Kollwitz-Digital
The new museum location at Charlottenburg Palace The former theater building at Schoss Charlottenburg, built in 1787 according to the plans of the architect Carl Gotthard Langhans, is an excellent new location for the Käthe Kollwitz Museum. It offers the building development opportunities and eliminates structural deficits. As one of three tenants, the museum uses […]
The Prenzlauer Allee S-Bahn station can be clearly seen in Kollwitz’s watercolor “Workers, Coming from the Station” from 1897. Depicted is a crowd of people streaming out of a yellow-colored station building in the darkness. Two men are apparently engaged in animated discussion, a woman is carrying a large bundle under her arm, all the […]
Municipal shelter The homeless asylum at Fröbelstraße 15 in Prenzlauer Berg was the largest in the city from 1886 to 1940. In the vernacular it was called “Palme” because in the early years a potted palm tree is said to have stood in the entrance area. The huge brick complex stretches for about 200 meters […]
Backyards in Prenzlauer Berg Conditions in Berlin’s backyards were often precarious, characterized by gloom, confinement and cold, dampness and poor hygiene. They were already a topical sociopolitical issue at the time. Unemployment, cramped living conditions, lack of future prospects, unresolved social problems “tormented and worried me,” Käthe Kollwitz wrote about them in her diaries. The […]
The Kollwitz family in Prenzlauer Berg Käthe and Karl Kollwitz moved from Königsberg in East Prussia to Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg in 1891 to Weißenburger Straße 25 on Wörther Platz. Today the street is called Kollwitzstraße in her honor and the house is number 56a at the corner of Knaackstraße directly at Kollwitzplatz. Sons Hans and Peter […]
The cemetery of the March Fallen was a special place for Käthe Kollwitz. Her father and grandfather had taken part in the March Revolution in 1848/49, and Kollwitz probably visited the cemetery during her first year of study in 1886/87. In her diary she recorded: “I visited the cemetery of the March Fallen every year […]
The Barnimstraße women’s prison existed from 1868 to 1974. Barnimstraße runs parallel to Mollstraße just north of Alexanderplatz. It was initially called the Royal Prussian Women’s Prison and had a maternity ward and a mother-child ward. Great consideration was given to imprisoned mothers. They could live in a “mother cell” together with their children, where […]
The establishment of the Volksbühne dates back to the Volksbühne (the people’s stage) movement, which was founded in 1890. Its goal was to allow workers to participate in cultural life and to finance theater productions and inexpensive tickets with the help of membership fees. Konrad Schmidt, Käthe Kollwitz’s older brother, was chairman of the Freie […]
At Klosterstraße 75, the “Ateliergemeinschaft Klosterstraße” existed from 1933 to 1945 with about 40 studios, which had come into being through personal initiative. As early as January 24, 1919, Käthe Kollwitz became the first woman to be appointed as a full member of the Prussian Academy of Arts and received a professorial title; in 1928 […]
Hannoversche Straße 6 On January 15, 1919, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, co-founders of the socialist Spartacus League, were assassinated in Berlin. Käthe Kollwitz was asked by Liebknecht’s family to draw him in the morgue at Hannoversche Straße 6. On Saturday, January 25, 1919, Kollwitz went there early in the morning, presumably on foot from […]
