Historisches Hospital
Historical Hospital
Bezirksamt Public Administration Office] The old buildings out of red and yellow brick stand for the history of the old working class district Prenzlauer Berg. In the early days it was used as a hospital, a shelter for homeless, a chapel and after 1945 as the Soviet military headquarters. Today the administration offices of the district council are situated in there.
In the founding years after 1870 the population of Berlin exploded. The industrialisation aggravated the social problems and brought poverty, deficiency diseases and homelessness which had to be solved. So after 1886 a hospital, a hospice and a shelter for homeless were built all at the same time on Prenzlauer Allee near the IV. Berliner gas works (where the grounds of the Zeiss- planetarium are today).
The architects of the building complex were Councillor Hermann Blankenstein and Vinzent Dylewski. The government hospital Friedrich-Wilhelm-Hospital with 500 beds and the hospice with 1000 places (which today is house 3) was build to the most modern standards at the time. The deceased were laid out in the chapel in Prenzlauer Allee. In 1934 the hospital and the hospice were moved to Buch on the outskirts of Berlin. In the same year the town council offices moved into house 3. After the end of the Second World war in May 1945 the grounds of the town council were taken over by the Red Army, thus the chapel was converted into the Soviet military commanders headquarters (SMAD) for the district of Prenzlauer Berg. In the cellar of house 3 people were held on remand and interrogated if they were accused of being former Nazi-officers or people not sympathetic to the Soviet occupation. From there many prisoners were taken to disciplinary camps. In 1950 the SMAD handed over some of the buildings to the national state security service of the former DDR (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, MfS).The cellar of house 3 was used as a prison until at least 1956. Another part of the complex was divided by a wall and was used by the council of the district Prenzlauer Berg. After 1986 when the MfS moved out of all the grounds and buildings, the council took over everything except house 9 where the district headquarters of the political party of SED (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands). After the fall of the SED regime in 1989/90 it became the first unemployment office in Prenzlauer Berg. Since 2001 the buildings belong to town hall Pankow.
Then government homeless shelter on Fröbelstrasse/corner Diesterwegstrasse was still used for temporary shelter for the poor and homeless and is known by the local people as “Palme” (palm tree) because in the past there was a large potted palm tree that stood in the entrance. In the administration building families could seek temporary shelter, the building behind contained 40 dormitories for single people. One dormitory had enough room for 70 beds and was often overcrowded. On arrival the homeless were registered and cleaned and afterwards they would receive a bowl of soup with a slice of bread and a plank bed where they could sleep until 6 o’clock when they had to leave.
In 1933 the homeless shelter was closed by the Nazis and was turned into holding cells for foreign forced labourers. Since 1940, the building is a hospital,that is to be closed in 2019 and to have a different function.