Schloss Britz

The Schloss Britz (Britz castle) is the former manor-house of the historical Rittergut (country estate) and village Britz, now a district of Berlin-Neukölln. Today it is the headquarters of the cultural organization Kulturstiftung Schloss Britz and includes authentic reconstructed rooms from around 1880. The house is a museum demonstrating splendid interiors of the Gründerzeit era. The manorial park is also well preserved with its mature trees and its 1890s system of trails. In 1997 the park was honored with the German Gustav Meyer Prize for the accuracy and historic authenticity of the reconstruction.

The old farmyard with stables and smithy and the workers' section, with a chimney of a brewery and some storehouses are preserved, too. The final phase of reconstruction will provide space and rooms for further cultural institutions of Berlin-Neukölln in the future.

The village Britz is first mentioned in 1373 in the book (Landbuch) of the Mark Brandenburg properties of Kaiser Karl IV (Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor). Until the end of the 17th century the country estate was the fiefdom of the knight family von Britzke. Due to the devastating consequences of the Thirty Years' War, the family was forced to sell the estate to the Prussian crown in 1699. Later, King Friedrich I (Frederick I of Prussia) awarded his minister Samuel von Chwalkowski with the manor. Around 1706, Chwalkowski finished the new manor stone house, which would be the core of the building, even until now. In 1717, the manor was given the prestigious allodial title. In the 18th century the Britz Manor (Schloss Britz) was in the possession of Heinrich Rüdiger von Ilgen and the count Ewald Friedrich von Hertzberg, and other noble families. Ilgen owned the manor from 1719 until his death 1728 and served as minister for foreign affairs under different Prussian kings. From 1763-1791 Hertzberg was a leading minister of the crown cabinet and managed the foreign affairs under Friedrich II. (Frederick II of Prussia) used the estate from 1751 until his death as his country estate. He established one of the first silk farms of Prussia in Britz, and he hired the prominent painter Bernhard Rode to furnish the manor-house with a new décor of frescos and paintings honoring the life of a genteel statesman.

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