The Berlin Palace (German: Berliner Schloss), formerly known as the Royal Palace (German: Königliches Schloss), is a large building adjacent to Berlin Cathedral and the Museum Island in the Mitte area of Berlin. It was the main residence of the Electors of Brandenburg, Kings of Prussia and German Emperors from 1443 to 1918. Expanded by order of Frederick I of Prussia according to plans by Andreas Schlüter from 1689 to 1713, it was thereafter considered a major work of Prussian Baroque architecture. The royal palace became one of Berlin’s largest buildings and shaped the cityscape with its 60-meter-high (200 ft) dome erected in 1845.
Used for various government functions after the abolition of the Hohenzollern monarchy in the 1918 revolution, the palace was damaged during the Allied bombing in World War II, and was razed to the ground by the East German authorities in 1950. In the 1970s, the East German authorities erected a modernist parliamentary and cultural center on the site, known as the Palace of the Republic. After German reunification in 1990, and years of debate, particularly regarding the fraught historical legacy of both buildings, the Palace of the Republic was itself demolished in 2009.
Most of the Berlin Palace's exterior was reconstructed beginning in 2013 to house the Humboldt Forum museum. The east façade of the reconstructed palace incorporates a modernist design, while the new interior combines both historicist and modernist elements. Architect Franco Stella oversaw the project and the exterior reconstruction was completed in 2020, with the last decoration being mounted in 2025. The palace is now again among the largest in the world.
Overview
The palace was originally built in the 15th century, but had changed in form throughout the next few centuries. It bears features of the Baroque style; its shape, which had been finalized by the mid-18th century, is for the most part attributed to German architect Andreas Schlüter, whose first design is likely to date from 1702, even though the palace incorporated earlier Renaissance parts as seen in 1688 by Nicodemus Tessin the Younger. It was the principal residence and winter residence of the Hohenzollern kings of Prussia from 1701 to 1918. After the unification of Germany in 1871, it also became the central residence for the German Emperors, who also served as the kings of Prussia. After the proclamation of the Weimar Republic in 1918, the palace became a museum. In World War II, the building was heavily damaged by Allied bombing. Although it is thought to have been repairable, the palace was demolished in 1950 by the East German authorities following much criticism. In the 1970s, the Palace of the Republic was constructed on its site. After controversial public discussions, in 2002 the Bundestag decided to demolish the Palace of the Republic in order to make place for a partial reconstruction of the Berlin Palace.
Located on Spree Island, the plans envisaged the reconstruction of three sides of the palace exterior in the original style, initially without the National Kaiser Wilhelm Monument at the west front facing the river Spree, and a modernist façade facing the other branch of the Spree. The identically reconstructed facades include various remnant sculptures and stones of the original palace. The inner courtyard facades are also modern, except three facades of the main courtyard which was originally built in 1699 (Schlüterhof). The floorplan has been designed to allow future reconstruction of notable historical rooms. Part of the building houses the Humboldt Forum museum and congress complex, and was finished in 2020.
History
History up to 1871
The palace replaced an earlier fort or castle guarding the crossing of the Spree at Cölln, a neighbouring town which merged with Berlin in 1710. The castle stood on Fishers' Island, as the southern end of the Museum Island in the Spree is known. In 1443 Frederick II "Irontooth", Margrave and Prince Elector of Brandenburg, laid the foundations of Berlin's first fortification in a section of swampy wasteland north of Cölln. At the completion of the castle in 1451, Frederick moved there from the town of Brandenburg. The main role of the castle and its garrison in this period was to establish the authority of the margraves over the unruly citizens of Berlin, who were reluctant to give up their medieval privileges to a monarchy. In 1415 King Sigismund had enfeoffed the Hohenzollern princes with Brandenburg, and they were now establishing their power and withdrawing privileges which the cities had attained in the Brandenburg interregnum of 1319–1415.
In 1454 Frederick II, after having returned via Rome from his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, made the castle chapel a parish church, richly endowing it with relics and altars. Pope Nicholas V ordered Stephan Bodecker, then Prince-Bishop of Brandenburg, to consecrate the chapel to Erasmus of Formiae. On 7 April 1465, at Frederick's request, Pope Paul II attributed to St. Erasmus Chapel a canon law College named Stift zu Ehren Unserer Lieben Frauen, des heiligen Kreuzes, St. Petri und Pauli, St. Erasmi und St. Nicolai. This collegiate church became the nucleus of today's Evangelical Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church (Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral)), adjoining the site of the castle.
In 1538, the Elector Joachim II demolished the castle and engaged the master builder Caspar Theiss to build a new and grander palace in the Italian Renaissance style. The plans were made by his teacher Konrad Krebs, similar to the castle in Torgau, which he also designed. Toward the end of the 16th century Rochus Graf zu Lynar designed the Pharmacy Wing. After the Thirty Years War (1618–1648), Frederick William, the "Great Elector", embellished the palace further. In 1688, Nicodemus Tessin the Younger designed courtyard arcades with massive columns in front. Not much is known about the alterations of 1690–1695, when Johann Arnold Nering was the court architect. Martin Grünberg continued the alterations in 1695–1699.
In 1699, the Elector Frederick III of Brandenburg (who took the title King in Prussia in 1701, becoming Frederick I), appointed the architect Andreas Schlüter to execute a "second plan" in the Italian manner. Schlüter's first design probably dates from 1702; he planned to rebuild the palace in the Protestant Baroque style. His overall concept in the shape of a regular cube enclosing a magnificently ornamented courtyard was retained by all the building directors who succeeded him. In 1706, Schlüter was replaced by Johann Friedrich Eosander von Göthe, who designed the western extension of the palace, doubling its size. In all essentials, Schlüter's balanced, rhythmic composition of the façades was retained, but Göthe moved the main entrance to the new west wing.
