities still exist today as the House of Peace and a child day-care center for the church-sponsored community service.
Einstein Grammar School
The building housing today's Einstein Grammar School in the Hegelallee was erected in 1909 as a secondary school. Among the A-level graduates of the year 1925 was Helmut James Graf von Moltke, a later opponent of Hitler and founder of the Kreisauer Kreis, who was executed in 1945. Also graduating here in 1925 were the grandchildren of the last German emperor, Louis Ferdinand and William.
Werner Alfred Bath House
Werner Alfred Pietschker was a German flight pioneer, born on January 14, 1887, and killed in an accident in Berlin-Johannisthal on November 15, 1911. His mother Käthe Pietschker - née von Siemens - established a foundation in his memory, which had a public bath and pool built for the inhabitants of Potsdam. It was first opened on December 14, 1913. In its first year, there were 17,300 bathers.
The bath house featured 18 showers and 26 tubs, both Russian-Roman and medical departments, as well as an indoor pool. In addition, during the GDR era, a new swimming pool for babies was installed. Until the indoor pool at the Brauhausberg hill was opened in the 1970s, the Werner Alfred Bath House was also used for the swimming lessons held by Potsdam schools. In 1992 the bath house was closed down.
After futile attempts to continue use as a bath house, the building was redesigned and opened as a medical center in 2005.
House "Im Güldenen Arm"
Hermann-Elflein-Straße, Nr. 3
All the houses in the area of the Second Town Extension -once comprising of 680 houses - were built in a half-timbered style with massive fronts facing the street. Only the houses in the Jägerstraße and Hermann-Elflein-Straße were also half-timbered facing the street. One of these buildings is the house Im Güldenen Arm - In The Gilded Arm. It was built in 1737 on a vacant site during the course of the Second Town Extension. It was a gift of the king to the wood sculptor and brewer August Melchior Erhardt who arrived here from southern Germany. He gave the house the name "Im Güldenen Arm." The house plaque above the door, which shows cherubs wielding the tools of sculpting and the cooper's trade, dates from this time, as do the masks above the windows.
The Im Güldenen Arm building is a standardized construction. King Frederick William I, who personally organised the construction activities in Potsdam, ordered the construction of such standardized homes to enable rapid building at reasonable prices. Between 1715 and 1740, about 1,000 standardized structures of five and seven-axes (a tally of the centerlines of objects lining up in a row across the elevation of a structure, e.g. windows, doors) were built in Potsdam.
Preserving such a house provides access to an authentic piece of Potsdam's architectural and social history. Inside the house, which can be visited in connection with exhibits, you can see the original division of the rooms, as well as four different types of black-tiled, coal-fired heating furnaces of the 18th century.
Jägertor - Hunter's Gate
The Hunter's Gate is the only gate dating from the time of the Second Town Extension which has been preserved in a state resembling the original. It was built in 1733. Behind the gate, which is decorated with hunting scenes, begins the Jägerallee. This street is older than the gate itself and once led past the prince's pheasant house toward Spandau.
County Court
Hegelallee 8
The construction work for the Royal District Court in Potsdam started in 1880. It was the particular wish of Crown Princess Victoria that the façade be adorned with larger-than-life size statues of Frederick II and Emperor William I. The busts of the other electors and kings from the House of the Hohenzollern since 1415 were placed in a frieze above the first floor. The courthouse was completed in 1883. There were 45 rooms on the three main floors, with a large courtroom for the civil and criminal divisions and another for the jury courtroom. In 1910 an annex was opened for the district court.
From 1952 to 1990, both buildings were used by the GDR Ministry of State Security. In 1966, both statues on the front of the building were dismantled, and in 1978, due to another new annex, the busts from the right gable were also removed.
In 1993 the county courts were re-established. For this purpose, the house in Hegelallee, Nr. 8 was extensively and thoroughly restored, with special attention to the façade, the main staircase, and the large courtroom. The dismantled statues were returned to their former places.
The Edmund Stein Print Shop
Hegelallee 53
The oldest print shop in Potsdam was established in 1887. At that time, the address read: "Jäger-Kommunikation 9." It printed for the August Stein Publishing House, the Royal Government in Potsdam, the Royal Chief Presidency and the Ministry of Finance. After WWI the company specialized in printing journals. A highlight was the printing of the journal "Die Weltbühne" (The World Stage). Chief editor Carl von Ossietzky (1889-1938), Kurt Tucholsky (1890-1935) and Erich Kästner (1899-1974) were guests in the house.
