Schloss Genshagen: A Former Manor House and Conference Estate in Germany
Site at a Glance
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- Germany
- Primary era
- Modern
- Eras represented
- Modern
- Civilizations
- German
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Manor House
On this page11 sections
History
Medieval Estate and Manor House
Schloss Genshagen is a former manor house in Germany, built in 1878–1880 in the Neo-Renaissance style for Pauline von Eberstein. The estate itself was first mentioned in 1289 and had been divided into separate holdings before the fifteenth century. The larger Otterstedt holding passed to the noble von Hake family before 1655, while Friedrich August von Thümen acquired the smaller Zicker holding in 1677.
A manor house was established in the former von Hake holding in 1700, after Lewin Friedrich von Hake married Maria Dorothea Schaeffer. Between 1791 and 1819, the manor house served as the district office of Teltow. Ludwig von Hake sold the estate in 1838 for 130,000 Reichstaler, a historical German silver currency unit, to the Prussian Privy Councillor of Justice Karl Ferdinand Schulz. Schulz entrusted its administration for many decades to Anton Gebauer.
The von Eberstein Estate
In September 1854, Schulz gave the debt-free manor house to his daughter Friederike Pauline Schulz as a wedding gift. She later became Pauline von Eberstein after marrying Max Freiherr von Eberstein, a second lieutenant in the Kaiser Franz Grenadier Regiment, a Prussian infantry regiment. A new manor house was built for the couple in 1878–1880 under the direction of the Berlin building inspector Lindemann.
The von Eberstein family remained associated with Genshagen into the early twentieth century. The estate district had 337 inhabitants, compared with 85 in the village itself, and was probably the largest estate district in the Teltow district. Leberecht Freiherr von Eberstein and his wife Sophie, née von Boetticher, directed the extensive remodeling of the building during the 1910s. After that work, the manor house was increasingly called a castle.
War, Expropriation, and Institutional Use
After the Second World War, the von Ebersteins fled to Schleswig-Holstein and were expropriated. On 21 April 1945, the family and its heirs were expelled from the property. Because Genshagen lay in the Soviet occupation zone, the castle was subsequently occupied by the military administration. It first housed refugees and expellees, and from 1948 it served as an administrative training school for the East German Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.
A fire damaged the distillery in 1958. The state-owned agricultural enterprise then restored and partly remodeled it. In 1968, the old manor house, by then dilapidated, was remodeled and incorporated into the farm buildings. From 1973 to 1991, the continuing-education department of the Edwin Hoernle Scientific and Technical Centre for Agriculture and Food Production of the Potsdam District Council used the building. After the centre’s headquarters moved to Potsdam in 1973, Genshagen retained its feed-testing department, including a laboratory, and its continuing-education department, including a library.
New roof coverings, including coverings on the tower, were installed in 1983. After German reunification, the castle became state property. The distillery, which had until then been operated by the Berlin municipal estates, closed in 1993. Until 1996, the Brandenburg State Academy for Structural Development and Labour, established under Brandenburg Social Minister Regine Hildebrandt, used the castle as a training academy.
Foundation and Contemporary Role
The Berlin-Brandenburg Institute for German-French Cooperation in Europe became a subtenant in 1993 and received a 60-year hereditary leasehold in 1996. Under the direction of the Berlin architect Claus Kampmann, it carried out extensive restoration and conversion work. The castle became a conference hotel with 21 guest rooms, while the gardener’s house was converted into a youth centre. The works were completed in 2004, and the institute became the Genshagen Foundation in 2005.
Since 2005, Schloss Genshagen has belonged to the Genshagen Foundation, also known as the Berlin-Brandenburg Institute for German-French Cooperation in Europe. The Federal Republic of Germany and the state of Brandenburg finance the foundation, which uses the estate for conferences and other events, including regular meetings associated with the Weimar Triangle, a framework for political cooperation among Germany, France, and Poland. The German federal government and Brandenburg also use the castle and grounds for state visits and political meetings. Gerhard Schröder and French President Jacques Chirac held a working meeting there in February 2004, while the governing coalition under Chancellor Angela Merkel held its first closed retreat there in January 2006.
German and French companies, foundations, and private individuals supported the institute and foundation from their beginnings. Brigitte Sauzay, a French-German cultural intermediary and adviser, and Rudolf von Thadden, a German historian and public intellectual, were particularly associated with their origins.
Remains
Castle Architecture
The main building is a rendered structure whose original form had a single storey, thirteen bays, and a high rusticated base, a masonry or plaster finish made to resemble large roughly finished blocks. Its symmetrical Neo-Renaissance facade carried decorative ornament. On the courtyard side, a central flight of steps three bays wide led to a portico, or roofed entrance structure supported by columns or similar elements. Its triangular pediment bore the von Eberstein arms. A second flight of steps led from the garden side into the park.
The original mansard roof had two slopes on each side, with the lower slope steeper than the upper one. Ten dormer windows on the courtyard side were aligned above the ground-floor window axes. During the remodeling of the 1910s, the building gained another storey. The roof was hipped at the sides, and a two-storey square tower was added at the centre. The lower dormers were retained, while bat dormers were installed in the new upper roof storey. A rooftop platform was added above the courtyard-side entrance hall.
Central projecting sections, known as risalits, were created on both the courtyard and garden facades. Pilasters, shallow rectangular projections resembling columns, articulated these sections, which carried balconies with wrought-iron railings. The remodeled interiors contained richly decorated ceilings and a large fireplace. The later conference conversion provided reception and working rooms, a library, and 21 guest rooms.
Farm Buildings and Garden House
Former Distillery
The former distillery was established in 1888. A fire damaged the building in 1958, after which it was restored and partly altered by the state-owned agricultural enterprise. It continued in operation under the Berlin municipal estates until closing in 1993.
Gardener’s House
The gardener’s house was converted into a youth centre during the restoration and conversion works completed in 2004.
Landscape Park
A landscape park of approximately 7.5 hectares was created in the second half of the nineteenth century. Its surviving features include a ditch-like watercourse and artificially modeled hills. Following the castle’s remodeling, the grounds included a parterre, a formally arranged ornamental garden layout, together with a gardening establishment containing greenhouses and a palm house.
Sophie Freifrau von Eberstein established an extensive collection of woody plants in the park. A 1922 communication from the German Dendrological Society indicates that the grounds probably contained exceptionally varied and colorful planting during the 1920s. Extensive work on the park resumed after 1992. Led by the landscape architect Gunnar Lange of Belzig, the later redesign used historically guided treatment near the castle and a modern design in the remaining areas.
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