The House by the Lake

by Thomas Harding

Impressed by Otto’s tireless efforts, the acres of productive land, his fine-looking herds of cattle and the beauty of the estate itself, the regional landowners now paid Otto grudging respect. He and his family began to be invited to dinner parties and other social events. His teenage daughters were courted by the local gentry. His son was educated at the gymnasium in Potsdam, destined to join the officer corps and, perhaps later, the civil service.

  Before long, word of Groß Glienicke’s transformation, and the achievements of its landlord, had filtered through to Berlin. Otto Wollank’s farm, it was said, had become a ‘Mustergut’, an exemplary estate. On 16 April 1913, Otto Wollank wrote a direct petition to Kaiser Wilhelm II requesting that he be given a knighthood. This was typical of the time, in which up-and-coming young estate owners promoted themselves to the royal court. As part of his application, Otto provided a summary of his biography and then, under the heading of ‘Political Views’, explained that he was ‘raised in a thoroughly conservative family’ and was loyal to the Kaiser, ‘to the deepest inner conviction’. He went on to say that ‘despite the incitement of local workers by agitators from Spandau’, he believed that he had ‘successfully served the [Kaiser’s] cause in my vicinity’.

  The knighthood petition was first processed by the office of the president of the state of Brandenburg, based in Potsdam. In their report, they confirmed that Otto had been truthful in his application. They also listed his assets, which included the thousand-hectare Groß Glienicke Estate (1.5 million marks), three houses in Berlin (418,638 marks), various property holdings in the Berlin suburb of Pankow (645,667 marks), and other capital assets (2,127,250 marks).

  Three days later, on 19 April, Kaiser Wilhelm instructed his officials to ennoble Otto Wollank1, the one condition being that he pay 4,800 marks for his knighthood. Five months later, on 1 September, Otto received confirmation of his ennoblement through the issue of a diploma by the Heraldry Office. The official announcement was made in the state publication, the Staatsanzeiger, as well as the Gothaer, a periodical on the German nobility. Though no ceremony was held with the Kaiser himself, Otto celebrated the occasion with friends and family at home in the schloss.

  From this point forward he would be known as Otto von Wollank. Not only did this bring him respect and status, it brought responsibilities. For, as a member of the local nobility, Otto was now expected to show leadership to the citizens of Groß Glienicke. He didn’t have to wait long.

  On the morning of 29 June 1914, Otto von Wollank sat in his dining room, reading the cream-coloured broadsheet that had been delivered earlier that day. Unlike the more liberal Berliner Tageblatt and Vossische Zeitung, Otto’s Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung was a conservative newspaper, a staunch supporter of the Kaiser.

  Otto was stunned. According to the front page, the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife had been shot the previous day by a Serbian nationalist in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo. Austria–Hungary was considered one of the Kaiser’s most important allies; many would view an attack on the Austro-Hungarian royal family as an attack on Germany. The Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung reported that ‘the Archduke Franz Ferdinand has been associated with our emperor in mutual affection’ and that the Duchess was ‘well known to the Berlin court … so our imperial house is hit by the painful passing of the Archduke and his wife’. The article concluded that ‘the warmest compassion turns to the three children who are orphaned’ by the killing, reporting that Kaiser Wilhelm would be attending the funeral in Vienna.

  Over the next days and weeks, Otto read the news with increasing trepidation: journalists demanding the assassins’ arrest, governments threatening ultimatums, troops being mobilised. On 28 July, Austria–Hungary declared war on Serbia; on 1 August, Germany declared war on Russia. By 5 August 1914, Otto’s newspapers carried ominous headlines: ‘Britain Declares War on Germany’ and ‘Now Against the Russians, the French and English!’ The First World War had begun.

  According to the newspaper reports, Germany would likely soon be victorious. With an overwhelming number of troops, unsurpassed military training, and modern techniques, it was hard, wrote the editorials, to imagine a prolonged conflict. To a firm patriot and supporter of the Kaiser like Otto, such arguments would surely have been convincing. Though even Otto, the trained cavalry officer, must have wondered about the certainty, given war’s unpredictability, the number of countries involved and their, as yet, unknown military strengths.

