Wilhelmstrasse (german: Wilhelmstraße, see
ß) is a major
thoroughfare
A thoroughfare is a primary passage or way as a transit route through regularly trafficked areas, whether by road on dry land or, by
extension, via watercraft or aircraft. On land, a thoroughfare may refer to anything from a multi-lane highw ...
in the central
Mitte and
Kreuzberg
Kreuzberg () is a district of Berlin, Germany. It is part of the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg borough located south of Mitte. During the Cold War era, it was one of the poorest areas of West Berlin, but since German reunification in 1990 it h ...
districts of Berlin, Germany. Until 1945, it was recognised as the centre of the government, first of the
Kingdom of Prussia
The Kingdom of Prussia (german: Königreich Preußen, ) was a German kingdom that constituted the state of Prussia between 1701 and 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. ...
, later of the unified
German Reich, housing in particular the
Reich Chancellery
The Reich Chancellery (german: Reichskanzlei) was the traditional name of the office of the Chancellor of Germany (then called ''Reichskanzler'') in the period of the German Reich from 1878 to 1945. The Chancellery's seat, selected and prepared ...
and the
Foreign Office
Foreign may refer to:
Government
* Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries
* Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries
** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government
** Foreign office and foreign minister
* Unit ...
. The street's name was thus also frequently used as a
metonym
Metonymy () is a figure of speech in which a concept is referred to by the name of something closely associated with that thing or concept.
Etymology
The words ''metonymy'' and ''metonym'' come from grc, μετωνυμία, 'a change of name' ...
for overall German governmental administration: much as the term "
Whitehall
Whitehall is a road and area in the City of Westminster, Central London. The road forms the first part of the A3212 road from Trafalgar Square to Chelsea. It is the main thoroughfare running south from Trafalgar Square towards Parliament Sq ...
" is often used to signify the British governmental administration as a whole. In English, "the Wilhelmstrasse" usually referred to the German Foreign Office.
[See ''Daisy, Princess of Pless'' by Herself, p. 63. ''OED'', "Wilhelmstrasse"]
Course
The Wilhelmstraße runs south from the
Spree
Spree may refer to:
Geography
* Spree (river), river in Germany
Film and television
* '' The Spree'', a 1998 American television film directed by Tommy Lee Wallace
* ''Spree'' (film), a 2020 American film starring Joe Keery
* "Spree" (''Numbers ...
riverside through the historic
Dorotheenstadt
is a historic zone or neighbourhood (''Stadtviertel'') of central Berlin, Germany, which forms part of the locality (''Ortsteil'') of Mitte within the borough (''Bezirk'') also called Mitte. It contains several famous Berlin landmarks: the ...
quarter to the
Unter den Linden boulevard near
Pariser Platz and
Brandenburg Gate
The Brandenburg Gate (german: Brandenburger Tor ) is an 18th-century Neoclassical architecture, neoclassical monument in Berlin, built on the orders of Prussian king Frederick William II of Prussia, Frederick William II after Prussian invasion ...
, where it takes on a line slightly east of south through adjacent
Friedrichstadt
Friedrichstadt (; da, Frederiksstad) is a town in the district of Nordfriesland, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is situated on the river Eider approx. 12 km south of Husum.
History
The town was founded in 1621 by Dutch settlers. D ...
, until its juncture with Stresemannstraße near
Hallesches Tor in Kreuzberg, an overall distance of about .
Further south of Unter den Linden it passes the nowadays built-over former
Wilhelmplatz vis-à-vis
Voss-Straße, it crosses
Leipziger Straße
Leipziger Straße is a major thoroughfare in the central Mitte district of Berlin, capital of Germany. It runs from Leipziger Platz, an octagonal square adjacent to Potsdamer Platz in the west, to Spittelmarkt in the east. Part of the Bundess ...
near
Leipziger and
Potsdamer Platz
Potsdamer Platz (, ''Potsdam Square'') is a public square and traffic intersection in the center of Berlin, Germany, lying about south of the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag (German Parliament Building), and close to the southeast corn ...
, and
Niederkirchnerstraße
Niederkirchnerstraße () is a street in Berlin, Germany and was named after Käthe Niederkirchner. The thoroughfare was known as Prinz-Albrecht-Straße until 1951 but the name was changed by the socialist German government. The street was th ...
, known until after World War II as ''Prinz-Albrecht-Straße''. At its southern end, Wilhelmstraße originally met with
Friedrichstraße, which runs roughly parallel to the east, on the
Belle-Alliance circus, before the street course was westerly redirected to the Stresemannstraße junction about 1970.
Between Unter den Linden and parallel Behrenstraße, the road is closed for motor vehicles as a protection of the
Embassy of the United Kingdom.
