Potsdam resident John K. Peck takes us on a tour of his favourite local buildings…
Potsdam, once one of Central Europe’s primary centers of power, now sits firmly in the shadow of its former offshoot, Berlin. And while the ‘Royal City’—famed for its associations with Frederick The Great, the Potsdam Conference and the Bridge of Spies—may never again rival the German capital in terms of cultural cachet, the former seat of Empire nonetheless offers a rich and varied array of sights and highlights that can be linked together across its unique geography of waterways, parks and forests.
Looking beyond the major sights such as Sanssouci, Neuer Garten, Museum Barberini, and the charming Innenstadt—as well as modern attractions like the Biosphere and the Filmpark Babelsberg—a string of secondary sites reveals a lesser-known side of what is today the Brandenburg capital. Explored independently or paired with the city’s main tourist attractions, they offer additional reasons for Berliners and other visitors to make the trip across the southwestern border—and for native Potsdamers to veer off the more familiar paths.
Prussian Ruins: Krongut, Teufelsbrücke, Katharinenholz
The iconic Sanssouci Palace and surrounding park, massive and far-reaching as they may be, represent only a fraction of the land that once belonged to the seat of Prussian power. To the north and west of the park are remnants of the palace’s former military, agricultural and trade infrastructure; while some are still in use, most are ruins or faint shadows of their former selves.
In the still-active category is Krongut, the former royal market on the small-but-pretty Bornstedter See. While the site has been in near-continuous use since the twelfth century, during the Prussian era it was administered by the crown to varying degrees, with the brewery, markets and farm serving as suppliers to Sanssouci as well as representatives to the outside world.
A fire wiped out the entirety of the structure in 1846, and the buil…