  By the middle of August, the German Army had expanded from 800,000 to more than three and a half million soldiers. This surge mostly comprised army reservists, but also included 185,000 volunteers. At this time, there were a little over 120 men living in Groß Glienicke of working age. Of these, eighty were enlisted, thereby reducing the male working population by two-thirds. Soon, the estate was suffering a labour shortfall. The women were forced to fulfil the roles of their husbands, brothers, fathers and sons, and gathered the bulk of the harvest that summer. The decline in the village’s male population became still more apparent at the Thanksgiving celebration that took place in October, two months after the war’s start, with row upon row of empty pews.

  At fifty-two, Wollank was too old to fight. Eager to serve his country, however, he volunteered for the Third Central Horse Depot in Potsdam, taking the rank of captain. Later, he was transferred to the High Command in Berlin, where he was responsible for the distribution of food and provisions to hospitals.

  Given Otto’s military background and loyalty to the Kaiser, it was assumed that his fourteen-year-old son, Horst, would enlist as soon as he was able. Horst had already seen two of the classes above him graduate and be conscripted directly into the army. A few classmates, some as young as fourteen and fifteen, had volunteered. But, despite all this, Horst, continued with his education.

  From the newspapers, and through his contacts in Berlin, Otto kept up to date with the war’s progress. Since December 1914, a major front had developed in France, with Germany’s Fifth Army, made up of hundreds of thousands of soldiers, facing off against French forces. Intending to break the deadlock, the German Army initiated a major assault near the city of Verdun in February 1916. After early gains, the battle ground to a bloody stalemate, resulting in over 300,000 casualties on the Kaiser’s side. It had become clear to Otto that the war was unlikely to end any time soon.

  Conservative in nature, Otto von Wollank did not send his daughters to school, nor did he involve them in the estate’s management. Instead, the young women sat at home with their mother, practising their needlework, reading and entertaining guests. While Horst would, health permitting, attend agricultural college and then serve an apprenticeship on the farm, the only plan for the girls was to find them suitable husbands.

  Although social engagements were less frequent, the occasional afternoon tea or Sunday lunch still took place, attended by elderly neighbours and their younger female charges. The problem, as far as arranging a wedding for Marie Luise and Ilse was concerned, was that most of the eligible young men were away, either being trained at the military academies or already serving at the front. Such thoughts were thrown into disarray when, on 11 November 1916, Otto’s wife suddenly died. She was only forty-five years old. The cause of death is unrecorded. After a short service that was held at the church, and which was attended by much of the village, Katharina was buried in the park next to the schloss.

  Otto spent the remainder of the war trying to run the estate as best he could. Then, on 29 January 1918, he married Dorothea Müller, a noblewoman from Berlin nineteen years his junior. All of Otto’s children attended the wedding, including Horst, who, though now graduated, had avoided conscription due to his general ill health.

  After his bride moved to the schloss, to help manage the domestic staff and to care for the three children, Otto’s mood lifted. According to villagers who remembered her, Dorothea was a friendly woman, with a warm personality, who quickly became beloved. Her arrival brought with it a hope that things wer
e about to take a turn for the better.

  Finally, on 11 November, word arrived in the village that the war had ended. A German delegation made up of two military officers and two politicians had met their counterparts from England and France, and signed an armistice. Otto’s relief soon turned to anxiety when he learned that, following a series of worker and soldier revolts that had erupted around the country, the Kaiser had been forced to abdicate and fled to the Netherlands with his family. With his patron now gone, Otto worried what this would mean, not only for the estate, but for his standing within the community.