History
Frederick William I, from 1713
King in Prussia and
Elector of Brandenburg
This article lists the Margraves and Electors of Brandenburg during the period of time that Brandenburg was a constituent state of the Holy Roman Empire.
The Mark, or ''March'', of Brandenburg was one of the primary constituent states of the H ...
, had the southwestern Friedrichstadt quarter of his Berlin residence significantly enlarged, whereby the premises up to the
Berlin Customs Wall (on present-day Stresemannstrasse) were developed as an affluent residential area. In 1731 the ''Husarenstraße'' (Street of the
Hussar
A hussar ( , ; hu, huszár, pl, husarz, sh, husar / ) was a member of a class of light cavalry, originating in Central Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries. The title and distinctive dress of these horsemen were subsequently widely ...
s) was built as a north-south thoroughfare of the
Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including ...
city layout, where many
Huguenot
The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...
s, who had fled from
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, as well as expelled members of the
Moravian Church
The Moravian Church ( cs, Moravská církev), or the Moravian Brethren, formally the (Latin: "Unity of the Brethren"), is one of the oldest Protestantism, Protestant Christian denomination, denominations in Christianity, dating back to the Bohem ...
settled. Several personal confidants of the king had large city palaces erected, most notably General
Kurt Christoph Graf von Schwerin and the French Baron François Mathieu Vernezobre de Laurieux, who took his residence in the later
Prinz-Albrecht-Palais
The Prinz-Albrecht-Palais was a Rococo city palace in the historic Friedrichstadt suburb of Berlin, Germany. It was located on Wilhelmstrasse 102 in the present-day Kreuzberg district, in the vicinity of Potsdamer Platz.
History
The building was ...
. The street was renamed ''Wilhelmstraße'' in honour of the king, who had died in 1740.
Government district
Originally a wealthy residential street, with a number of palaces belonging to members of the
Hohenzollern
The House of Hohenzollern (, also , german: Haus Hohenzollern, , ro, Casa de Hohenzollern) is a German royal (and from 1871 to 1918, imperial) dynasty whose members were variously princes, electors, kings and emperors of Hohenzollern, Brandenb ...
royal family, the Wilhelmstrasse developed as a Prussian government precinct from the mid 19th century. In 1858 King
Frederick William IV acquired the former ''Palais Schwerin'' on No. 73. This building now called
Palace of the Reich President
The Reich President's Palace (german: Reichspräsidentenpalais) was from 1919 to 1934 an official residence of the President of the Reich and the official seat of the German head of state.
The palace was located at Wilhelmstrasse No. 73 in Berli ...
housed an administrative seat of the Prussian minister for the Royal Household, from 1861 led by
Alexander von Schleinitz
Alexander Gustav Adolf Graf von Schleinitz (born 29 December 1807 in Blankenburg am Harz; died 19 February 1885 in Berlin) was the Foreign Minister of Prussia from 1858 to 1861 and minister for the royal household from late 1861 to his death.
Li ...
. In 1869 the nearby ''Palais Schulenburg'' residence of late Prince
Antoni Radziwiłł, built in 1738/39 on No. 77, was purchased by the Prussian state government at the behest of Schleinitz' opponent Minister-President
Otto von Bismarck
Otto, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg (, ; 1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898), born Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck, was a conservative German statesman and diplomat. From his origins in the upper class of ...
. Rebuilt from 1875 until 1878, it served as his official seat as
German chancellor
The chancellor of Germany, officially the federal chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany,; often shortened to ''Bundeskanzler''/''Bundeskanzlerin'', / is the head of the federal government of Germany and the commander in chief of the Ge ...
. The next door building on No. 76 was used for the chancellery's Foreign Office department.
Several further governmental departments took their seat on Wilhelmstrasse, such as the
Reich Ministry of Finance (No. 61), the
Imperial Colonial Office (No. 62), the
Prussian state ministry (No. 63), the
Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture (No. 72), and the
Reich Ministry of Transport
The Reich Ministry of Transport (german: Reichsverkehrsministerium or ''RVM'') was a cabinet-level agency of the German government from 1919 until 1945, operating during the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany. Formed from the Prussian Ministry of P ...
(No. 79, from 1919). The lavish
Palais Strousberg of bankrupt "railway king"
Bethel Henry Strousberg
Bethel Henry Strousberg (20 November 1823 – 31 May 1884) was a German Jewish industrialist and railway entrepreneur during Germany's rapid industrial expansion in the 19th century. He cemented his social standing with the construction of the ...
on No. 70 was bought by Prince Hugo of
Hohenlohe
The House of Hohenlohe () is a German princely dynasty. It ruled an immediate territory within the Holy Roman Empire which was divided between several branches. The Hohenlohes became imperial counts in 1450. The county was divided numerous tim ...
in an 1876 auction and rented out to the
British ambassador
Lord Ampthill, until it was finally purchased by the United Kingdom in 1884. In 1877 the
Borsig Palace was erected on the corner with Voss-Strasse.
