Wannsee means two things to Berliners. On the one hand it is the residential district of Wannsee with its fine old villas set in large gardens - one of the best addresses in Berlin. On the other it is the lake of that name, or rather the two lakes, the Grosser and the Kleiner (Great and Little) Wannsee. The Wannsee ranks as one of the great recreation areas of the Berliners-- with the largest lido in Berlin and along its shores a range of other beaches, with sailing and rowing clubs, etc., cafes and restaurants, with terraces overlooking the Grosser Wannsee and with a variety of attractive footpaths and walks.
Cut off as they were from the country surrounding the city, West Berliners flocked by the thousands to "their" lake, the Wannsee. Now, happily, people from the whole of Berlin can join them.
The Grosse Wannsee, which has an area of 260 hectares/640 acres, is part of a basin gouged out during the Ice Age.
The northern end runs into the River Havel with its international shipping traffic. From the southern end (with the Wannsee bridge, which carries the Königstrasse from Berlin to Potsdam) a string of small lakes connected with one another runs southwest in a long trough also dating from the Ice Age - the Kleiner Wannsee, the Pohlesee, the Stölpchensee (bathing beach), the Prinz- Friedrich-Leopold-Kanal, the Griebnitzsee. The Teltow Canal (Teltowkanal) runs eastwards from the Griebnitzsee.
The district of Wannsee is one of the oldest areas of settlement within Berlin. It consists of three parts that were amalgamated in 1899 -- the colony around the station, the villa colony of Alsen on the west side of the Wannsee, established in 1863 and the village of Stolpe on the Stölpchensee. Stolpe, which first appears in the records in 1299, has an old church, rebuilt in 1859 by F. A. Stüler, with a new carillon installed in 1958.
The road known as Am Grossen Wannsee runs along the western bank of the Grosse Wannsee. The artist Max Liebermann (1847-1935) lived for a time at No. 42.
The large villa at Nos. 56/57 (built 1914-15) was the scene of the conference held in 1942 to find the "Final Solution to the Jewish Problem," when the Nazis decided upon and organized the final elimination of the Jews in Europe. Fifty years later, on Jan. 20, 1992, a memorial exhibition named "Remember for the future" was opened in the villa.
In Bismarckstrasse, on the Kleiner Wannsee, is the tomb of the dramatist Heinrich von Kleist, who together with Henriette Vogel committed suicide here in 1811.
From Wannsee there are boats to Kladow (BVG line) and to the city center at Spandau (Stern- und Kreisschiffahrt). Since the border has been opened vessels now operate once more to Potsdam and Köpenick. The landing stages are below Wannsee S-Bahn Station.
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