In the nearby Café Rabin (now the Café Heider by the Nauen Gate), Carl von Ossietzky wrote many of his famous leading articles in the defence of democracy and he and Tucholsky jointly revised the pages of the journal. On March 14, 1933 the last issue of "Weltbühne" was destroyed, and the plates were melted down. Ossietzky had already been arrested on February 28. In 1935 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and he died in 1938 as a result of being tortured in various concentration camps.
Nauen Gate
The first Nauen Gate was built as a part of the First Town Extension in 1722. It stood at the intersection of Charlottenstraße/Frederick-Ebert-Straße. The second gate, built close to the site of the current gate in 1733, bore the inscription "Long live the King and all good soldiers." Finally in 1754-55, on the site of the current gate, the earliest example of neo-Gothic architecture on continental Europe was built, based on an idea of Frederick II. It was modelled on follies found in parks in southern England. The Nauen Gate received its final design in 1867-69. On this occasion, the second gate with the inscription was demolished.
District Court
Friedrich-Ebert-Straße, Nr. 32
Barely 20 years after its foundation, and following the rapid industrial expansion Germany in the latter part of the 19th century, the "German Mutual Life, Pensions and Retirement Insurance Company for Potsdam" needed a new headquarters. It was erected here in 1886-87 and in addition to offices, it also had imposing apartments for the director and the headquarters' physician.
The Potsdam Insurance Company suffered economic problems resulting from WWI, and became the Aachen-Potsdam Life Insurance Company, and later the Aachen-Munich Fire Insurance Company. The building was confiscated in 1945. The building served as the municipal administration from 1947, the state finance ministry from 1949, and after 1952, became the seat of the district court, the public prosecutor's offices, and the state notary's office for the administrative district capital of Potsdam. From 1992 to 1995 the renovation and conversion of the building into the Potsdam district court was carried out.
Stadthaus - City Council Building
Friedrich-Ebert-Straße, Nr. 79-81
Today's Stadthaus was built as the new seat for the administrative district of Potsdam in the years 1902-1907. The plan for the building was a rough draft which the Emperor modified and approved personally. Due to the very high level of the water table and the adverse ground conditions, it was impossible to dig a deep excavation. The basement floor was at the same level as the then Spandauer Straße. The ensemble consisted of the main building for the government, the residential building for the district president, and the stable buildings.
The Stadthaus has a total of 478 rooms. Its size today is 105 meters (length) x 130 meters (depth) x 45 meters (height). Particularly worth seeing are the library (administration library) and the main boardroom (which is today's plenary assembly hall) fitted out at great expense. The hall was converted in the course of time so that, for example, only one of the two niche arcades along the narrow sides remains. The ceiling frescos have also been lost.
Today's Stadthaus was initially the seat of the government for the administrative district of Potsdam until 1945. In 1947, it was mentioned for the first time as the seat of the city administration, and from 1953 housed Potsdam's municipal council and district council. Today it is the seat of the city administration.
Tip: Opposite the Stadthaus is the west end of Behlertstraße. If you enter this street and walk east, you will arrive at the entrance to the New Garden by the Gothic Library in about 10 minutes.
Alternatively, if you continue along Friedrich-Ebert-Straße to the north in the direction of the Russian Colony, and turn right at Alleestraße before the colony, you will arrive at the main entrance to the New Garden in about another 10 minutes.
Russian Colony Alexandrowka
"As a lasting monument to the memory of the close bond of friendship between myself and his most blessed majesty, Emperor Alexander of Russia, I have the intention to establish a colony in Potsdam and name it Alexandrowka, which I wish to populate with the singers who in 1812 and 1815 transferred from the Russian army with the Emperor's approval and were assigned to the First Guard Infantry Regiment."
This order by King Frederick William III from the year 1826, may be considered the "birth certificate" of Alexandrowka and also reveals its historical roots. The first residents were Russian prisoners of war, who General Yorck (fighting on the side of Napoleon) captured in 1812, and from which 62 were chosen to bolster the King's military choir. Some of them were left with the king with the czar's consent (Alliance of Tauroggen), others only joined later. In 1826, 12 of them still lived in Potsdam. These then settled into the houses here as colonists, so long as they were married or intended to marry.
Peter Joseph Lenné designed the Alexandrowka colony. It is an artificial village in the style of Russian architecture. The colony is constructed in the shape of a hippodrome with an embedded St. Andrew's Cross. The village has 12 small farms, a guard house, chapel, and the house of the chapel supervisor, which was also called the Royal Cottage, since the king maintained a tea-room there.
All buildings in the colony have masonry foundations with half-timbered constructions above. The log-cabin character was created by nailing on round log-like planking.
