The Köllnische Gymnasium was the first

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

Realgymnasium. The school building was constructed in 1868 at the corner of Insel-/Wallstraße in the Berlin suburb of Neu-Kölln according to plans by the city building councilor Adolf Gerstenberg. Today, the Fanny Hensel Music School is located in the heritage-protected building complex. As early as the 14th century, there was a Köllnische Latin School on the western bank of the Spree. In 1540, Heinrich Knaust, a student of

Martin Luther Martin Luther ( ; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, Theology, theologian, author, hymnwriter, professor, and former Order of Saint Augustine, Augustinian friar. Luther was the seminal figure of the Reformation, Pr ...

and

Philipp Melanchthon Philip Melanchthon (born Philipp Schwartzerdt; 16 February 1497 – 19 April 1560) was a German Lutheran reformer, collaborator with Martin Luther, the first systematic theologian of the Protestant Reformation, an intellectual leader of the ...

, took over the leadership of this school. After the

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, in 1766, the upper level of the Berlin Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster was merged with the Köllnische Gymnasium. The educational institution was now called the Berlin-Köllnische Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster. However, in 1824, the separation occurred again. The students of the Köllnische School used the premises of the Kölln Town Hall. Due to increasing numbers of students in the 1860s, the municipal administration commissioned a new school building, providing the plot at Inselstraße 2–5 for this purpose. Between 1865 and 1868, the schoolhouse of the new Köllnische Gymnasium was built according to plans by Adolf Gerstenberg, who at the same time also constructed the school complex of the Sophien Gymnasium on Weinmeisterstraße. The school's modern language profile was expanded to include a classical education, and special sports such as fencing were taught. Once considered an elite institution, by the 1920s it had become accessible to the lower classes. After the

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came to power, the educational institution was renamed Altköllnische Schule. The school was relocated to the

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in 1943. Students who could not or did not want to move attended schools in the Berlin suburbs.

Building

Siegelmarke_Coelnisches_Gymnasium_W0232429

The new building was officially opened in November 1868. For this occasion, Paul Schnöpf and Ernst Ferdinand August (school director 1827–1868) composed their own music. Berlin's mayor at the time, Heinrich Philipp Hedemann, also attended the event. Gerstenberg had designed a three-story clinker brick building adorned with a central projection and various terracotta ornaments. A residence for the teachers of the educational institution, designed in the same style and with the same materials but only two stories high, was attached on the side facing Köllnische Park. The school was severely damaged in the bombing of Berlin World War II. Two-thirds of the school building and the gymnasium were destroyed. The gymnasium was not continued. In the 1950s, the remaining parts of the building were simply repaired and used as a special school. After the

reunification of Germany German reunification () was the process of re-establishing Germany as a single sovereign state, which began on 9 November 1989 and culminated on 3 October 1990 with the dissolution of the German Democratic Republic and the integration of i ...

, the district administration carried out extensive renovation work, and the Fanny Hensel Music School subsequently moved into the school building. The building with the attached teacher's residence is under heritage protection (''

Denkmalschutz The ''Deutsche Stiftung Denkmalschutz'' ("German Foundation for Monument Protection") is a German private initiative founded in 1985 that works for the preservation of cultural heritage in Germany and to promote the idea of cultural heritage man ...

)''.{{Cite web , title=Liste, Karte, Datenbank / Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung und Umwelt - Berlin , url=https://denkmaldatenbank.berlin.de/daobj.php?obj_dok_nr=09035383 , access-date=2024-02-04 , website=denkmaldatenbank.berlin.de , language=de Various brick stamps visible on the facade still indicate the origin and manual production of the bricks used.

References

Schools in Berlin Denkmalgeschütztes Objekte School buildings