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| Wilhelmstrasse | |
 Wilhelmstraße today: anti-car bombbollards at the British embassy | |
 Interactive map of Wilhelmstraße | |
| Former names |
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|---|---|
| Namesake | Frederick William I of Prussia |
| Type | Street |
| Length | 2,400 m (7,900 ft)[5][6][7] |
| Location | Berlin, Germany |
| Quarter | Mitte,Kreuzberg |
| Nearest metro station | |
| Coordinates | 52°30′29″N13°22′39″E / 52.50792°N 13.37744°E /52.50792; 13.37744 |
| North end | |
| Major junctions |
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| South end |
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| Construction | |
| Inauguration | After 1731 (1731)[1][2] |
Wilhelmstraße, orWilhelmstrasse (seeß;[8]German pronunciation:[ˈvɪlhɛlmˌʃtʁaːsə];transl. William Street) is a majorthoroughfare in the centralMitte andKreuzberg districts of Berlin, Germany. Until 1945, it was recognised as the centre of the government, first of theKingdom of Prussia, and later of the unifiedGerman Reich, housing in particular theReich Chancellery and theForeign Office. The street's name was thus also frequently used as ametonym for overall German governmental administration: much as the term "Whitehall" is often used to signify the British governmental administration as a whole. In English, "the Wilhelmstrasse" usually referred to the German Foreign Office.[9]
The Wilhelmstraße runs south from theSpree riverside through the historicDorotheenstadt quarter to theUnter den Linden boulevard nearPariser Platz andBrandenburg Gate, where it takes on a line slightly east of south through adjacentFriedrichstadt, until its juncture with Stresemannstraße nearHallesches Tor in Kreuzberg, an overall distance of about 2.4 km (1.5 mi).
Further south ofUnter den Linden it passes the nowadays built-over formerWilhelmplatz vis-à-visVoss-Straße, it crossesLeipziger Straße nearLeipziger andPotsdamer Platz, andNiederkirchnerstraße, known until after World War II asPrinz-Albrecht-Straße. At its southern end, Wilhelmstraße originally met withFriedrichstraße, which runs roughly parallel to the east, on theBelle-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 theEmbassy of the United Kingdom.
Frederick William I, from 1713King in Prussia andElector of Brandenburg, had the southwestern Friedrichstadt quarter of his Berlin residence significantly enlarged, whereby the premises up to theBerlin Customs Wall (on present-day Stresemannstrasse) were developed as an affluent residential area. In 1731 theHusarenstraße (Street of theHussars) was built as a north-south thoroughfare of theBaroque city layout, where manyHuguenots, who had fled fromFrance, as well as expelled members of theMoravian Church settled. Several personal confidants of the king had large city palaces erected, most notably GeneralKurt Christoph Graf von Schwerin and the French Baron François Mathieu Vernezobre de Laurieux, who took his residence in the laterPrinz-Albrecht-Palais. The street was renamedWilhelmstraße in honour of the king, who had died in 1740.
Originally a wealthy residential street, with a number of palaces belonging to members of theHohenzollern royal family, the Wilhelmstrasse developed as a Prussian government precinct from the mid 19th century. In 1858 KingFrederick William IV acquired the formerPalais Schwerin on No. 73. This building now calledPalace of the Reich President housed an administrative seat of the Prussian minister for the Royal Household, from 1861 led byAlexander von Schleinitz. In 1869 the nearbyPalais Schulenburg residence of late PrinceAntoni Radziwiłł, built in 1738/39 on No. 77, was purchased by the Prussian state government at the behest of Schleinitz' opponent Minister-PresidentOtto von Bismarck. Rebuilt from 1875 until 1878, it served as his official seat asGerman chancellor. 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 theReich Ministry of Finance (No. 61), theImperial Colonial Office (No. 62), thePrussian state ministry (No. 63), theReich Ministry of Food and Agriculture (No. 72), and theReich Ministry of Transport (No. 79, from 1919). The lavishPalais Strousberg of bankrupt "railway king"Bethel Henry Strousberg on No. 70 was bought by Prince Hugo ofHohenlohe in an 1876 auction and rented out to theBritish ambassadorLord Ampthill, until it was finally purchased by the United Kingdom in 1884. In 1877 theBorsig Palace was erected on the corner with Voss-Strasse.