The park village Glasowo near Pawlowsk, which was built in 1815, but no longer exists, was the inspiration for the colony. Therefore, the village layout in form of a hippodrome is quite likely the only example still existing of an artificial model Russian village in the world.
Another special feature of Alexandrowka is that numerous historic varieties of fruit are cultivated in the large gardens. By now, 550 of such varieties have been gathered again with more than 1,000 examples cultivated.
The Alexandrowka colony was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1999.
The Guard House serves today as a tea-room, while farmstead Nr. 2 is a private museum.
From the colony, you can walk easily up to Kapellenberg Hill within a few minutes. Here you will find the Russian-Orthodox chapel, Saint Alexander Nevski, designed by a court architect of the Czar, and consecrated in 1829. Karl Friedrich Schinkel supervised the construction work. He also designed the fence grating around the cemetery. The royal cottage (today, the seat of the arch-priest) is a peculiarity insofar as it was built based on a design for a village near Zarskoje Selo, which could not be realised in Russia itself and is distinctively different from the architecture of the other Alexandrowka buildings.
Tip: From the Alexandrowka Russian colony, if you take the path leading uphill, you can reach the Belvedere on Pfingstberg Hill by foot within only 10 minutes. This is a vantage point from which you gain a unique view across the Potsdam cultural landscape.
Große Stadtschule - Great City School
Friedrich-Ebert-Straße, Nr. 17
The Große Stadtschule, built in 1739, was the last new school Frederick William I founded in Potsdam. It is also one of the most important public buildings dating from the era of this monarch, and possibly together with the Commandant's House, the only representative structure of the Second Town Extension. The king's intertwined initials "FWRB" (Fridericus Williamus Rex Borussiae) decorate the balcony in gold-plated copper. In the first years of the school's existence, two teachers taught both classes. It wasn't until 1812 that the city school was enlarged and was officially certified as a grammar school.
Renowned pupils of the Great City School include the revolutionary Maximilian Dortu, the mathematician Carl Gustav Jacobi, the scientist Hermann von Helmholtz, the poet Heinrich von Kleist, and others.
Löwen-Apotheke - The Lion Pharmacy
Friedrich-Ebert-Straße, Nr. 102
This is the oldest preserved pharmacy in Potsdam. It was established by a royal privilege awarded to the chemist Johann Philipp Becker in what was then Nauener Straße in 1733.
There is evidence that the first chemist offered his services in Potsdam as far back as 1623. There were two pharmacies operating intermittently in the town, which led to fierce competition given the town's war-damaged condition and just 700 residents. Only one of the chemists could survive; it was the Bären-Apotheke - The Bear's Pharmacy - which remained the only one in town until 1724. In that year, the father of J. P. Becker, who moved here from Hessen, opened another one.
In 1735 Becker's son-in-law was also awarded a privilege to open a pharmacy - Hirsch-Apotheke - The Stag Pharmacy - in the Lindenstraße Nr. 48. It still exists there today (14a). In addition, Carl Heinrich Harsleben became the Court Chemist in 1747. He had previously received the assignment to deliver medicines to the Great Orphanage.
Consequently, there were four chemists altogether in Potsdam in 1735.
Brandenburger Straße
The Brandenburger Straße extends over a distance of 750 meters in the center of the city. At its eastern end stands the St. Peter and Paul Catholic Church, and at the western end, the Brandenburg Gate.
The street dates from the Second Town Extension, as does the entire surrounding area, which is still evidenced today by the predominance of standardized houses, with their distinctive frontages of five axes (two windows on either side of the entrance door). During the reign of Frederick II, the two-story roughcast buildings at the Brandenburg Gate and the corner houses at Hermann-Elflein-Straße were erected. In the 19th and 20th centuries many houses were renovated in the neo-baroque or industrial styles, or replaced by new buildings.
It was particularly craftsmen, such as bakers, brewers, glove-makers, plumbers, bricklayers and wig makers, who first occupied Brandenburger Straße and for a long time thereafter. They also provided accommodation for the King's soldiers.
In the second half of the 19th century, this street, and also today's Friedrich-Ebert-Straße, became shopping streets. In the early 20th century two department stores opened - one in 1905 in the building housing today's Karstadt and in 1910 the Hirsch store in Brandenburger Straße Nr. 30. Between 1975 and 1978, the street, then named Klement-Gottwald-Straße, was thoroughly renovated, restored, and converted into a pedestrian zone.
"The Green Family" ("Familie Grün"), a sculpture created by a Potsdam husband-and-wife artist team, the Buhlmanns, at the intersection with Lindenstraße, also dates from this time (1979).
