Jonaß Department Store
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| Kaufhaus Jonaß seit 2010: Soho House Berlin | |
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The former Jonaß department store (also spelled Jonass) in Berlin was inaugurated in 1929 as the first credit department store. After the expropriation of the Jewish owners during the Nazi era, the building served as the headquarters of the Hitler Youth from 1934 onwards and later of the SED (Socialist Unity Party of Germany). The private club Soho House Berlin, including a hotel, opened in the listed building in May 2010.
The building, located on the edge of the Kollwitzkiez neighborhood, is in the Pankow district, Prenzlauer Berg locality, at Torstraße 1, on the corner of Prenzlauer Allee. The district boundary with Mitte lies in front of the property line. Because the street was renamed several times, the address was initially Lothringer Straße 1, and from 1951 to 1994 Wilhelm-Pieck-Straße 1.
The building occupies a frontage of 21 meters at Torstraße 1 and 56 meters at Prenzlauer Allee 259. Due to the chamfered corner, the distances measured from the intersection of the two streets are 45 meters along Torstraße and 70 meters along Prenzlauer Allee.
The drill hall was located on plot 1–7 at the corner of Lothringer Straße and Prenzlauer Allee from 1828 onwards. It lay outside the Berlin customs and excise wall until its demolition around 1870.
History
Founded as a watch shop in 1889
Founded in 1889 Jonass & Co., GmbH was a large mail-order company[1] for watches and after the First World War had its main business in the building of the Berlin branch of Telefunken (Gesellschaft für drahtlose Telegraphie) at Belle-Alliance-Straße 7–10 (since 1947: Mehringdamm 32/34). The owner of Jonass & Co., businessman Hermann Golluber, acquired the property—which was undeveloped at the time—in the early 1920s (No. 1) acquired next to the drill hall of the Emperor Alexander Guard Grenadier Regiment No. 1 Emperor Alexander Guard Grenadier Regiment No. 1, built in 1828 on Lothringer Straße. Buildings 2–7 were used (after 1918) as a tenement building for civil servants. Golluber had a building constructed on the undeveloped corner plot of Lothringer Straße/Prenzlauer Allee in the years 1928/1929. Together with his business partner Hugo Halle, he commissioned the architects Gustav Bauer and Siegfried Friedländer to construct a new building for the Jonaß & Co. AG credit department store. The imposing complex, built in the New Objectivity style, was constructed using the skeleton frame method that emerged in the late 1920s. The first two floors are clad in natural stone, above which rises a five-story plastered building and an attic level, which housed a rooftop restaurant for several years. The residents of the nearby Scheunenviertel (Barn Quarter) in particular took advantage of the credit department store's over 15,000 m² of retail space, which offered the option of purchasing goods on credit. Customers could purchase a voucher and, after paying a quarter of the purchase price upfront, repay the remainder in four monthly installments.
The Nazi Era
After the Nazis seized power in 1933, the two Jewish partners of the KGaA (& Co. AG) brought two employees of "German blood" into the management to avoid Aryanization. However, Golluber and Halle were forced out of the business. Golluber fled to the United States in 1939, where he died shortly afterwards.
From 1934 onwards, Jonaß & Co. sold their goods in new premises at Berlin's Alexanderplatz in the Alexanderhaus (Alexanderplatz 2), which was planned by Peter Behrens and built from 1930 onwards. The new owners closed the department store on Lothringer Straße and rented it to the NSDAP, which used it as the administration of the Reich Youth Leadership. The Reich headquarters, headed by Reich Youth Leader Artur Axmann, was located in the building. In 1940, the Nazi Party (NSDAP) purchased the building at Lothringer Straße 1.
After abandoning its premises at Alexanderplatz shortly before the end of World War II, the company briefly moved back to Lothringer Straße 1. In May 1945, the company was dissolved following expropriation by the Soviet Military Administration in Germany.
Post-war period: House of the SPD, the SED and the Institute for Marxism-Leninism
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From the summer of 1945, the Central Committee of the SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany) used the building. After the forced merger of the SPD and KPD (Communist Party of Germany) to form the SED (Socialist Unity Party of Germany), the building served as the headquarters of the SED Central Committee and was renamed the House of Unity. From the offices in this building, internal party purges and politically motivated death sentences against regime opponents were ordered, and Stalin's "accelerated construction of socialism" was prepared. Until the move to the Central Committee building at Werderscher Markt, it was the power center of the GDR, in the form of the SED Politburo under its General Secretary, later First Secretary, Walter Ulbricht. During the uprising of June 17, 1953, angry workers surrounded the House of Unity and the House of Ministries in particular and attacked the buildings.
