The Stern Hunting Lodge in Potsdam was built between 1730 and 1732 under the reign of the Soldier King Frederick William I in the style of a simple Dutch town house. The contract for the construction was probably awarded to Cornelius van den Bosch, a grenadier and master carpenter from Holland, and the building was supervised by Pierre de Gayette, Captain of the Corps of Engineers and Court Architect.

At the time of its construction, the building, which was only designed for hunting trips, stood at the center of an extensive area that had been developed for par force hunts since 1726 with the construction of a star-shaped system of tracks. The area converted for this hunt was given the name Parforceheide. Today, it stands between the 115 highway to the east and a new district built into the Parforceheide from 1970 to 1980 to the west, on the edge of the Potsdam district of Stern. Following the destruction of the city palace, the Stern hunting lodge is now the oldest surviving palace building in Potsdam. It is managed and maintained by the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg with the voluntary support of the Stern-Parforceheide Hunting Lodge Association.

History

Emergence of hunting lodges in the Mark Brandenburg

In the 16th century, Elector Joachim II Hector began building the first hunting lodges in Grimnitz, Bötzow (now Oranienburg), Grunewald and Köpenick around his residences in Berlin and Cölln in the Margraviate of Brandenburg. During the reign of the Great Elector Frederick William, further hunting lodges were built in the densely wooded and game-rich area around Berlin and Potsdam, including Groß Schönebeck and Glienicke.

Like his predecessors, the Soldier King Frederick William I was also a passionate hunter who pursued this passion in Königs Wusterhausen, located south-east of Berlin. The manor and castle of Wusterhausen, which he received as a gift from his father Elector Frederick III (King Frederick I of Prussia from 1701) at the age of ten in 1698, was converted into a hunting lodge after his accession to the throne.

After his accession to the throne in February 1713, he made Potsdam his residence. Between 1725 and 1729, he had a "peasant heath" south-east of the city gates opened up for his extensive hunts - the so-called par force heath. The extensive, flat terrain with sparse woodland and little undergrowth was ideal for these hunts on horseback, which had become a popular form of hunting at German courts at the end of the 17th century. In addition to fast dogs and horses, this type of hunting required clear terrain in order to be able to pursue the game over long distances until it collapsed exhausted. To make it easier for the widely dispersed hunting party to find their way around, the area was divided into segments by sixteen star-shaped aisles (racks). From the respective sections of the approximately one hundred square kilometer hunting ground, the hunters found their way back to their meeting point via the straight aisles that led to the center of the star.

Construction of a building ensemble and use

Slightly offset from the center of the star, between two rays, the Soldier King had a hunting lodge built between 1730 and 1732 in the style of a simple Dutch town house, which he named after the location. From the following year onwards, he had the Dutch Quarter in Potsdam built from a large number of similar houses. In addition to the extension to his hunting lodge in Königs Wusterhausen, the small hunting lodge Stern was the only new building that the soldier king, who was very frugal, had built for himself. The half-timbered house a few meters to the southwest was probably built at the same time as the hunting lodge and housed the castellan, who was also granted bar rights. The castellan's house was used for catering until 1992. The farm buildings included a stable building in the north-east, completed in 1733, in which at least 18 horses could be stabled. It has been used for residential purposes since a conversion around 1930.Schendel: Jagdschloss Stern, Parforceheide, p. 25. A barn with a small stable, a wash house with a privy and a well in the center of the star are no longer preserved. The structural remains of a brick oven were uncovered between 2006 and 2009 and rebuilt in 2011/2012 in accordance with the preservation order.Förderverein Jagdschloss Stern – Parforceheide e. V.: Backofen. Retrieved March 18, 2024.

When Frederick the Great came to power in 1740, par force hunts no longer took place around Potsdam. In his treatise "Antimachiavell", in which Frederick wrote down his thoughts on the tasks and aims of the exercise of princely power, he rejected hunting as a princely pastime and described hunting as one of those sensual pleasures that are hard on the body but do nothing for the spirit.Gustav Berthold Volz (Hrsg.): Die Werke Friedrichs des Großen. Band 7: Antimachiavell und Testamente, 14. Kapitel, Published by Reimar Hobbing, Berlin 1913. His successors, Frederick William II and Frederick William III, had no interest either. In 1791, there were only a few driven hunts at Stern and during the Napoleonic occupation of Prussia, the hunting lodge served as accommodation for French soldiers. It was only under Frederick William IV, who in 1847 had the Hubertusstock hunting lodge built on the edge of the Schorfheide north of Berlin, the last Hohenzollern hunting lodge in the Mark Brandenburg, that hunting events took place again. As early as 1828, Prince Carl, a younger brother of the king, revived par force hunting, which was practiced until the 1890s.