Weimar Republic and Nazi years
After World War I the ''Palais Schwerin'' was sold by exiled Emperor
Wilhelm II to the
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a Constitutional republic, constitutional federal republic for the first time in ...
government and in 1919 became the residence of the first
Reich President
''Reich'' (; ) is a German noun whose meaning is analogous to the meaning of the English word "realm"; this is not to be confused with the German adjective "reich" which means "rich". The terms ' (literally the "realm of an emperor") and ' (li ...
of Germany,
Friedrich Ebert. Until the death of his successor
Paul von Hindenburg
Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg (; abbreviated ; 2 October 1847 – 2 August 1934) was a German field marshal and statesman who led the Imperial German Army during World War I and later became President of Germany fr ...
in 1934, the President's official residence was at ''Wilhelmstraße 73'', where he could watch the torchlight parade on the night of the Nazi ''
Machtergreifung
Adolf Hitler's rise to power began in the newly established Weimar Republic in September 1919 when Hitler joined the '' Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (DAP; German Workers' Party). He rose to a place of prominence in the early years of the party. Be ...
'' on 30 January 1933, after he had sworn in
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...
as German chancellor. Hitler addressed the cheering crowds on Wilhelmstasse from a window of a modern chancellery annex building erected in 1930. Styling himself "''
Führer
( ; , spelled or ''Fuhrer'' when the umlaut is not available) is a German word meaning "leader" or " guide". As a political title, it is strongly associated with the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
Nazi Germany cultivated the ("leader princip ...
'' and Reich Chancellor" from 1934, he regarded the residence inadequate and ordered the construction of the vast
New Reich Chancellery
The Reich Chancellery (german: Reichskanzlei) was the traditional name of the office of the Chancellor of Germany (then called ''Reichskanzler'') in the period of the German Reich from 1878 to 1945. The Chancellery's seat, selected and prepared ...
according to plans designed by
Albert Speer
Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer (; ; 19 March 1905 – 1 September 1981) was a German architect who served as the Minister of Armaments and War Production in Nazi Germany during most of World War II. A close ally of Adolf Hitler, h ...
. This building, a prime example of
Nazi architecture, stood immediately south of the old Chancellery, on the corner of the Wilhelmstrasse and the
Voss Strasse, and its official address was ''Voßstraße 4''.
The Foreign Office moved into the former Reich President's palace, the old building being refurbished in grandiose style at the behest of Nazi Minister
Joachim von Ribbentrop
Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop (; 30 April 1893 – 16 October 1946) was a German politician and diplomat who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945.
Ribbentrop first came to Adolf Hitler's not ...
. Vis-à-vis on Wilhelmplatz, the Baroque ''
Ordenspalais'' was refurbished as seat of the
Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda led by
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the '' Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to ...
. In 1935/36 his party fellow
Hermann Göring had the huge
Ministry of Aviation edifice designed by
Ernst Sagebiel built on the corner with Leipziger Strasse. The adjacent ''Prinz-Albrecht-Palais'' in the south became notorious as the seat of the ''
Sicherheitsdienst'' of the ''
Reichsführer-SS'' and the ''
Sicherheitspolizei
The ''Sicherheitspolizei'' ( en, Security Police), often abbreviated as SiPo, was a term used in Germany for security police. In the Nazi era, it referred to the state political and criminal investigation security agencies. It was made up by the ...
'' chief-of-staff; merged into the ''
SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt
The Reich Security Main Office (german: Reichssicherheitshauptamt or RSHA) was an organization under Heinrich Himmler in his dual capacity as ''Chef der Deutschen Polizei'' (Chief of German Police) and ''Reichsführer-SS'', the head of the Nazi ...
'' terror complex under
Reinhard Heydrich in 1939. Most of the public buildings along Wilhelmstrasse were destroyed by
Allied bombing during 1944 and early 1945 and during the following
Battle of Berlin.
Cold War
After the war, Wilhelmstrasse as far south as Niederkirchnerstrasse was in the
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
sector of Allied-occupied Berlin, and apart from clearing the rubble from the street little was done to reconstruct the area until the founding of the
German Democratic Republic
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**G ...
(GDR) in 1949, with
East Berlin as its capital. One of the earliest reconstructions was the 1948-built provisional wooden church hall of the
Moravian Brethren congregation on Wilhelmstrasse 138.
The
communist
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...
