Schloss Schönhausen

Schönhausen Palace: From Baroque Castle to Official Residence of the GDR

Anyone who wants to not just read but feel German-German history cannot miss Schönhausen Palace. The Baroque palace is located in the Berlin district of Niederschönhausen in Pankow and is thus one of the city’s most remarkable historical sites. The palace first gained historical significance as the summer residence of Queen Elisabeth Christine, the wife of Frederick the Great, and from 1949 to 1960 as the official residence of Wilhelm Pieck, the first and only President of the GDR. Thus, it embodies two political systems under one roof.

It is particularly remarkable that Schönhausen Palace is today the only place where the foreign policy self-staging of the GDR government can still be authentically experienced. For example, the interior features Wilhelm Pieck’s original preserved office. World political figures such as Leonid Brezhnev, Indira Gandhi, Fidel Castro, and Mikhail Gorbachev were guests here, as the building served as a guesthouse for the GDR government from 1964 to 1990.

History Reaching to Reunification

Schönhausen Palace also played a decisive role during the Wende (turning point). In the so-called „Two Plus Four Talks” between the Soviet Union, the USA, France, Great Britain, the Federal Republic of Germany, and the GDR, the reunification of the two German states was prepared here. Thus, the palace is not only a witness to the division but also to the overcoming of this division.

Visitors to the palace today thus experience an exceptionally dense layering of history. Originally furnished rooms authentically convey the house’s eventful history. From 2005 to 2009, the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg renovated the house according to the principle „conserve rather than reconstruct”. Since December 2009, the permanent exhibition „Time(story) Layers from 350 Years” has been on display, and the garden has been restored to its 1950s condition.