House of the Wannsee Conference
The Flensburg Lion
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The Flensburg Lion became the symbol of the Alsen Colony. Conrad had a zinc cast of the landmark erected in the ‘Schweiz‘, a park on the outskirts of the Alsen Colony. At the time, the original stood in the then Danish Old Flensburg Cemetery and today it stands in front of the Copenhagen armoury. First, the victorious Prussians dismantled the Lion and erected it in the armoury in Unter den Linden. In 1878, it was brought to the Central-Kadetten-Anstalt (Central Cadet School) in Lichterfelde and after 1945 it was ‘repatriated‘. |
Coloured steel engraving of the Flensburg Lion,
around 1880
The Kriegerverein ‘Alsen‘ (‘Alsen‘ Veterans‘ Association) took care of the preservation of the Lion in Wannsee. In 1938, after the Danish legation had complained about the poor condition of the Lion which was overgrown with trees and bushes, it was moved to its current location at Heckeshorn (right next to the site of the Wannsee Conference memorial). Ever since, the ‘Straße zum Löwen‘, which ended at its original location, has not led to the monument anymore.
The Flensburg lion, postcard 1911
Conrad created the infrastructure of the Alsen Colony. Since 1838, there was a rail connection between Berlin and Potsdam. The S-Bahn, built in 1874 and called ‘banker trains‘, took the residents of the colony from Wannsee Station to the city within a few minutes. For urgent messages, the colonists even had a post office of their own at the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Brücke.
The Alsen Colony, around 1880
A waterworks (1871) and a power station (1890) were built for the residents and two exclusive cafés were created by moving two pavilions from the Vienna World Exposition to the colony.
In 1896, Conrad donated a church to the Alsen Colony. Before, a cemetery had already been built which was disrespectfully called ‘The Million Reichsmark Cemetary‘ by the Berliners. Most of the colonists, Christians as well as Jews, were buried there.
After the death of Conrad in 1899, the idea of a villa town gradually disappeared at the turn of the century. Instead, the vision of a country house colony became increasingly fashionable. The residents mostly stayed in Wannsee all year round. New landscaping concepts dominated the elegant and colourful gardens surrounding the houses.
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Update: 20 August 2004