GDR regime regarded the former government precinct as a relic of Prussian and Nazi militarism and imperialism, and had all the ruins of the government buildings demolished in the early 1950s. In the late 1950s there were almost no buildings at all along the Wilhelmstrasse from Unter den Linden to the Leipziger Strasse. The only major surviving public building in the Wilhelmstrasse was just Göring's
Reich Air Ministry, which had escaped major damage during the war. As one of the few intact government buildings in central Berlin, it was used by the
Soviet Military Administration in Germany
The Soviet Military Administration in Germany (russian: Советская военная администрация в Германии, СВАГ; ''Sovyetskaya Voyennaya Administratsiya v Germanii'', SVAG; german: Sowjetische Militäradministrat ...
and the (East)
German Economic Commission
The German Economic Commission (german: Deutsche Wirtschaftskommission; DWK) was the top administrative body in the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany prior to the creation of the German Democratic Republic (german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik) ...
, later by the
German People's Council The German People's Council (german: Deutscher Volksrat) was a consultative body in the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany that operated in 1948-1949. The main task of the People’s Council was to draw up a constitution on the basis of a draft pres ...
of the
Soviet occupation zone
The Soviet Occupation Zone ( or german: Ostzone, label=none, "East Zone"; , ''Sovetskaya okkupatsionnaya zona Germanii'', "Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany") was an area of Germany in Central Europe that was occupied by the Soviet Union as a ...
, its
People's Chamber successor and several East German ministries and government departments. As ''Haus der Ministerien'' it was at the centre of the popular demonstrations during the
workers' uprising of 17 June 1953.
The building of the
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall (german: Berliner Mauer, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the gover ...
in 1961 cut the street in half. In 1964 the East Berlin section of the street was named after the former GDR Minister-president
Otto Grotewohl, who had died in office on September 21. Several embassies of "befriended" countries were erected on the corner with Unter den Linden from about 1970 onwards. The new embassy building of the
Czechoslovak Socialist Republic
The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, ČSSR, formerly known from 1948 to 1960 as the Czechoslovak Republic or Fourth Czechoslovak Republic, was the official name of Czechoslovakia from 1960 to 29 March 1990, when it was renamed the Czechoslovak ...
was erected from 1974 to 1978 on Wilhelmplatz. In the 1980s, several ''
Plattenbau'' (concrete slab) apartment blocks were built on the cleared premises along East Berlin ''Otto-Grotewohl-Straße''. The flats were quite popular among the
nomenklatura, as they provided an undisturbed view across the Wall's towards
West Berlin
West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...
. The former "death strip" is today the site of the
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (german: Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas), also known as the Holocaust Memorial (German: ''Holocaust-Mahnmal''), is a memorial in Berlin to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, designed by arc ...
.
Today
Today, the Wilhelmstraße is an important traffic artery, but has not regained its former status. Since
German reunification, some federal ministries have moved their seats to Wilhelmstraße, such as the
Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs
Ministry may refer to:
Government
* Ministry (collective executive), the complete body of government ministers under the leadership of a prime minister
* Ministry (government department), a department of a government
Religion
* Christian mi ...
on former Wilhelmplatz, the
Ministry of Finance in the former Reich Ministry of Aviation complex (renamed ''
Detlev-Rohwedder-Haus'' in 1992), as well as the
Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection
The Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (german: Bundesministerium für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft, ), abbreviated BMEL, is a cabinet-level ministry of the Federal Republic of Germany. Its primary headquarters are located in Bonn with ...
on ''Wilhelmstraße'' 72 – the only German government ministry now located on its prewar site although in a partly reconstructed building.
The British Embassy, whose original building had been destroyed by bombing, was rebuilt on the site.
Queen Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during ...
officiated at the grand opening in July 2000. Other public institutions on Wilhelmstraße include the
ARD-Hauptstadtstudio (television studio) of the
ARD broadcasting organization at the northern Spree riverside, the
E-Werk techno club, the
Topography of Terror museum at the former ''Reichssicherheitshauptamt'' site, and the ''Willy-Brandt-Haus'' headquarters of the
Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, ; SPD, ) is a centre-left social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany.
Saskia Esken has been ...
on the southern corner with Stresemannstrasse.
Many of the occupants of the GDR apartment blocks are recent immigrants, and there are a number of shops and restaurants catering to
Russians
, native_name_lang = ru
, image =
, caption =
, population =
, popplace =
118 million Russians in the Russian Federation (2002 '' Winkler Prins'' estimate)
, region1 =
, pop1 ...
and
Turks. In recent years the City of Berlin has placed a series of historical markers along Wilhelmstraße, showing where the well-known buildings of the pre-war era stood. On 8 November 2011 a memorial in honour of the failed assassin
Johann Georg Elser was inaugurated at the site of the former Reich Chancellery.
Notes
External links
*
Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin online street mapsThe Historical Wilhelmstraße
{{Authority control
Wilhelmstraße
Wilhelmstrasse (german: Wilhelmstraße, see ß) is a major thoroughfare in the central Mitte and Kreuzberg districts of Berlin, Germany. Until 1945, it was recognised as the centre of the government, first of the Kingdom of Prussia, later of ...
Mitte
Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg
Wilhelmstrasse