After World War I thePalais Schwerin was sold by exiled EmperorWilhelm II to theWeimar Republic government and in 1919 became the residence of the firstReich President of Germany,Friedrich Ebert. Until the death of his successorPaul von Hindenburg in 1934, the President's official residence was atWilhelmstraße 73, where he could watch the torchlight parade on the night of the NaziMachtergreifung on 30 January 1933, after he had sworn inAdolf Hitler as German chancellor. Hitler addressed the cheering crowds on Wilhelmstrasse from a window of a modern chancellery annex building erected in 1930. Styling himself "Führer and Reich Chancellor" from 1934, he regarded the residence inadequate and ordered the construction of the vastNew Reich Chancellery according to plans designed byAlbert Speer. This building, a prime example ofNazi architecture, stood immediately south of the old Chancellery, on the corner of the Wilhelmstrasse and theVoss Strasse, and its official address wasVoßstraße 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 MinisterJoachim von Ribbentrop. Vis-à-vis on Wilhelmplatz, the BaroqueOrdenspalais was refurbished as seat of theMinistry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda led byJoseph Goebbels. In 1935/36 his party fellowHermann Göring had the hugeMinistry of Aviation edifice designed byErnst Sagebiel built on the corner with Leipziger Strasse. The adjacentPrinz-Albrecht-Palais in the south became notorious as the seat of theSicherheitsdienst of theReichsführer-SS and theSicherheitspolizei chief-of-staff; merged into theSS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt terror complex underReinhard Heydrich in 1939. Most of the public buildings along Wilhelmstrasse were destroyed byAllied bombing during 1944 and early 1945 and during the followingBattle of Berlin.
After the war, Wilhelmstrasse as far south as Niederkirchnerstrasse was in theSoviet 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 theGerman Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1949, withEast Berlin as its capital. One of the earliest reconstructions was the 1948-built provisional wooden church hall of theMoravian Brethren congregation on Wilhelmstrasse 138.
Thecommunist 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'sReich 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 theSoviet Military Administration in Germany and the (East)German Economic Commission, later by theGerman People's Council of theSoviet occupation zone, itsPeople's Chamber successor and several East German ministries and government departments. AsHaus der Ministerien it was at the centre of the popular demonstrations during theworkers' uprising of 17 June 1953.
The building of theBerlin Wall in 1961 cut the street in half. In 1964 the East Berlin section of the street was named after the former GDR Minister-presidentOtto Grotewohl, who had died in office on 21 September. Several embassies of "befriended" countries were erected on the corner with Unter den Linden from about 1970 onwards. The new embassy building of theCzechoslovak Socialist Republic was erected from 1974 to 1978 on Wilhelmplatz. In the 1980s, severalPlattenbau (concrete slab) apartment blocks were built on the cleared premises along East BerlinOtto-Grotewohl-Straße. The flats were quite popular among thenomenklatura, as they provided an undisturbed view across the Wall's towardsWest Berlin. The former "death strip" is today the site of theMemorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.
Today, the Wilhelmstraße is an important traffic artery, but has not regained its former status. SinceGerman reunification, some federal ministries have moved their seats to Wilhelmstraße, such as theMinistry of Labour and Social Affairs on former Wilhelmplatz, theMinistry of Finance in the former Reich Ministry of Aviation complex (renamedDetlev-Rohwedder-Haus in 1992), as well as theFederal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection onWilhelmstraße 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 officiated at the grand opening in July 2000. Other public institutions on Wilhelmstraße include theARD-Hauptstadtstudio (television studio) of theARD broadcasting organization at the northern Spree riverside, theE-Werk techno club, theTopography of Terror museum at the formerReichssicherheitshauptamt site, and theWilly-Brandt-Haus headquarters of theSocial Democratic Party of Germany 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 toRussians andTurks. 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 assassinJohann Georg Elser was inaugurated at the site of the former Reich Chancellery.