Stadtpalais Potsdam - Karstadt Department Store
The present day Potsdam Stadtpalais (town palace) is home to a department store of the Karstadt-Quelle chain. The building was constructed for the F. Schwarz company in 1910. Early expansions and modifications were already undertaken by 1913-14. In 1929 the Karstadt company purchased the department store. In 1946, Karstadt was expropriated and the department store building was handed over to the Konsum co-operative. After the reunification of the two Germanys, the building was taken over by a group of companies, but then burned down, remaining vacant for a long time. The department store was re-opened as the Karstadt Town Palace in 2005.
The Potsdam department store ranks among the very few in Germany where the historic appearances of the original stores façades could be preserved with only minor changes. Although the first decoration was removed in the 1930s, the current appearance resembles the original for the most part. Especially remarkable is the glass-roofed, Art Nouveau inner courtyard, which goes well beyond merely regional architectural significance. It is one of the last surviving department stores in the Berlin/Brandenburg region with a glass-roofed inner courtyard which has been preserved with its reproduction décor down to the present day.
The patterned glass ceiling on the third floor is one more characteristic of the structured illumination. In specialist literature covering the history of department store construction in Germany, the Potsdam building is mentioned several times and described in detail. Another fact worth mentioning about the newly-reconstructed Karstadt Department Store, is that it includes historic standardized house-types of the Second Town Extension, which are not protected as historic monuments. This is overdue compensation for the demolition of numerous older structures when the department store was first built.
The former Hirsch Department Store is located closer to the Friedrich-Ebert-Straße on the other side of the road. It was erected on the site of numerous predecessors in the year 1910. The company was founded in 1880 and "Aryanized" in 1938, meaning that it was expropriated and sold to a member of the NSDAP (Nazi party). After 1945, the building was initially a shopping center for Soviet army officers (Univermag), and afterwards a HO furniture store (the HO was a state-owned trade organization). It received its current appearance around the turn of the millennium.
Commandant's House
Lindenstraße 54
During his journeys to Holland in 1700, 1704-05, and 1732, King Frederick William I became acquainted with unplastered brick constructions. Between 1733 and 1737 such a brick house was also built in Potsdam. It was referred to by contemporaries as the "Great Dutch House." The then unusual height of the roof being 16 feet (5.02 m), is truly remarkable. The house was designed as the residence of the commanding officer of the Royal Guards Regiment, the so-called Langen Kerls - Tall Fellows. The house and the stables and cart houses in the yard were later used by the commanding officers of Potsdam regiments. Thus, it became known as the Commandant's House.
In 1809, the first elected Potsdam City Assembly gathered in this house, and after 1820, it was used as a courtroom. From 1818 to 1820, the house was redesigned to be become the Town Courthouse and received the first prison facility. From 1853 to 1856, Theodor Storm (1817-1888) worked here as assessor at the Town Court.
Between 1907-09, the house was again redesigned, creating the still-existing prison building. Based on the Nazi race laws, a so-called Erbgesundheitsgericht ("Eugenic Court") was established in 1935 in this house, which was responsible for determining involuntary sterilizations, for example. After 1943, more and more people were imprisoned here who were condemned by the political system through the Potsdam Nazi Volksgerichtshof ("Peoples' Court").
In 1945, the Soviet army seized the Potsdam Court Prison. The investigations department of the Soviet secret police and the military tribunal had their quarters here. In 1953 the house was handed over to the GDR Ministry of State Security. In 1990, it became the seat of citizen's organizations and political parties, and in 1995 the monument "The Victim" by the Berlin sculptor Wieland Förster was installed in the courtyard.
Today, in addition to housing a memorial against political violence, the building is also home to the state capital's lower office of historic preservation.
Mielke wrote, "With the Commandant's House, a preference for the Dutch architectural style was conceded, which very soon extended across an entire town quarter."
Charlottenstraße
The present-day Charlottenstraße separates the area of the First Town Extension from the Second. Looking away from town, the first extension ended on the left-hand side, and the second one started on the right side. The City Wall ran along the right side from 1722 to some time after 1733. Buildings from those years were partly replaced during the era of Frederick the Great.
Alte Wache (Old Guard House)
Lindenstraße 45, corner of Charlottenstraße
The main guard house, now called the Alte Wache, known at the time as the Neue Wache ("New Guard House"), was a gift from King Frederick William II to his former regiment "Prince of Prussia." The building, built in 1795-1797 by Andreas Ludwig Krüger (1743-1822), consisted of a guard room, the fitting-out room on the upper floor, and ware stands for butchers. With this building, Krüger introduced arcades as the principal motif of a façade, which until that time had been little used in the Potsdam area.
