No. 11 – The Two Churches of Südstern
Two grand churches, one Catholic, one Lutheran, define a sparkling jewel of a neighborhood in Kreuzberg-Neukölln called Südstern – how did it navigate the turbulent history of Berlin?
From the rooftop of the Berliner Schloss, the long-serving stronghold of the Hohenzollerns, one is invited to survey all Berlin stretching to the horizon.1 Helpful plaques denote the Rotes Rathaus and Alexanderplatz to the east, the Staatsoper to the west, and the Charité Hospital to the north. Looking over the great moraine of brick and steel which extends out south, however, the plaques fall silent – there is, it appears, nothing the good people of the Stiftung Humboldt Forum wanted visitors to note that way.2
Au contraire I say and want instead to invite you down south, out from the Museuminsel with all its splendor, through the Friedrichswerder and Luisenstadt, past Checkpoint Charlie and over the Landwehrkanal to a small slice at the border of Kreuzberg and Neukölln which is called Südstern. The neighborhood is so called because around a little island at its center there are several roads arrayed in a star (Stern) formation, and naturally it is to the south of the historical core of Berlin.
The roads which form the star are of interest – to the south is Lilienthalstraße, on which are found large cemeteries containing the graves of Berlin’s great and good stretching back in time. To the east is a street called Hasenheide, named for the lovely park below it, which in the summertime positively shimmers with greenery and picnickers. To the northwest Blücherstraße becomes a major avenue following the Landwehrkanal and to the northeast Körtestraße leads into the park on the Grimmstraße, named for the brother folklorists, which in a leisurely way opens onto the Admiralbrücke, scene of a thousand summer rendez-vous among the young loungers of the quarter.
The western road away from Südstern is called Gneisenaustraße, where my apartment lies a few blocks further. Gneisenaustraße is named for the Count August Neidhardt von Gneisenau, who helped reorganize the Prussian military after being steamrolled by Napoleon, and who was pivotal in the Wars of Liberation to kick the French out of Berlin.3
Indeed, much of the city plan of south Berlin was influenced by a desire to honor the heroes and deeds of the Befreiungskriege. The Südstern itself is the eastern terminus of a series of avenues named for generals of the Napoleonic Wars which has its western beginning at the Breitscheidplatz – this urban plan is called the Generalszug, or Generals’ Pathway.
Emerging from the Napoleonic Wars on the winning side gave the Hohenzollerns, as Kings of Brandenburg-Prussia, a dose of momentum which carried them through the 19th century to eventually become Kaisers of a unified Germany. Thus the amount of urban space devoted in the later 19th century to memorializing the Wars of Liberation was substantial.4 Away from the Generalszug, the most important of these memorials is the Nationaldenkmal, an ornamental structure topped with a great iron cross placed in Victoria Park. As Victoria Park lies on one of Berlin’s few and modest hills, this became known as the Kreuzberg, whence the surrounding area takes its name.
Yet another set of important memorials took the form of large religious construction in the early part of the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Wilhelm II is the important one, serving for 30 years as Emperor of Germany, a period only curtailed by the disaster of World War I. Starting with his ouster in 1890 of Bismarck, who as Chancellor had been the true ruler of Germany since its unification, the young Kaiser devoted considerable energy to two projects: rapid naval militarization and monumental construction works, principally in Berlin. The Staatsbibliothek and Berliner Dom, which still dominate the Unter den Linden, date from the early part of his reign. Around the same time, he commissioned two endcaps on the Generalszug – in the west was the Gedächtniskirche, a memorial church built to honor his grandfather, Wilhelm I.5
The eastern endcap was composed of a pair of worship-houses, both established to support the military garrison which was housed in the area, as this zone was still just outside the city gates. First was the Kirche am Südstern, a beast of a church which dominates the island forming the heart of the star. Wilhelm designated as architect one of his military men, Ernst August Roßteucher, who had finished in 1890 a similar structure in Spandau.
The second is called the Basilika St. Johannes der Täufer Patron von Breslau and today provides services for the Polish community of this part of Berlin.6 Its architect was a civil servant in the Wilhelmine state, August Menken, who spent the last three decades of the 19th century erecting homely churches all around Germany.
When on the grounds of St Johannes’, Pope Saint John Paul II’s presence is (perhaps naturally) hard to miss. But I was also intrigued by the unexplained presence of a memorial to the Luftwaffe which appears to depict a biplane pilot from around the time of World War I.
Lilienthalstraße, on which the Basilica lies, is named for Otto Lilienthal, the German aviation pioneer, who made the first commercial glider and died by falling from it in 1896. There is also not terribly far away a street named after the Red Baron, Manfred-von-Richtofen-Straße, which borders the old airport at Tempelhofer Feld.7
On the 8th of May 1897, Kaiser Wilhelm II and his severe wife, the Kaiserin Auguste Viktoria, came down to Südstern and in a great show opened these two new churches to the public.8
Such a demonstration of the august benefits of Hohenzollern rule was perfectly timed, for the following 20 years would see both Berlin and the Kaiserreich reach their apogees of influence – the city would grow to hold over 2 million souls and establish a U-bahn network; the Kaiser, despite rapid naval militarization and expanding the overseas territories of Germany, would be called “Chief Peacemaker” by the New York Times on his silver jubilee; and Germany would very nearly knock out the Triple Entente with its 1918 Spring Offensive.
Just a few months later, however, the Kaiser was in retirement in the Netherlands, rueing his role in the conclusion of half a millennium of Hohenzollern rule in Berlin.
Who were of course Dukes then Electors then Kings then Kaisers of Brandenburg then Brandenburg-Prussia then Norddeutscher Bund then Germany
I will take the opportunity to quote Wittgenstein: “wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen.”
What we call the Napoleonic Wars in general, lasting from the declaration of war by France on Austria in 1792 to Wellington’s victory at Waterloo in 1815, are divided in German terminology into three parts: the Revolutionskriege (Revolutionary Wars) in 1792-1802, the Napoleonische Kriege (Napoleonic Wars) in 1802-1813, and the Befreiungskriege (Wars of Liberation) in 1813-1815.
We can perhaps remark that these memorials form part of a larger militarization of south Berlin, which included as well the use of what would become Tempelhofer Feld as a parade grounds for the Imperial Army.
After destruction during World War II, the West Berlin government chose not to rebuild it as a marker of war and so it is sometimes called “der hohle Zahn” (the hollow tooth).
Translation: Basilica of St. John the Baptist, Patron of Breslau (which is what the Germans call the Polish city of Wrocław).
Distressingly, it was Göring who had the idea to name the street so.
Just because it’s funny, I’ll point out that the Kaiserin’s full name was Auguste Viktoria Friederike Luise Feodora Jenny von Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg