Joanna Greaves discovers Factories, Friedhöfe and Films in Berlin’s ‘White Lake’ district…
The first time my partner and I visited the Weißer See, one drizzly February afternoon, it was a slightly forlorn experience. The trees that circle the lake were bare, and the terrace of the lake’s Cafe Milchhäuschen was deserted, its tables and chairs in winter storage. The only people around were joggers and dog walkers.
Since that first exploration to the lake and back though, Weißensee has become a favourite destination for our urban rambles, not least because of the many surprises it has up its sleeve. Established as the village of Wittense in the 13th Century, and greatly developed and expanded in the late 1800s, Weißensee has been at times attractive and well-heeled, at others a faded backwater; today it often has the feel of a separate town rather than a suburb of the Hauptstadt.
There are no hipster hangouts here, no paleo restaurants or third wave coffee shops. And whilst a kilometre or so away in Prenzlauer Berg, olive oil boutiques and artisanal pasta shops persuade locals to part with their cash, retail outlets in this part of the city are of a far more prosaic nature, with a notable few exceptions like the record shop on Gustav Adolf Strasse whose windows are full of Duran Duran and Depeche Mode albums, and the little shop in Langhansstrasse that sells only preserves.
Approaching from the gentrified streets of northern Prenzlauer Berg, the first point of interest is Caligariplatz, a miniscule square at the district’s south-westerly tip that’s sharpened to a point at the junction of Prenzlauer Promenade, Gustav Adolf Strasse and Heinersdorferstrasse.
It would be easy to pass the square by without a second glance, but an information panel here details the area’s erstwhile importance as the ‘Hollywood’ of Europe. In the early years of the twentieth century, the major German film studios were located in the neighbourhood, their most famous product being the silent horror classic Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari. Screen legend Marlene Dietrich debuted here in the 1923 melodrama Tragödie der Liebe.
Sadly, almost nothing persists of this legacy nowadays aside from The Delphi on nearby Gustav-Adolf Strasse, whose blank, dilapidated facade reveals almost nothing of its days as a popular silent movie theatre, nor its atmospheric interior, which is opened to the public occasionally for special events while it awaits redevelopment funding. In fact, the only relic …