Big city or not – with everything that’s going on in Berlin, even there can sometimes feel too crowded. A short trip to the surrounding area is always a good idea: wide open spaces, architecture, landscape, and lots of history. The palaces around Berlin all tell their own unique stories. From the impressive summer residence of the Prussian crown prince to a fairytale palace complex with one of Brandenburg’s most important landscape parks. They are magnificent, elegant, and take you back to bygone eras. There is one thing we must not forget to mention in our list – because, apart from Sanssouci Palace, it is probably the most famous in Brandenburg: Cecilienhof Palace in the New Garden in Potsdam, right on the Jungfernsee. It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site “Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin.”
Cecilienhof Palace was built between 1913 and 1917 and is the last palace to have been built by the Hohenzollern dynasty. It was commissioned by Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, the eldest son of Emperor Wilhelm II, together with his wife Crown Princess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, after whom the palace is named. Cecilienhof was intended as the private residence of the crown prince’s family – deliberately away from the large, representative residences. Accordingly, the palace has a comparatively intimate and homely feel. After the end of the monarchy in 1918, the family was initially allowed to continue living there, but was finally expropriated in 1945.
Architecturally, the palace is in the English country house style (Tudor style) and was designed by Paul Schultze-Naumburg. The brick façade with exposed half-timbering and the numerous chimneys – over 50 in number – give the building its almost fairy-tale appearance. The castle has a total of 176 rooms. Five magnificent courtyards characterize the complex, including the famous courtyard of honor with its star-shaped flower bed, which was originally planted with red geraniums. The deliberately restrained style was intended to express modesty and closeness to the people – a clear contrast to the otherwise monumental Prussian architecture of splendor.
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The historical highlight of Cecilienhof Palace is the Potsdam Conference, which took place here from July 17 to August 2, 1945. Harry S. Truman (USA), Winston Churchill – later Clement Attlee – (Great Britain), and Josef Stalin (Soviet Union) met in these rooms to discuss the political reorganization of Europe after World War II. The key decisions included the demilitarization, denazification, and democratization of Germany, the establishment of the German eastern border along the Oder-Neisse line, and the foundations for the later division of Germany. This made Cecilienhof Palace one of the most important venues in 20th-century world history.
Today, the palace houses a museum with the original conference rooms and a memorial to the Potsdam Conference. Parts of the complex are also used as a hotel, and the entire ensemble belongs to the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg.