Cecilienhof: The Hohenzollern Palace and Potsdam Conference Site
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.8
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Modern
- Eras represented
- Modern
- Civilizations
- German
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Palace
On this page14 sections
History
Cecilienhof is a palace in Potsdam, Germany, built for the Hohenzollern dynasty in the Tudor Revival style between 1914 and 1917. It was the last palace constructed by the family that ruled Prussia and the German Empire until the end of the First World War. Kaiser Wilhelm II ordered funds in 1912 for a new residence for his eldest son, Crown Prince Wilhelm, and Wilhelm’s wife, Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.
Construction for the Crown Prince
The Ministry of the House of Hohenzollern commissioned the Saalecker Werkstätten, an architectural and building workshop co-founded by Paul Schultze-Naumburg, to construct the palace for 1,498,000 Reichsmark. Crown Prince Wilhelm laid the foundation stone in May 1913. Paul Schultze-Naumburg directed the work, which was planned for completion on 1 October 1915.
The outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 halted construction, but work resumed in 1915. Crown Princess Cecilie moved into the completed rooms in August 1917, and the palace was finished on 1 October of that year. On 5 September 1917, she gave birth at Cecilienhof to her youngest child, Princess Cecilie.
Revolution and the Hohenzollern residence
The revolution of November 1918 ended the Hohenzollerns’ rule in Germany. For security reasons, Cecilie and her six children temporarily moved to the Neues Palais. She returned to Cecilienhof and lived there until 1920. Crown Prince Wilhelm went into exile in the Netherlands on 13 November 1918 and returned to Germany as a private citizen on 9 November 1923.
A settlement between the German state and the Hohenzollern family in 1926 changed Cecilienhof’s legal position. The palace became state property, while Wilhelm and Cecilie retained a residence right limited to three generations. Other descriptions of the arrangement characterize it as the return of the palace to Wilhelm and Cecilie as private property. Disputes over the legality and extent of the expropriation, including claims concerning Cecilienhof, continued after 1990 and were withdrawn by the Hohenzollern family in March 2023.
From the Nazi era to the end of the war
Crown Prince Wilhelm supported Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, and Hitler visited Cecilienhof in 1926, 1933, and 1935. After the attempted assassination of 20 July 1944, Hitler placed Wilhelm under Gestapo supervision and ordered Cecilienhof watched.
Wilhelm left Potsdam for Oberstdorf in January 1945 for medical treatment. Cecilie fled in early February as the Red Army approached Berlin. Soviet forces seized the palace at the end of the war, and the Hohenzollern family was formally expropriated without compensation by the Soviet occupation authorities in September 1945.
The Potsdam Conference
Cecilienhof hosted the Potsdam Conference, officially called the Berlin Conference, from 17 July to 2 August 1945. It was the final major summit of Allied leaders after Germany’s defeat in Europe. Delegations from the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States met to make decisions affecting post-war Europe and Asia, including the political settlement and occupation arrangements that followed the war.
Berlin was rejected as the venue because severe wartime destruction had damaged the city. Cecilienhof was selected because nearby Babelsberg had suffered only slight damage and its approaches could be guarded. Soviet troops repaired the roads between Babelsberg and the palace, built a pontoon bridge to replace the destroyed Glienicke Bridge, and prepared the grounds. They renovated and refurnished 36 rooms and the Great Hall with furniture taken from other Potsdam palaces.
The delegations included United States President Harry S. Truman, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who was replaced during the conference by Clement Attlee. While at Cecilienhof, Truman gave the telephone order for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
State use and heritage protection
After the conference, Soviet troops used Cecilienhof as a clubhouse. The palace was later transferred to the state of Brandenburg, and a conference memorial opened in 1952 in the former private rooms of Wilhelm and Cecilie. The East German government used the building for state receptions, while the Democratic Women’s Association, a mass organization in East Germany, initially operated a training centre there.
In 1960, 42 hotel rooms were established in the west wing, and other rooms were used by the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the ruling communist party of the German Democratic Republic, for meetings. From 1961, part of the Neuer Garten was destroyed to build the southwest section of the Berlin Wall’s border installations along the shore of the Jungfernsee.
