History and culture

History and culture

Jüdischer Friedhof Berlin-Weißensee, established in 1880 after the Jewish community acquired the roughly 42-hectare site in 1875, is the largest Jewish cemetery in Europe, holding close to 116,000 graves. Its main entrance is at the end of Herbert-Baum-Straße; a second entrance from Indira-Gandhi-Straße (formerly Lichtenberger Straße) has been closed since 1924. Architect Hugo Licht laid it out in Italian Neo-Renaissance style with yellow brick, in 120 alphabetically ordered burial fields. Those interred include publisher Samuel Fischer, composer Louis Lewandowski, resistance fighter Herbert Baum and painter Lesser Ury. Around 4,000 graves were damaged by Allied bombing between 1943 and 1945; the cemetery has been a protected monument since the 1970s, with wall restoration (about €2 million) underway from 2010.

Film studios, 1913–1929: production companies operated studios in Weißensee across this period, among them the makers of "Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari" (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) and, from 1914, other silent films including work by Fritz Lang. The Caligariplatz — also known as Weißenseer Spitze, today home to the Brotfabrik — commemorates this history.

Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee (now officially "Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin") is an art and design college, founded in 1946 as the "Kunstschule des Nordens" by sculptor Otto Sticht and state-recognised in 1947. Its main entrance is on Bühringstraße, with a second site, the Kunsthalle am Hamburger Platz, at Gustav-Adolf-Straße 140. As of 2024 it had 834 students and 40 professors.

Brotfabrik, at Caligariplatz, occupies a former bakery: founded in 1890 by master baker Kohler, with the surviving factory building constructed in 1914. After the baker left for West Berlin in 1952 the building held a seltzer-water works and a clothing shop before reopening as a youth club in 1986 and, from 15 May 1990, as the arts centre "Brotfabrik" — a gallery, stage, cinema and pub. Its 55-seat cinema, opened in February 1991 by the association Glashaus e.V., is described as the first programme cinema to open in East Berlin.

Kino Toni, on Antonplatz, opened on 9 September 1920 with 700 seats as "Decla-Lichtspiele," was renamed UFA-Theater in 1921, was seized by Soviet authorities in 1945, and reopened on 23 December 1948 as "Toni Film-Bühne" with 629 seats. In 1996 it was renovated and gained a second, smaller screening room, "Tonino."

Komponistenviertel ("Composers' Quarter"), bounded by Berliner Allee, Indira-Gandhi-Straße, the Jewish cemetery and Gürtelstraße, was built up in three phases from the 1870s onward. Originally the "Französisches Viertel," its streets carried names from the 1870–71 Franco-Prussian War (Sedan, Lothringen, Elsaß, Metz); in 1951 East Berlin's administration renamed them after composers — Sedanstraße became Bizetstraße, Elsaßstraße became Mahlerstraße, Metzstraße became Gounodstraße, Lothringenstraße became Herbert-Baum-Straße — giving the quarter its current name.

Pfarrkirche Weißensee, the parish church at Berliner Allee 180–184 east of the lake, has a west tower dating to the 14th century, built in irregular fieldstone over an earlier wooden church from around 1230; the wooden nave was replaced in brick in the second half of the 15th century, and the tower was rebuilt in neo-Gothic brick between 1822 and 1833. It burned to its outer walls in an air raid in August 1943 and was rebuilt in simplified form in 1948–49 by architect Herbert Erbs. It remains a protected monument and an active evangelical parish church.

Checked: 2026-09-25