Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
once lined by the
Sportpalast
and
Kammergericht
, the scenes of several important
chapters in city history. On the southern fringes of the district lies
Rathaus
Schöneberg
, where on June 26, 1963 John F. Kennedy made his “Berliner” speech.
Nollendorfplatz
Long a key place for Berlin's large
gay and lesbian community
,
the busy road and rail
intersection of
Nollendorfplatz
throbs by night as western Berlin's main gay hub, but
by day holds few specific attractions. Even so, it's worth doing a lap of the block on
the south side of the square, east of the proto-Deco
Metropol Theater
, and down
Massenstrasse and on to Nollendorfstrasse. Here, at no. 17, stands the building in
which the writer
Christopher Isherwood
lived during his years in the prewar city, a
time elegantly recounted in his famous collection of stories
Goodbye to Berlin
:
From my window, the deep solemn massive street. Cellar shops where lamps burn all day, under the shadow of
top-heavy balconied facades, dirty plaster frontages embossed with scroll work and heraldic devices. The whole
district is like this: street leading into street of houses like shabby monumental safes crammed with the tarnished
valuables and secondhand furniture of a bankrupt middle class.
Schöneberg has since been reborn as a fancy, even chic, neighbourhood; latter-day
Isherwood wannabes hang out in eastern Kreuzberg.
Kleistpark and around
On Pallasstrasse, east of Winterfeldtplatz, you'll spot a huge and undistinguished
apartment building straddling the road and backing onto the northern edge of the
Kleistpark
. On the south side of the street a huge concrete cube forms the base of the
structure; this began life as one of Berlin's
air-raid shelters
in case of Allied raids. After
the war the tower proved impervious to demolition attempts, and the lower levels
were used by NATO troops to store food and provisions in case of a Soviet invasion.
Ironically, in the post-Cold War years, supplies reaching the end of their shelf life
were sold off - usually on the cheap to Russia. On the northern side of the street the
apartment building rests on land that until 1974 accommodated the
Sportpalast
, a
sports centre that became the main venue for Nazi rallies in the 1930s. Hitler delivered
some of his most famous speeches here - witness those old newsreels showing him
working himself up into an oratorical fever. It was also where Goebbels asked the
German people if they wanted “total war” - at which they jubilantly applauded.
Königskolonnaden
At its eastern end, Pallasstrasse finishes at Potsdamer Strasse, Schöneberg's main drag.
A couple of minutes' walk south down it brings you to the
Königskolonnaden
- a
colonnade from 1780 that originally stood on Alexanderplatz - which on a misty
morning makes this stretch of road look a little Parisian.
Kammergericht building
On the western side of the Kleistpark looms the sturdy
Kammergericht building
,
once
the Supreme Court of Justice. Here Nazi show trials took place, as did the “People's
Court” under the infamous Judge Freisler following the July Bomb Plot (see p.100),
both preludes to the inevitable executions, which often took place in Plötzensee Prison
(see p.157). Freisler met his unlamented end here in the final weeks of the war: on his
way from the courtroom a bomb from an American aircraft fell on the building,
dislodging a beam that crushed his skull. he building is now used by NATO.
Sankt-Matthäus-Kirchhof
Across Potsdamer Strasse from the Kleistpark, at the end of Grossgörschenstrasse, lies
the
Sankt-Matthäus-Kirchhof
, a graveyard that contains the bodies of the Brothers
