The Potsdam area, 1833House of the Wannsee Conference
From the Discovery of the Stolpesche Werder to the Foundation of the Alsen Colony
At the beginning of the 19th century the Wannsee region was only sparsely populated, with the exception of the village of Stolpe. Since 1790, Prussia’s first led over the Stolpesche Werder and connected the royal residences of Berlin and Potsdam.
The Potsdam area, 1833
After the spectacular death of the poet Heinrich von Kleist and of Henriette Vogel at the lake Kleiner Wannsee in 1811, the region became a topic of conversation and people became increasingly interested in the area. The memorial for Kleist was altered several times. Max Liebermann drafted it in 1917.
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From 1863 onwards, Karl Heinrich Wilhelm Conrad, director of the Berliner Handelsgesellschaft (Berlin Trading Company), purchased building land by the lake Wannsee and started to build up the "Villenkolonie Alsen" (Alsen villa colony). The plots were sold to members of the Berlin upper middle class, most of them members of the noble "Club von Berlin", who built exclusive summer residences on the sites.
With its beautiful landscape the region resembled lakeland regions in Northern Italy. Here, the traditionally educated upper middle class created a Mediterranean-style dream world with villas built in an imposing architectural style and with splendid gardens with exotic plants. It represented the middle-class counterpart of the Hohenzollern Arcadia around the royal residence of Potsdam which had been created one generation before – only a few miles away – by the royal landscape gardener Peter Joseph Lenné. |
 The banker Wilhelm Conrad (1822-1899), founder of the Alsen Colony |
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In 1863, Wilhelm Conrad who came from an old merchant family and who was a nature-lover, bought the ‘Stimming'scher Krug‘, an old inn at the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Bridge. In addition, he purchased 300 acres of land at the good price of 25,000 German Taler. In 1870, he had his villa built in the classical style in Koenigstrasse 4 where the inn had once stood. It was pulled down exactly 100 years later and the "Hotel Wannseeblick" was built on the site. The "Villa Alsen" should be the first property in a summer town for members of the upper middle class.
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Conrad’s vision represented an ensemble of villas situated in a parkland and surrounded by the water of the Havel lakes. At the time, he had 14 houses built, 7 of which have been preserved. Conrad engaged the first landscaping director Gustav Meyer, a pupil of Lenné, to draft a street and plot plan. He named the project "Colony Alsen", in reference to the national pride and patriotism of the middle class of his time, since the name recalls Prussia’s victory over Denmark in 1861. The surrender of the Danish island Alsen sealed the military defeat of the Danish troops. |
Map of the Alsen Colony, 1883
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Update: January 13, 2011