With the relocation of the Central Committee to Werderscher Markt, the Institute for Marxism-Leninism at the Central Committee of the SED (IML) was located in the building from 1959 to 1990. The historical archive of the KPD and the Central Party Archive of the SED were part of the IML, and their documents remained in the basement. The IML focused on the history of the German and international labor movement and the "classics of Marxism–Leninism." Numerous publications were released based on its research findings. From this location, the IML prepared the major German-language edition of the complete works of Marx and Engels in the late 1960s.
Wilhelm Pieck's study on the third floor, with its numerous shelves, books, and tools, has been preserved as a memorial room. Even as president, the trained carpenter Wilhelm Pieck kept a hammer, a folding ruler, a drill, pliers, and other tools in his desk. Certificates, brochures, and books relating to his honorary citizenship of Berlin were housed in Pieck's secretariat. Two plaques, installed at the building's main entrance in 1976 and 1988, commemorate the first two chairmen of the SED, Wilhelm Pieck and Otto Grotewohl.
After reunification
Following German reunification, the SED institutions housed here were dissolved in 1992; their documents were transferred to the Federal Archives in Lichterfelde and made accessible to the public. The property itself stood vacant from 1995 onwards, and in 1996, a Jewish community of heirs—descendants of the original Jewish owners—regained ownership of the building. Plans to utilize the site as a hotel, as the administrative headquarters for a Berlin housing cooperative, or as an office building failed to attract any interested parties; consequently, the heirs put the complex up for sale on the global market.
Soho House Berlin
The German-British investor group Cresco Capital acquired it in 2004 for nine million Euros. The Berlin-based architectural firm JSK supplied the plans for the listed building's restoration and conversion[2] into a branch of the British private club Soho House on behalf of the new owners. The Soho House Berlin, which opened in May 2010, was built for around 30 million euros and offers combined living and working opportunities for artists, journalists, directors and managers from the media sector. Contrary to an initial announcement, neither Wilhelm Pieck's study nor the rooms for conferences, wellness and gastronomy are open to the public. There is an outdoor pool on the rooftop terrace. Guests have included George Clooney during the filming of his movie The Monuments Men, singer Madonna, who stayed for ten days, Brad Pitt, who held a premiere party, Hugh Grant, who celebrated his birthday with friends, and Jude Law.
On the sidewalk in front of the entrance, photos and short texts in four languages, displayed on a glass stele unveiled by Rainer Eppelmann on June 5, 2008, document the building's history. Entitled "House of Unity," it is part of a larger project by the Senate to make Berlin's historical sites more visible.
Image Gallery
- The house through the ages
-
Nazi era, headquarters of the Reich Youth Leadership -
House of the Central Committee of the SED, 1949 -
House of the Central Committee of the SED, 1951 -
House of the Central Committee of the SED, 1954 -
Memorial plaque for Otto Grotewohl -
Memorial plaque for Wilhelm Pieck by Gerhard Thieme, 1976
Literature
- Ulla Jung: Der Kaufmann Hermann Golluber und das Kreditwarenhaus Jonass & Co. In: Christoph Kreutzmüller, Kaspar Nürnberg (Hrsg.): Verraten und verkauft – Jüdische Unternehmen in Berlin 1933–1945. Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-00-026811-3, S. 40–43 (Online auf issuu.com).
- Festschrift anläßlich der Eröffnungsfeier unseres neuen Geschäftshauses am Prenzlauer Tor. Jonass & Co. A.-G., 2. Dezember 1928; Template:Uniform Resource Name.
- Sybil Volks: Torstraße 1. Roman, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-423-28004-4.
- Berlin in historischen Aufnahmen – Vom Propaganda-Tempel zum Jetset-Club. In: Berliner Zeitung, 26. Januar 2017.
Weblinks
- Eintrag 09050113 in der Berliner Landesdenkmalliste
- Historische Aufnahme um 1930 beim Fotoarchiv Marburg
- Soho House Berlin
Citations
- ↑ Archived [Date missing] at ebay.de [Error: unknown archive URL] In: ebay, abgerufen am 23. August 2011
- ↑ Die Eisenbetonrippendecken wurden bereichsweise wegen Lasterhöhung und Brandschutzerfordernis ertüchtigt, ein tragender Aufzugsschacht wurde durch alle Geschosse eingezogen, die Aufstockung des Dachs mit Schwimmbecken und Terrasse wurde durch Neuordnung der Gebäudeaussteifung und eine zweigeschossige Verstärkungskonstruktion aus Stahl ermöglicht. Nach: Archived [Date missing] at eisat.de [Error: unknown archive URL]
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