Before the Forum came into being there was a ballroom here; before that a department of the youth welfare office used the rooms, before that there was a bar for American soldiers in them, and at the very beginning a royal tax house. The address Köpenicker Straße 174 has seen more life than most buildings in Kreuzberg.
1799 to 1900: the Thorschreiberhaus
In 1799 the royal Thorschreiberhaus was built on the site of Köpenicker Straße 173/174. It was later called Accise-Officiantenhaus, then Königliches Thor-Officiantenhaus and, from 1846 to 1859, the royal tax building. It probably belonged to the control of the nearby Schlesisches Tor, which was still a real city gate at the time. Whether the changes of name went along with rebuilding can no longer be established. From 1879 the Hohenzollern, a restaurant with function rooms, may have stood here.
1900: the Köpenicker Hof
The owner Jean Richard had the plot rebuilt between 1900 and 1902 by the master mason and carpenter Oscar Garbe. Two front buildings were built with a transverse building and side wings, richly decorated with stucco. The entrance hall of Köpenicker Straße 174 is a listed monument to this day, with a plinth of black glass tiles.
On the ground floor was the Köpenicker Hof, a restaurant with a dance hall, a bowling alley in the cellar and chambres séparées on the mezzanine. The house aimed at good society. Restaurant and ballroom were given coffered stucco ceilings and wood panelling; in the transverse buildings an officers‘ mess was set up for the nearby barracks.
In 1923 Karl Krause took over the business, at first a waiter in the house and later its owner. His building application for a garage from 1926 survives, together with his justification that he ran „wohl das bedeutendste Saalgeschäft in der hiesigen Stadtgegend“, probably the most important function business in this part of town. The application failed on fire safety grounds; the garage was built later in the first courtyard. Among other things it housed the first twelve-cylinder Mercedes in Berlin, Krause’s pride and joy.
1933 to 1945: the years under the swastika
The files document the Nazi takeover in miniature. A report on emergency lighting in the function room was still signed „mit Deutschem Gruß“ in January 1936, a few months later only „Heil Hitler“. In 1937 the NSDAP local group Mariannenplatz moved into Köpenicker Straße 174, and Goebbels and other officials celebrated in the Köpenicker Hof. War damage to the building stayed within limits.
At the same time the Jewish family Lesser was driven out of the house. Since 2019 three Stolpersteine in front of Köpenicker Straße 174 have commemorated them.
1946 to 1961: Florida Bar, youth welfare office, dance hall
Right after the end of the war the Jewish Community of Berlin set up its district office at Köpenicker Straße 174 for a short time. In the old restaurant rooms Ernst Wolff, a Jew who had survived the Nazi regime in Berlin, ran the Florida Bar for American soldiers. The venue found no audience and the function rooms were let out. Almost all the family celebrations of the few Jews who had returned to Berlin or stayed there took place here, weddings and bar mitzvahs.
After that a department of the youth welfare office used rooms in the building, among them the ballroom and several floors. From 1954 there were 8 mm film screenings there, the ballroom was fitted with seating and the old garage converted into toilets. In 1959 Else Behrens applied for a dance restaurant and brought the hall back to its original purpose.
1961 to 1971: at the end of the world
On 13 August 1961 the building of the Wall began. Köpenicker Straße was suddenly divided and lay at the end of the world. Cinemas, restaurants and bars lost their audience, and the Ballhaus Behrens had to close again a few years after opening.
What followed was the decline of a once distinguished address. Karl Krause, by then almost ninety, had outlived his wife and son and left the business to the caretaker. Anything that could be turned into money was sold: bell panels, chandeliers, tables, the wood panelling from the restaurant and the ballroom. The chairs were what remained. The restaurant became a store for pornographic magazines, the ballroom a furniture depot. In 1971 Krause put the building up for sale.
A year later Michael Wilhelmi bought it. How things went on is described under Founding and early years.
Sources
Plankammer Berlin Kreuzberg, „Geschichtslandschaft Berlin, Orte und Ereignisse Kreuzberg“ (Nicolai, Berlin 1994), Georg Bartels „Das Berlin der Jahrhundertwende“ (Dirk Nishen, Berlin 1990), „Kreuzberg in historischen Postkarten“ (Jaron, Berlin 1997).