Frederick William I, who became king in 1713, was interested mainly in building up Prussia as a military power, and dismissed most of the craftsmen working on the palace. As a result, Göthe's plan was only partly carried out. The palace was the original location for the Amber Room in the Catherine Palace of Tsarskoye Selo near Saint Petersburg, but Peter the Great of Russia admired it during a visit, and in 1716 Frederick William I presented the room to Peter as a gift. Nevertheless, the exterior of the palace had come close to its final form by the mid-18th century. Interior decoration continued, engaging the talents of Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff, Carl von Gontard and many others. The final stage was the erection of the dome with a palace chapel in 1845, during the reign of Frederick William IV. The dome was built by Friedrich August Stüler after a design by Karl Friedrich Schinkel.
The palace was itself the epicenter of the Revolution of 1848 in Prussia. Huge crowds gathered outside the palace to present an "address to the king" containing their demands for a constitution, liberal reform and German unification. Frederick William IV emerged from the palace to accept their demands. On 18 March, a large demonstration outside the palace led to bloodshed and the outbreak of street fighting. Frederick William later reneged on his promises and reimposed an autocratic regime. From that time onwards, many Berliners and other Germans came to see the palace as a symbol of oppression and "Prussian militarism".
History during the German Empire, Weimar Republic and National Socialist Era (1871–1945)
In 1871, King Wilhelm I was elevated to the status of German Emperor (Kaiser) of a united Germany, and the palace became the symbolic heart of the German Empire. The Empire was (in theory) a constitutional state, and from 1894 onwards, the new Reichstag building, the seat of the German parliament, came to not only rival, but overshadow the palace as the Empire's centre of power. In conjunction with Germany's defeat in World War I, Kaiser Wilhelm II was forced to abdicate, both as German Emperor and as King of Prussia.
In November 1918, during the immediate vacuum of power following the abdication of the Kaiser, Spartacist leader Karl Liebknecht declared a German socialist republic from a balcony of the palace. It was an attempt to steer the German revolution towards a communist Germany and stood in contrast to the proclamation of a republic that Philipp Scheidemann of the Social Democratic Party had made a few hours earlier from a balcony of the Reichstag building. The duelling proclamations underscored that the more than 400 years of royal Hohenzollern occupation of the Berlin Palace had come to an end.
During the Weimar Republic, parts of the palace were turned into a museum, while other parts continued to be used for receptions and other state functions. Under Adolf Hitler's National Socialist (Nazi) Party, which laid to rest monarchist hopes of a Hohenzollern restoration, the building was mostly ignored. During World War II, the palace was twice struck by Allied bombs: on 3 and 24 February 1945. On the latter occasion, when both the air defences and fire-fighting systems of Berlin had been destroyed, the building was struck by incendiaries, lost its roof, and was largely burnt out.
Postwar debate and demolition
The end of the war saw the palace a burned-out shell of its former glory, although the building remained structurally sound and much of its interior decoration was still preserved. It could have been restored, as many other bombed-out buildings in Central Berlin later were. The area in which it was located was within the Soviet zone, which became the German Democratic Republic. The building was used for a Soviet war movie ("the Battle of Berlin") in which the palace served as a backdrop, with live artillery shells fired at it for the realistic cinematic impact.
The new socialist government declared the palace a symbol of Prussian militarism, although at that time there appeared to be no plans to destroy the building. Some parts of it were in fact repaired and used from 1945 to 1950 as an exhibition space. A secret 1950 GDR Ministry of Construction report, only rediscovered in 2016, calculated that reconstruction of the damaged Palace could be achieved for 32 million East German marks. But in July 1950 Walter Ulbricht, the new General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, announced the demolition of the palace. Despite objections, its removal commenced in September 1950, the process taking four months and consuming 19 tons of dynamite.
So solid was its construction that the dome and its entire mount remained intact even after the rest of the building fell to the ground. Only one section was preserved, a portal from the balcony from which Karl Liebknecht had declared the German Socialist Republic. In 1964 it was added to the State Council Building, with an altered cartouche, where it forms the main entrance. The empty space where the palace had stood was named Marx-Engels-Platz and used as a parade ground.
From 1973 to 1976, during the government of Erich Honecker, a large modernist building was built, the Palast der Republik (Palace of the Republic), which occupied most of the site of the former palace.
Reunification
Shortly before German reunification in October 1990, the Palast der Republik was found to be contaminated with asbestos and was closed to the public. After reunification, the Berlin city government ordered the removal of the asbestos, a process which was completed by 2003. In November 2003, the German federal government decided to demolish the building and leave the area and the adjacent Marx-Engels Platz (renamed Schlossplatz) as parkland, pending a decision as to its future. Demolition started in February 2006 and was completed in 2009.
The demolition was lengthy because of the presence of additional asbestos, and because the palace acted as a counterbalance to the Berliner Dom, across the street, on the unstable grounds of the Museum Island. East Germans resented the demolition, especially those for whom the Palace of the Republic had been a place of fond memories, or who felt a sense of dislocation in a post-Communist world.
From 2008, until the commencement of construction in 2013, the large area of the original Schlossplatz became a grassed field, laid out on minimal lines, with wooden platforms. At the same time, the Berlin Monument Authority (Landesdenkmalamt) undertook extensive archaeological excavations. Parts of cellars that had been situated in the south-west corner of the former Palace were discovered and it was decided these would be preserved and made accessible to visitors as an "archaeological window".