Schönhausen Palace () is a Baroque palace at Niederschönhausen, in the borough of Pankow, Berlin, Germany. It is surrounded by gardens through which the Panke river runs. The palace is maintained by the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg and reopened to the public in 2009 after extensive restoration.
History
Brandenburg-Prussia
In 1662 Countess Sophie Theodore, a scion of the Holland-Brederode family and wife of the Brandenburg general Christian Albert of Dohna, acquired the lands Niederschönhausen and Pankow, then far north of the Berlin city gates. In 1664 she built a manor at Niederschönhausen in "Dutch" style. Minister Joachim Ernst von Grumbkow acquired it in 1680 and, in 1691, his widow sold it for 16,000 Thalers to the Hohenzollern elector Frederick III of Brandenburg, who had fallen in love with the property earlier.
Frederick put the manor under the care of the Amt Niederschönhausen and had it remodeled into a palace from 1691 to 1693 based on plans designed by Johann Arnold Nering. In August 1700 the Prince-elector prepared and planned his coronation as King in Prussia at Schönhausen Palace. In 1704 the now King Frederick I in Prussia contracted to again enlarge the palace and its gardens. However, after the king's death in 1713, his son and successor Frederick William I did not care much for the place. As a result, civil servants, such as Minister Friedrich Wilhelm von Grumbkow, moved in to use it as office space, part of the land was leased and both the palace and the park slowly became dilapidated in the ensuing years.
Under King Frederick II of Prussia, also known as "Frederick the Great", the palace was once again turned into a royal residence for his wife, Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Bevern, who used it as her regular summer residence from 1740 to 1790. Artist Johann Michael Graff most probably contributed the lavish stucco decorations executed during this time. As Frederick's relations with his wife were strained, he never visited Niederschönhausen and spent his summers at Sanssouci in Potsdam.
During the Seven Years' War in 1760, while the queen retreated to the Magdeburg fortress, Russian troops pushed deep into Prussia, occupied Berlin and devastated Niederschönhausen Palace. After 1763 it was rebuilt in its current form according to plans by Johann Boumann and the gardens were remodeled in a Rococo à la française style.
After the death of Queen Elisabeth Christine in 1797 the palace was seldom used. At times Frederica of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, widow of Prince Louis Charles of Prussia, lived at Schönhausen and had the gardens again remodeled, this time by Peter Joseph Lenné into an English landscape garden. Apart from that it served mainly as a storage facility for furniture and paintings.
It was rumored that King Frederick II had his favorite horse Condé buried in the gardens, but whether the hill in question actually is a horse's grave has not been proven. In fact Condé outlived its owner and died in 1804, aged 38. Its skeleton is kept at the veterinary department of the Free University of Berlin.
20th century
The Prussian ruling Hohenzollern dynasty owned Schönhausen Palace until it was dispossessed and became a property of the Free State of Prussia in 1920, following the end of the monarchy in the course of the German Revolution of 1918–1919. It was then opened to the public and used for numerous art exhibitions as well as the government's official art department during the Nazi era, when several paintings of banned so-called "degenerate art" were stored here. During the Battle of Berlin at the end of World War II, the palace suffered some damage but was repaired almost immediately by a Pankow Künstlerinitiative so that it could be used for an exhibit as early as September 1945. Soon thereafter the Soviet Military Administration confiscated the palace and turned it into an officer's mess. Later it served as a boarding school for Soviet students.