House of the Wannsee Conference

The Wannsee Yacht Club (VSAW)

The lure of water was one of the most important motives for people to settle in Wannsee. The Wannsee Yacht Club (VSAW) was founded in 1881 at Conrads Kaiserpavillon (Emperor’s Pavilion). The founders were country house owners and the ‘merry seven’, a group of keen sailors who had for a long while been meeting to sail and socialise. It became one of the best known sailing clubs in Germany. 

The old clubhouse, 1920

The VSAW clubhouse became the social focus of the villa colony. In the afternoon, especially on Sundays, one could meet there in exclusive seclusion for sport or socialising. If the red lantern at the top of the signal mast was lit in the evening, this meant that members were invited to join the gathering. Although no sailing took place in winter, “people were keen to ice-skate, and there were even parties on ice by torchlight, with carefully practised routines being performed, bringing colour and cheer to the dead surface.” (Protzen)

Sailing-boats on the Wannsee, around 1921

The twenty-fifth birthday celebrations of the Alsen colony were also held here. The colonists gave full vent to their poetic sentiments and composed a song of thanks dedicated to Conrad: Raise your voices, Wannsee people, in our song of thanks, Bring deserved laurel branches to the doer of great deeds!

Sailing-boats on the Wannsee, 1914

For he has achieved the greatness which he imagined, And created out of sandy ground a true paradise. 

By the time Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild applied for membership of the VSAW, it had lost its small scale character. At the height of the Wilhelmine era, it was the top yachting club in Berlin, “if not in Germany”, as Otto Protzen commented. The Kaiser, the top yachtsman in the country so to speak, expressly desired the sport of sailing to be popularised. Thus it was that a brand new building was added to the old club in 1910. In 1905, membership had risen from thirty to fifty. From 1917 onwards, Herr Marlier was also a member.In 1998, there were more than 600 members. 

After the National Socialists came to power, the VSAW welcomed the ‘national uprising’. The general and selection committees emphasised national convictions and made a point of stating that the club was ‘firmly rooted in the new Germany’.

Update: 20 August 2004