The palace and park opened to the public after the 1945 conference. The private rooms reopened after comprehensive restoration in 1995, while museum and hotel uses later continued within the complex. The roof and façades were renovated between 2014 and 2018, and the exterior grounds were restored according to their historical appearance. Cecilienhof forms part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site “Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin,” added in 1990, and received the European Heritage Label in 2011. The Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg administers the site.
Brandenburg’s state government has occasionally used Cecilienhof for receptions. Queen Elizabeth II visited in November 2004, and the G8 foreign ministers met there on 30 May 2007. A redesigned permanent exhibition on the Potsdam Conference reopened in April 2012.
Remains
Layout and exterior
Cecilienhof stands in the northern part of the Neuer Garten near the shore of the Jungfernsee. Its low form was inspired by English country estates and Tudor or cottage-style buildings, including Bidston Court in Birkenhead and Gelbensande Manor in Mecklenburg-Schwerin. The palace contains 176 rooms, but its multiple courts and low, spread-out structure make that extent less apparent from the exterior.
Courtyards
The palace is arranged around five courtyards. The central Ehrenhof, or ceremonial courtyard, is large and three-sided, while the smaller Prinzengarten, or Prince’s Garden, and three service courtyards complete the plan. The Ehrenhof was intended mainly for the arrival and departure of the Crown Prince and Crown Princess. A five-pointed Soviet red star made from red flowers occupies its lawn. Soviet soldiers planted it while preparing the palace for the 1945 conference, and it remains a defining feature of the courtyard.
Materials and roofline
Brickwork and dark-oak half-timbered elements dominate the façades. The roof carries 55 Tudor-style chimney stacks, each with an individual design. These features express the Tudor Revival style, a nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century revival of forms associated with Tudor England, including half-timbering, brickwork, steep roof forms, and varied decorative chimneys.
Interior arrangement
The public and representative rooms occupy the ground floor of the central section around the Great Hall. Private bedrooms, dressing rooms, and bathrooms were placed above them and reached by four staircases. Paul Ludwig Troost designed almost all of the private interiors. He was known for creating passenger-ship interiors for the Norddeutscher Lloyd line, an influence reflected in one of Cecilie’s rooms.
The Great Hall
The two-storey Great Hall is 26 metres long and forms the centre of the main building. It was originally a residential hall, with wood-panelled walls, exposed wooden ceiling beams, and a large front window with coffering. In 1945 it was converted into the Potsdam Conference chamber. A round table measuring 3.05 metres across was made specially in Moscow by the Lux furniture factory for the negotiations.
Royal suites
Crown Prince Wilhelm’s ground-floor suite included a smoking room, library, and breakfast room. Cecilie’s suite contained a music salon, writing room, and a room designed like an ocean-liner cabin, which she used as a breakfast room. A dark-oak staircase in the Danzig Baroque style leads to the private rooms. The city of Danzig gave the staircase to the Crown Prince and Crown Princess.
The cabin-style room survives with much of its furnishing because the elements were built into the room. It is among the surviving private interiors associated with Cecilie’s residence.
Conference rooms and furnishings
The 1945 conference altered the use of the royal rooms. Cecilie’s music salon became the Soviet delegation’s White Salon and reception room, while her writing room became the Soviet delegation’s Red Salon and study. Wilhelm’s smoking room served as the American delegation’s study, and his library served as the British delegation’s study. His breakfast room may have been used as a secretary’s office.
The family’s original furnishings were removed after Wilhelm and Cecilie left in early 1945 and taken by Soviet authorities to the Old Dairy on the shore of the Jungfernsee. A fire destroyed them there on 25 July 1945. Replacement pieces in period styles were brought from nearby palaces for the conference. Stalin’s corner room received a dark leather sofa and a large writing desk, Truman’s room was furnished with classicist pieces from the Marble Palace, and Churchill’s room received neo-Gothic furniture from Babelsberg Palace. The present identification of the former British and American studies remains questioned because evidence suggests that Soviet authorities may have switched their designations after the conference.
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