Kirche am Hohenzollernplatz, Berlin by Fritz Höger
Kirche am Hohenzollernplatz (Church at Hohenzollernplatz) is a church located at the eastern side of Hohenzollernplatz square in Berlin-Wilmersdorf. The building is considered one of the main pieces of Brick Expressionism. And it is a testimonial of unique quality of expressionist church architecture in Berlin.
In 1927 the Evangelical Wilmersdorf Congregation, decided to build a church in the north of its parish. The congregation commissioned the Hamburg-based architecture firm of Fritz Höger with a design of his chief designer Ossip Klarwein, who started to work with Höger by 1921.
Klarwein then moved to Berlin, shortly before the constructions started, in order to supervise the realisation of the design. On 19 March 1933 the church was inaugurated, soon after Klarwein, his wife and son emigrated to Palestine.
The modern design was much under debate already long before the constructions started. The basic structure of the church is a concrete skeleton, clad by the façades, finely structured on the long sides and of even masonry on the narrow sides, all in clinker brick. Höger preferred that material. The hip roof of verdigris copper contrasts with the dark reddish brick. The slim and high tower, being a landmark seen through much of Hohenzollerndamm thoroughfare and other streets, is connected to the northeastern corner of the actual building.
Höger sympathised with the National Socialists early on and joined the NSDAP on 1 September 1932 (membership number 1,327,593). In 1933, he dismissed his half-Jewish chief designer Ossip Klarwein. Documents that have been preserved show how strongly Höger had adapted his speech and thinking to the National Socialists' völkisch-Nordic ideology during the so-called Third Reich.
He made clear anti-Semitic statements in his writings and was an active member of the Nordic Society as well as other nationalist organisations and homeland associations. He also wrote poems with ethnic content. There are still notes from 1946 that identify Höger as an anti-Semite. However, his involvement in the memorial for the victims of National Socialism in Itzehoe, the construction of which was initiated by the Jewish concentration camp survivor Gyula Trebitsch, dates back to the same year.
Höger's ideological involvement with the National Socialists was revealed in a study published in June 2022 by Hamburg historian Prof Thomas Großbölting, which was commissioned by the Initiative Bauen mit Backstein - Zweischalige Wand Marketing e. V. with the support of the Bund Deutscher Architektinnen und Architekten BDA. A further study was carried out in 2017 as part of a scientific report for the Hamburg State Archives (StAHH) on the subject of the Nazi contamination of street names.
As a result of this study, Högerdamm in the Hammerbrook district of Hamburg, which had been named after Fritz Höger since 1956, was renamed Recha-Lübke-Damm and Bella-Spanier-Weg by a Senate resolution on 23 October 2023. Both women were teachers at the state girls' school in nearby Rosenallee.
Recha Lübke (1880-1944) was first deported to Theresienstadt on 19 July 1942 and then to the Auschwitz concentration camp on 9 October 1944, where she was murdered.