Resonanz

 

10 Reasons why we should rebuild the Potsdam Palace to house the Landtag (Parliament of the Federal State of Brandenburg)

1. What functions did the Potsdam Palace once have?

• First and foremost, it was a political “business card”.  The Potsdam Palace was a way for the poor and underprivileged principality of Brandenburg to prove its intention and ability to be one of the major players in Europe.  The spectacular success of this attempt to rise above provincial mediocrity has proved it right;
• A means of jump-starting the economy in and around Potsdam;
• A job-creation program;
• A design model promoting the exports of local craftsmen;
• A place for continuing education, encouraging people to improve;
• A center of cultural life (opera, theater, concerts);
• An academic center (Academy of the Sciences, Voltaire, Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt);
• Accommodations for guests of state, an administrative center, a center for tourism;
• The Potsdam Palace was always a public building!

2. Only very few buildings in Brandenburg have this high an international standing as works of art as the castle designed by von Knobelsdorff, the famous architect of Prussia.  Some historians and researchers even say that it outranks the Berlin Palace.  It was a building that transcended the fads and fashions of its day, and one whose beauty was and continues to be accessible to all generations.

3. No other building in all of Brandenburg has witnessed so many historical events marking the history of Europe.

• Potsdam Edict of Tolerance;
• Abolition of torture;
• School education compulsory for all children, an early “No child left behind” initiative;
• Abolition of serfdom, Stein-Hardenberg reforms;
• Early precursors of a constitutional state, introduction of the Allgemeines Landrecht (general state laws), officials with a strong ethos who were resistant to bribery;
• “In my states, everyone may find his salvation in his own way” (“In meinen Staaten soll ein jeder nach seiner Facon selig werden”);
• Emancipation of Jews;
• Peace conferences, from 1709 until 1913.