Changes of use after the end of the monarchy After the First World War and the end of the monarchy, the building was temporarily rented out to artists. Like most Hohenzollern palaces, the Stern hunting lodge came into the care of the Prussian "Administration of State Palaces and Gardens", founded on April 1 of the same year and since 1995 the "Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg", in 1927. After the Second World War, it served as accommodation for the military protection unit for the British delegation during the Potsdam Conference and the entire complex was used as a vacation camp for schoolchildren from 1949 until the 1970s. After extensive renovation work in the 1980s, the hunting lodge was furnished with items from Königs Wusterhausen Castle for museum use, but these are no longer part of the collection today. Due to excessive pollution from wood preservatives, the building was closed for years from 1996 and could only be visited by appointment. Following the subsequent renovation work, it has been open to the public again since 2007.

The Parforceheide lost its area over time. Today, only eight paths of the sixteen-path snow system remain. In the north, the construction of the first Prussian Berlin-Potsdam railroad line and the Teltow Canal led to major losses of territory. In the west, the construction of the Wetzlarer Bahn and the AVUS with its later extension to the Autobahn 115, which passes close to the hunting lodge, and in the south, the Nuthe expressway. In addition, the residential areas of Stern, Drewitz and Kirchsteigfeld in Potsdam were built on former woodland.

Hunting lodge Stern

Aversion to the splendor of the Baroque In terms of cultural history, the 17th and 18th centuries are regarded as the most magnificent period in the history of hunting at European courts. In courtly society, it was a pleasure and pastime, but also a symbol of status and self-expression. It also served to cultivate dynastic and diplomatic relations and, with the spread of absolutism, became a matter of prestige for the pomp-loving sovereigns. Even for the lower nobility, the right to hunt - in a society divided into classes - was a visible enhancement that enabled them to distinguish themselves more clearly from the wealthy, non-noble classes. In addition to hunting events, glittering celebrations often took place, so that hunting lodges were built especially for the accommodation of guests, beginning as early as the 16th century, or existing, conveniently located buildings were furnished solely for this purpose.

Frederick William I had a strong aversion to the luxurious lifestyle of the princely houses. He also rejected the exuberant decorative forms of Baroque architecture and preferred the clarity, clarity and cleanliness of the façades. Under his rule, the architectural style of Brandenburg-Prussia was dominated by practicality. The simplicity of the Stern hunting lodge reflects the frugal and spartan lifestyle of the soldier king. Particularly when compared with Moritzburg Castle near Dresden, which was converted into a Baroque hunting lodge at the same time, from 1723 to 1733, by the Elector of Saxony and King of Poland Frederick Augustus I/II, it becomes clear that the Prussian monarch did not use architecture for representation, as was generally the case at European courts.

Choice of Dutch architecture In the Mark, there had already been a strong connection to Holland since the beginning of the expansion of the country by Albrecht the Bear in the 12th century, which flourished again in the 17th and 18th centuries. The marriage of the Great Elector Frederick William to Luise Henriette of Orange-Nassau in 1646 encouraged the settlement of Dutch or Dutch-trained specialists for agriculture, landscaping, canal and dyke construction. In his Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg, Theodor Fontane notes: "Colonists were moved into the country, houses were built, outbuildings were laid out and all the details associated with agriculture were immediately carried out with diligence" and the Dutch were "[...] the real agricultural instructors for the Mark, especially for the Havelland".Fontane: Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg. Teil III, S. 134, p. 420. Frederick William I also vigorously pursued the economic development of the country that had already been pursued under his grandfather, the Great Elector, with the settlement of foreign craftsmen and the simultaneous establishment of a strong army. Both resulted from the consequences and experiences of the Thirty Years' War, from which the Margraviate of Brandenburg had suffered particularly badly.

After the first expansion of the Potsdam residence into a garrison town under the Soldier King, the so-called "first baroque expansion of the town" from 1722 to 1725, the "second baroque expansion of the town" took place between 1732 and 1742 due to the increase in civilian and military personnel. This period, between 1734 and 1742, also saw the construction of a Dutch Quarter. These houses were built for craftsmen whom the Soldier King had recruited for the expansion of Potsdam on his last trip to Holland in 1732. Through his family ties to the Dutch royal house and his study trips in 1700, 1704 and 1732, Frederick William I became acquainted with the engineering skills of the Dutch, who knew how to drain swampy terrain. The same soil conditions, which were difficult for building on, also existed in Potsdam. He was also impressed by the inexpensive, quick construction of Dutch brick houses.Fischer, Reinhard E. "Potsdam: Die Stadtgeschichte." Verlag Friedrich Pustet, 2010.

Architecture

Overview