  Dorothea von Wollank

  In November and December 1918, politicians from the Social Democrat Party (SPD) worked together with members of the armed forces to fill the political vacuum. But the provisional government was unable to maintain order for long. The push for parliamentary democracy was countered by left-wing groups inspired by the Soviet revolution of the previous year. The protests culminated in the so-called Spartakus uprising, starting on 4 January 1919, in which protesters erected barricades in the streets of Berlin and seized several newspaper offices, including the organ of the SPD. To support the action, the German Communist Party called a general strike. Over half a million protesters surged into Berlin. One of the radicals’ key demands was the redistribution of land, particularly of the estates owned by those recently ennobled, such as Otto’s. Over the next few days, the protesters brutally clashed with bands of former veterans on the city streets, and hundreds were killed. It was the veterans who emerged triumphant, however – recapturing the city centre with support from government forces. A shaky equilibrium was established.

  Otto’s fear abated somewhat when, following elections held on 19 January 1919, a national assembly was convened in the small town of Weimar, three hundred kilometres south-west of Berlin, intent on stabilising the country. Out of this assembly, a new constitution was approved, including significant changes to Germany’s power structures. Women could now vote, as could all men over the age of twenty (the minimum age had been twenty-five). Also for the first time, the country would have a president, who would serve as the new head of state. Critically, the president would be able to appoint, or dismiss, the chancellor – who would run the government – and, under Article 48, would have the power to suspend civil liberties, including habeas corpus. In another broad change, a supreme court was established and the imperial flag of red, white and blue was replaced by a tricoloured black, red and gold. Finally, the constitution laid out a set of ‘basic rights’ for its citizens; for instance, Article 115 declared that ‘a German’s home is an asylum and is inviolable’.

  With a new constitution, flag and parliament, the politicians announced a new era: a German republic. Later this period would become known as the ‘Weimar Republic’. The Kaiser Reich, which had commenced with the unification of Germany in 18712, with its system of royal patronage, was officially over. Gone with it were the nobility. From this point forward, Otto was informed, he could no longer call himself a knight. Nonetheless, he could use the ‘von’ before his surname, and keep his estate.

  The politicians’ efforts to maintain order were undermined by the agreement they signed with the Allied powers on 28 June 1919, which became known as the Treaty of Versailles. Right-wing and nationalist groups were outraged by the treaty’s terms which they considered both treacherous and humiliating. Germany would now have to pay the Allies substantial reparations in return for war damages, and were forced to give up large areas of land, including ceding Alsace-Lorraine to France and parts of Upper Silesia to Poland. Perhaps most upsetting, at least to the soldiers and officers who had fought in the war, Germany was forced to reduce its army to 100,000 men, its General Staff was dissolved and it was allowed only three military schools, one each for the army, navy and air force.

  Berlin became gripped by street fighting. Other rebellions broke out in Potsdam, Hamburg and Frankfurt. A Soviet-style republic was declared in Munich, before being brutally quashed by right-wing paramilitary groups. Thousands died in the violence. Then, on the evening of 12 March 1920, an army brigade marched into Berlin’s city centre in an attempt to take over the government. This coup d’état became known as the Kapp Putsch, after one of its leaders, Wolfgang Kapp. In response, the National Assembly fled to Dresden and then to Stuttgart. To demonstrate that they still had the people’s support, the politicians called a general strike, and were rewarded on 14 and 15 March when over 12 million people refused to go work. The economic impact was immediate, with transportation grinding to a halt, and utility suppliers such as gas, water and electricity unable to provide services. A few days later the putsch was seen as having failed and the government returned to Berlin. Despite this success, the events revealed a country deeply divided between right-and left-wing factions.

  Though the politicians were back in control they soon faced another critical problem: the country was running out of money. The nation’s reserves had been bled dry by the war and the weak economic situation and political instability exacerbated the problem. This situation was made worse as Germany began paying the enormous financial reparations to the Allies, draining the country of much-needed foreign currency. The political and economic instability did little to improve the Groß Glienicke Estate, which was still recovering from the hardships sustained during the war. More than twenty men had died in the conflict and3, with many others badly injured, the working male population had been reduced by more than 30 per cent.

