HISTORIC BUILDING

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 587, 19 July 1933, Page 2

HISTORIC BUILDING

GERMAN REICHSTAG NOW. SITTING IN POTSDAM MILITARY CHURCH AND OPERA BtOUSE. FOUNDRD BY HOLLENZOLLEKCNS ] — The Garnischon (military church) j( an Potsdam, in which the German j Reichstag was opened, as a result of the disastrous fire in the Reichstag • building, reeently, and the Kroll ■; Opera, in which the succeeding sessions are being held, are two historiic buildings which owe their existence ■ to the" Hohenzollerns. ,, The Potsdam Garnisonkirche is one of the landmarks of this old rtiyal re- , sidence city. Its Baroque tower, 295 , feet high, is crowned with a weathervane in the form of the P-russSian ■ eagle, stretching hds hea,d up toward the sun. The church, built at the order of Frederick William I, the "soldier king," was finished in 1732, the tower (being completed thnee years ■ later. It contains a carillon of 40 chimes made by the Hollander Alhert des Graave. Since the time of Queen Louise of Prussia, more than 100 years ago, it has played "Lobe den Herrn" (Praise the Lord) at the full hotfr and "Ueb' immer Treu und Redlichkeit" (Be Ever True and Honest), an old German folksong, at the halfhour. The interior of the church, which, like niany Lutheran churches of the Baroque period, has the altar on one side instead of at the end, and a double row of galleries. Gold and white predominate. The flags of noted Prussian guard regiments hang from the eight pillars. The pulpit on the ■long south side is the chief omament of the church. Johann Sebastian Bach, the great composer, played on the orga.n on May 8, 1747, for Frederick the Great. Diirectly under the marble pulpit is a crypt with the sarcophagi containing the remadns of Frederick the Great and his father, the "soldier king" — the chief national shrine in Prussian-German history. Both are simple coffins, unadorned except for a few wreaths and flags. Only a gilded grating separates them from the altar room and from the thousands of visitors who come every year to pay silent homage to these great monarchs. A visitor on October 25, 1806, was. Napoleon I. Later, in the Potsdam City Palace, he entered the bedroom of Frederick the Great with' some of his officers, showed them the King's sword land said: "Gentlemen, if the man who carried this sword were alive we should not be standing here." The Kroll Opera House." The Kroll Opera House stands on •the Platz der Republik opposite the Reichstag building, at the edge of the Tiergarten, one of the largest and most heautiful parks in the German capital. It embodies an important part of Berlin's theatrical tradition. It was named after the Breslau restauranteur Kroll, "the old Kroll," as the Berliners called him. King Frederick : William IV, who wanted a spacious and modern hall in his capital for concerts and popular amusements, gave the site and commissioned Kroll to build the establishment in 1842. The Platz der Republik, then known 'as the Konigsplatz has seen much history in the making. It was. a par lade ground as early as the time of Frederick William I, and the sturdy monarch often reviewed his troops there. In 1878 the Freneh aeronaut i'made an ascension from it with his "Montgolfiere." Here also the coffin of Queen Louise stood ni 1810 duriing a funeral parade. The square's gardens were laid out in 1846 by Linne, and are suhstantially to-day as he planned them.

The "Kroll Etablissement was at , first merely a great hall, built in Clasj 'Sical style by the royal architects, Per- | sius and Knoblauch. It was burned ■ down in 1851,, and was rebuilt in the same style, with the addition of a theatre hall. The establishment was the largest amusement resort in Berlin at .that time, holding 5000 persons, and having a dining-room, a Rloman hall and a Royal hall, the lastnamed being the largest hall in the city. All these halls were richly decoroted, the Royal hall in white, greenf and gold. Two thousand diners could be served at the same time. The charge for admission was 20 silver groschen, which included a table d'hote meal, or 10 silver groschen wiithout a meal. Garden concerts were held in summer, theatrical performances and various amusements in "winter, and every year a Christmas exhiibition. In 1895 a second royal opera found a home in Kroll's, but in 1913 it was decided to tear the building down to make room for a modern opera house. The war prevented the execution of this plan, and the building was used for war purposes, until 1919, when the theatrical architect Oskar Kauffman, working with' very" modest means, remodelled the interior of the auditorium in artistic manner. The panelling of the walls, which look like miahogany, is only stained German pine, and the lighting fixtures are all of sheet-tin, but the architect's art has created with thiis simple material one of the most heautiful auditoriums in Berlin. The State .Opera, the third ■permanent opera of the capital, had its home here from 1922 to 1932. The other rooms are now used as restaurants. There is one gigantic hall for balls and oth'er large gatherangs, and a splendid concert garden is one of the city's most popular attractions in summer.