Villa Schöningen

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A private museum has been installed in Villa Schöningen, which was built from 1843-45 by Ludwig Persius, architect to the King of Prussia. Located adjacent to the Glienicke Bridge, hence the former boundary between the American and the Soviet sector, it was through the exchange of spies, followed with worldwide interest, that the bridge became an internationally famous symbol of German division and the Cold War.

The Villa itself has had a chequered career. Built on the aesthetic whim of King Frederick William IV, it was owned by the family of Hermann Wallich, cofounder of the Deutsche Bank, a home to art and Jewish intelligentsia, later occupied first by the Nazis, then the Soviets and finally turned into a GDR children's home. After German reunification the villa just escaped being sacrificed by a housing development plan. In 2007, the dilapidated house was purchased by Dr. Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer AG, and Leonhard Fischer, CEO of RHJI, to save it from demolition and, after careful restoration appropriate to a listed building, to create a public place of history, art and freedom.