# Brandenburg Psychiatric Hospital. ***IMAGE INTENSIVE***



## TeeJF (Apr 15, 2013)

This is yet another site from our trip to Berlin last summer for my 55th. birthday. As with the others from that week we have not posted until now because we were fairly disappointed with the sites we visited and it is only after a "cooling off period" that we have come to appreciate the photos rather more than we did at the time - it's odd how disappointment can colour one's views!

It has been rather difficult to get a 100% '_cast in tablets of stone_' accurate history of this site at Teupitz but as best we can we have pieced this together from the likes of Wiki et all!

*The History...*​
*In the latter part of the nineteenth century Germany was a disparate collection of states however following the Franco-Prussian War in the 1870s unification under the guidance of the Iron Chancellor Otto von Bismark led to the rise of a new German nation. Envious of the empires of Great Britain, France and Russia, the new Germany set about expanding its borders and acquiring new territory.

But there was a problem. The worldwide epidemic of TB - the AIDS of its day - was killing off German manpower at the rate of one in three of the population so clearly something had to be done fast. With funding chiefly from the insurance companies of the time, but also with money raised by public donation, a raft of state of the art sanatoria were built all over the country and the site at Teupitz was soon selected for one. Eventually the work of the dedicated TB doctors brought the disease under control and the epidemic passed leading to the progressive depopulation of the numerous sanatoria. With concentration of the ever diminishing number of patients something had to be done with the many buildings which were standing idle for the most part so at this time Teupitz was ear-marked for reutilisation as a psychiatric hospital.

In 1914 war clouds gathered over Europe and many an institution of this size was pressed into service as a military hospital including Teupitz. After the Armistice of 1918 the hospital reverted to its previous purpose and early treatments for many mental conditions were researched there.

During the 1920s and 30s many patients passed through the Brandenburg Psychiatric Hospital at Teupitz including a few notable people of that time. One of these was an artist, architect, lithographer, and designer who is widely regarded as the father of German Impressionist painting, Paul Gösch (30th. August, 1885 – 22nd. August, 1940). Gösch suffered from "physical and emotional frailty" throughout his life, but nonetheless maintained "a robust determination to create prolifically and to further the utopian causes of the avant-garde of his time." Born in Schwerin, the son of a lawyer and judge, Gösch grew up in Berlin, where his father held a teaching position at the University of Berlin. Gösch attended the technical college at Berlin-Charlottenburg in 1903 to study architecture. As a student, he met both Sigmund Freud and Rudolf Steiner. He developed an interest in Anthroposophy, Steiner's version of Theosophy, and later helped in the construction of the Goetheanum in 1913. He was first hospitalised for psychiatric treatment in 1909 but still managed to achieve his degree. He studied painting in San Remo for six months, and traveled throughout Europe visiting Italy and France, meeting other artists. In 1911 he accepted a post at Kulm which was then part of Prussia but is now Chełmno in Poland, and he served as city architect there from 1915 to 1917. Gösch suffered another psychotic episode requiring further institutionalised treatment in 1917, and he did not leave the hospital until well into 1919 nearly two years later.

After his release from hospital Gösch associated himself with the Novembergruppe, a group of German expressionist artists and architects which formed on the 3rd. December, 1918 taking its name from the month of the post war German Revolution. The group was led by Max Pechstein and César Klein and was linked less by the members artistic styles and more by their shared socialist values. They campaigned for radical artists to have a greater say in the provision and running of art schools and the arts in society. The group merged in December 1918 with Arbeitsrat für Kunst, a 'Workers Council for Art' or 'Art Soviet' - in effect what we would now regard as a trade union - formed by architects, painters, sculptors and art writers based in and around Berlin in the early 1920s. It developed as a response to the Workers and Soldiers Councils which were springing up in the power vacuum and rampant anarchy of the immediate post war period, and it was dedicated to the goal of bringing the current developments and tendencies in architecture and art to a broader population.

