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They laid out vegetable gardens on the stretch of land between Tiergarten and Schafgraben, which later became the Landwehr Canal, and tried their hand at breeding silkworms. In the course of time, however, the land was bought up by wealthy Berlin citizens, who proceeded to erect country or summer houses there. Later on, members of Berlin`s middle class moved in increasing numbers to what was known from 1828 onwards as Friedrichstadt and built two to four-storey villas there with large and decorative gardens. The area subsequently developed into Berlin`s prime residential area.
Around the turn of the century, more and more chargés d`affaires of foreign countries transferred their representations from the traditional embassy sites near the Reichstag and on Unter den Linden and Wilhelmstraße to the splendid residential palaces. Leading the way was Imperial China, which transferred to a site on Von-der-Heydt-Straße in 1888, and Spain, which acquired the Tiele-Winckler Palais on Regentenstraße (now Hitzigallee) in 1898. Italy moved to Victoriastraße in 1907 and Sweden to Tiergartenstraße in 1912.
By the early 1930s there were so many diplomats in this area that it became known as the diplomatic quarter. 37 out of a total of 52 embassies and legations and 28 out of 29 consulates were situated here in 1938.
On 19 March 1938, the Nazis officially proclaimed the area a diplomatic quarter and incorporated it in their plans for the "world capital of Germania". This was an act of compensation for the removal of the embassies which had stood in the way of the North-South axis and had, therefore, been demolished.
In addition to the Krupp guest house (now Canisius College), work on which started in 1936, Albert Speer`s General Building Inspectorate erected monumental-style residences for the Axis powers Italy and Japan on Tiergartenstraße from 1938 onwards. New buildings were also erected for Argentina, Denmark, Finland, France, Yugoslavia, Norway, Switzerland, Slovakia and Spain. During the Second World War the diplomatic quarter was largely reduced to rubble. Only the embassies of Estonia, Italy, Greece, Japan and Spain were left standing in ruins. |
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