Faensen, Hubert Die Neue Hakeburg

Wilhelminian splendour, Hitler's research centre, SED cadre training centre. In Kleinmachnow, southwest of Berlin, a strictly shielded building complex of the Reichspostforschungsanstalt was constructed on the Seeberg between 1939 and 1943. Here, Reich Post Minister Wilhelm Ohnesorge had new weapons technologies developed with which the war was to be won. At the same time, he converted the adjacent historicist "residential castle" into his private residence, the Neue Hakeburg, built by the Wilhelmine court architect Bodo Ebhardt from 1906 to 1908. From 1947 to 1989, the SED used the site as the "Karl Marx" party college, then as a district party school and finally as a special school for the Central Committee. Hubert Faensen describes the eventful history of the listed building from its origins to its current use as an international school.

Born in 1928, he studied social sciences, philosophy and art history in Rostock and Berlin. After his doctorate, he worked at Union Verlag Berlin and at the publishing house Koehler & Amelang Leipzig, 1961-82 as their director; at the same time, numerous teaching assignments and habilitation. In 1982 he was appointed professor of art history at the Humboldt University in Berlin, where he taught until 1992. Numerous publications on early Christian, Byzantine and Eastern European art. Books published by Ch. Links Verlag: "Hightech für Hitler. Die Hakeburg - Vom Forschungszentrum zur Kaderschmiede", 2001.