Artistically, Gösch was a specialist in water colour often painting mythological and religious subjects, especially the Virgin Mary though when not painting or actively involved in architectural work Gösch wrote and illustrated fairy tales and composed poetry. A couple of his paintings can be seen BELOW. 










​
From 1921 onwards, Gösch increasingly suffered psychological problems; he became a patient at Göttingen where his brother-in-law was the head of the psychiatric institution and his murals painted on the walls of his room still exist there. At this time he was diagnosed with Dementia Praecox which was the name at that time for what we now know as Schizophrenia. In 1934, under the emerging Nazi regime, Gösch was transferred to Teupitz, where he was not allowed to paint, being forced instead into hard manual labour. In 1940, personnel from the SS removed Gösch from Teupitz and murdered him; he was just one of the thousands of victims of Action T4, the Nazi euthanasia campaign. The date and place of his execution are not absolutely certain; the most reliable information available points to the 22nd. August, 1940, and the old prison in Brandenburg.

After the Second World War, during which time Teupitz again served as a military hospital, the occupying Russian forces continued to use Teupitz as a mental hospital, and it retained that purpose right up until their final departure from Germany on 1st. September, 1994, some six years or so after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Today the site stands abandoned but a modern psychiatric institution was built on the land adjacent to the old walls just beyond the cemetery; and on the area immediately to the rear of the site is a modern high security ward surrounded by tall electric fences, presumably housing criminally insane patients.

Our impression of Teupitz was that the site contains some delicious late nineteenth century architecture but it cannot come close to its other Brandenburg neighbours Beelitz and Grabowsee. As an urban exploration it is very samey with all the buildings revealing the same sights over and over again. The Russian era painted murals in the main building were well worth a look though sadly they have deteriorated now to a shadow of their former magnificence. Wandering around the heavily wooded site in the warm summer sun passed a very pleasant couple of hours but we would not travel so far out of Berlin to visit again, nor would we recommend the site to other explorers.*

*The photographs...*










* Just inside the site now and behind the rather imposing Soviet era front gates. *










* We are approaching the main admissions building now which fronts the site. *











* Fighting our way through the undergrowth around the back looking for a way in. *










* ...and we're in  *











* As with all German buildings from the late 19th. Century the architecture is superbly aesthetic. *










*Immediately behind the main entrance now. *










*All that remains of the once superbly impressive Soviet era mural now that the damp has taken its inevitable toll. *











*The corridor running along the front of this huge building is proportionately long as might be expected  *











* The door lintels and walls are elaborately decorated with ceramic tiles belying the hospital's original purpose in the battle against TB.*











* This staircase up to the first floor is rotten due to water ingress from the roof. *












* The remains of a small kitchen area.*










* An abandoned ledger... *










* ...just a small part of a pile of old Soviet documents. *











* Upto to the first floor or down to the cellars  *











* The cellars won  *











*Off up to the first floor now and the opportunity for some stair porn   *










* More gloomy corridors  *












* An attempt to make something of this stygian sub-aquatic lighting resulted in this weird photo  *












* The upper floor is in a pretty poor shape. *












*This glass brick wall divides shower cubicles from the changing room and the light streaming through the window creates quite a spectacle which is rather difficult to do justice to with a photograph sadly  *











*We're off on our travels once more. *










*Back on the ground floor and time to go find another building.*












* Despite being heavily overgrown the former gardens are still a delight to wander. *











* A dedicated ward block looms up out of the undergrowth. *











*Be it Beelitz, Grabowsee, Hohenlychen or here, the corridors are always similarly beautiful. *











*Mesh guards the stairwells against suicidal jumpers - it was a mental hospital after all.*










* Individual wards open off the landings. *











* This once light, airy day room faces south and still benefits from what little sun can find a way through the trees outside. *











* Not so this room which is another dark green glory hole.*











*This section of the building is collapsing rapidly where the roof has gone.*











* Time to wander back and find our way back off the site again.*



* ... and that's your lot for another day, thanks for looking  *​


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## flyboys90 (Apr 15, 2013)

As always a excellent report & photos,thanks for sharing.


