House of the Wannsee Conference
Johann Hamspohn
The Director of AEG and Reichstag Delegate
In 1906, Johann Hamspohn, who had been a member of the board of AEG for four years by then, commissioned the Messel pupil Paul Baumgarten to build a holiday house in ‘no. 40 Am Großen Wannsee‘. The architect designed a particularly impressive entrance hall which was illuminated by a glass roof. The dining room, with all Jugendstil furniture, was decked out with a coffer ceiling. From the spacious balcony of the breakfast room on the first floor one had a magnificent view across the lake. In winter, Hahmspohn, his wife Marie and his daughter Frieda, stayed in a town flat in no. 211 Kurfürstendamm.
The villa Hamspohn, around
1917
Johann Hamspohn (1840-1926), who was born in Cologne, showed a great interest in science while he was still young. However, at the wish of his father, he had to complete a business training first. Then, he worked as a German teacher in France, he continued his education by thorough self-study and he deepened his knowledge of foreign languages. Back in Cologne, he fought for a school reform as a member of the city council. For those days, he held revolutionary views.
Knowing Eugen Richter, the leader of the Deutsche Fortschrittspartei (German Progress Party), he became a party member and from 1881 to 1887, he was active in the Reichstag, first as a progressive and later as a liberal delegate. There, he met Ludwig Loewe, who was also a liberal delegate and he became lifelong friends with him and his brother Isidor.
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Hamspohn pioneered the introduction of electricity to the transportation system. Following a study trip to the United States, he founded the ‘Union-Electricitäts-Gesellschaft‘ in Berlin which later merged with AEG. Tirelessly, Hahmspohn committed himself to the electrification of the transportation system of numerous European municipalities and, especially in London and Paris, this earned him a good reputation.
Until 1910, Hamspohn was on the board of directors of AEG and from 1910 to 1926, he was a member of its supervisory board. After World War I, he reestablished Germany’s international business contacts that had been broken off during the war. Within the company, he was particularly committed to the promotion of young people. Hamspohn was a tireless worker. Even at the age of 70 he took up Spanish since he considered the Spanish language important for his business. In addition, he pursued studies on arts subjects, especially on philosophy, and he corresponded with some of the most eminent philosophers of his time like Friedrich Albert Lange (1828-1875) and Hermann Cohen (1842-1918) |
Johann Hamspohn died in 1926. He was buried in the Hamspohn family grave in the New Cemetery together with his wife Marie, who died in 1931, his daughter and her first husband Professor Karl Cramer.
In 1940, his daughter Countess Frieda von Lieven, who had moved to Switzerland in the mean time, had to sell her parents‘ country house to the Deutsche Reichspost (German Reich Postal Service) which established a ‘school for women post inspector candidates‘. In 1944, the property served as a military hospital and from 1945 to 1969 it became the Wannsee Hospital.
Since 1971, when the hospital moved out, the post rowing club has been using the villa which is in need of renovation. Its current owner is the Bundesanstalt für Post- und Telekommunikation (Federal Post and Telecommunications Agency).
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Update: 20 August 2004