  Then, in 1923, following repeated attempts to liberalise the economy, the country was gripped by rampant inflation. In late 1921 one gold mark had been worth ten paper marks; a year later a gold mark was worth 10,000 paper marks; and by 1923 the rate was one to 100 million. This hyperinflation had a direct impact on the Groß Glienicke Estate. The price of agricultural products collapsed while those of fertiliser, fodder and wages sky-rocketed. Otto now found it impossible to pay his workers, given the exponential fluctuations in currency. Without reward, the labourers became demoralised, many refusing to turn up for work. The estate faced ruin.

  Otto’s one small happiness was his family. In the space of four years, starting in 1920, all his children were married. His eldest daughter, Marie Luise, married a landowner from Bavaria, and a year later, Horst, married a twenty-two-year-old from Oranienburg, a small town north of Berlin. Yet of all the matches, Otto was most pleased with Ilse Katharina’s groom, Robert von Schultz.

  Born in 1897 into a landowning family of aristocrats on the island of Rügen4, off Germany’s Baltic coast, Robert von Schultz was a man steeped in conservative traditions. At the age of seventeen he had volunteered to fight in the First World War, suffering three serious wounds, and receiving the Iron Cross Second Class and Austrian Military Cross of Merit Third Class for his bravery. After the war’s end, and like many of his former comrades, he had become embroiled in the street fighting between communists and right-wing veteran groups that had seized Berlin. Then, looking for a means to earn a living, he took up agriculture studies. A short, rotund man, with a high forehead and double chin, he exuded confidence and bravado.

  Otto was pleased with his new son-in-law. They were both fervent supporters of the monarchy, had both served in the military and both had a passion for agriculture. Following the marriage to his daughter, Otto invited Robert to work with him alongside Horst. One day, one of these two young men would be chosen to manage the estate. For now, Otto let it be known that he had not yet made up his mind whether it would be the son or the son-in-law.

  Within a short time, the estate filled with prams and nurses. Otto liked nothing better than to sit on his terrace, watching his small grandchildren toddling around the front lawn or chasing the geese and ducks that gathered by the lake shore. And gradually, as the hardships of war receded, the ancient rhythms returned to the estate and the village. Thanksgiving celebrations were better attended, as were the Easter celebrations and the church service on Christmas Eve. One of the women from the estate’s dairy
, a certain Frau Mond, opened a shop in the village opposite the Drei Linden, selling milk, cheese and butter. Then a butcher from Kladow, a village located on the eastern shore of the lake, opened a branch shop in Groß Glienicke, supplying high-quality cuts of steak, pork chops and sausages. Better times seemed to be coming to the village.

  Despite the improvements in the general economy, the Groß Glienicke Estate’s finances never fully recovered, crippled as it was by the preceding year’s losses. By 1926, now well into his seventh decade and weakened by a series of illnesses, Otto realised that he must narrow the shortfall in the accounts. With the support of his children and their spouses – who understood the dire financial situation – Otto devised a plan. He would reduce his outgoings by cutting back on some of the household expenses and he would ask the estate manager to increase the yield of that year’s harvest.

  But such measures alone, Otto knew, would prove insufficient. They had been tried before and would result in modest gains. To ensure more dramatic results, Otto decided that he must lease out a portion of the estate’s land. From his friends in Berlin, he had noticed that there was a growing appetite for second homes in the country. Why not attract some of these wealthy Berliners to Groß Glienicke? After all, it was a beautiful spot, and only a short drive from the city centre.

  3

  ALEXANDER

  1927

  ONE SPRING MORNING in March 1927, Dr Alfred Alexander and his family climbed into their dark blue open-topped S-model Mercedes-Benz, outside their apartment in western Berlin, and headed out to Groß Glienicke.

  Alfred and his wife Henny, dressed in a warm winter jacket and mink coat, hats and gloves, sat in the front while their four children – Bella, Elsie, Hanns and Paul – were crammed in the back. Alfred liked to drive, so the chauffeur had been given the day off. Their route took them through the crowded city streets, along the Heerstrasse – the main thoroughfare heading west out of the city – across the narrow Freybrücke, the iron bridge that spanned the River Havel, and then left onto Potsdamer Chaussee which, after a long straight drive through woods, brought them to Groß Glienicke. The journey took just forty minutes.