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## ZerO81 (Apr 15, 2013)

That is very nice indeed!


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## perjury saint (Apr 15, 2013)

*A bostin report there... Again!! Fantastic lookin place! *


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## sonyes (Apr 15, 2013)

Top notch stuff that bud. Love the look of this place.


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## UrbanX (Apr 15, 2013)

Thats amazing. I need to get here after seeing these pics! 
Amazing pics as usual, loving the oval windows too


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## TranKmasT (Apr 15, 2013)

Fandabbydosey


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## Priority 7 (Apr 15, 2013)

This looks strangely farmiliar nice set dude


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## NakedEye (Apr 16, 2013)

fascinating place and well documented....some great corridor porn you have there mate!!!


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## night crawler (Apr 16, 2013)

I'm stunned that such places are just left to rot like that. Must have been a nice building before becoming overgrown by shrubbery.
PS I can't believe your 55.


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## TeeJF (Apr 16, 2013)

night crawler said:


> I can't believe your 55.



I'm not, I'm 55 and three quarters. 

Funny place this was - a full on high security mental hospital just beyond the walls, eerily silent, and all the time a slightly "dark" feeling you can't work out. But compared to Beelitz or Grabowsee it's rather lame. Sad history, sad place. 

Regarding it being left standing - a lot of the ward blocks at the far end of the site have been leveled or converted and what we saw is basically what is left. Fortunately that included the admin building. Access to the site was a bit odd to say the least but once we were in there was very little that couldn't be entered - in truth we only really explored two buildings as when we started the third it was identical to the second.

Some seriously large mozzies though which made life a right pain. I think they were a Nazi experiment in gene implantation using mosquitos and vampire bats. 

Thanks for your kind comments folks.


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## Mars Lander (Apr 16, 2013)

legendary looking place, well done team TJ , brill way to spend a birthday, i did similar last year


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## shatners (Apr 16, 2013)

Absolutely stunning.... the cellars look a bit more like solitary rooms the way they uniformly link off the corridor o_0


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## TeeJF (Apr 16, 2013)

AltDayOut said:


> brill way to spend a birthday, i did similar last year



Thanks bud, whewre did you do for your birthday then?




shatners said:


> Absolutely stunning.... the cellars look a bit more like solitary rooms the way they uniformly link off the corridor o_0



Ah no... I think those rooms were actually store rooms in the most part and despite how it looks on the cellar corridor picture, they were actually all different sizes. Some also had signs of having contained machinery, IE boilers etc as I think i remember seeing concrete slabs such as that kind of kit would be mounted on. Also this area of the hospital was the admin block with a mix of what we took to be treatment rooms and offices. The ward block in the latter pictures was quite different and the other ward block we looked into matched the first one almost exactly. 

So... solitary "cells" we did not find. That's not to say there weren't any, and given the way psychiatric patients were dealt with up to relatively recent times I am sure there would have been some, it's just a question of where are they.

Thanks for your kind comments and also for giving me food for thought. You can't beat a bit of constructive debate!


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## missmardybum (Apr 18, 2013)

Wow! Absolutely incredible!!!


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## The Wombat (Apr 19, 2013)

Cracking stuff, liking that


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## Judderman62 (Apr 19, 2013)

now that I like a lot .... scrambles away to look at cost of flights to Berlin


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## pumice (Apr 20, 2013)

They are nice pictures and a tremendous place.


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## Ninja Kitten (Apr 20, 2013)

WOW!!!! as always a great report!


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## TeeJF (Apr 20, 2013)

I'm quite surprised at the interest this place has generated! We thought it was very much an 'also ran' after Beelitz. Thanks to all for your lovely comments.


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## muppet (Apr 20, 2013)

another cracking report you do get about thanks for the post


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## smiler (Apr 20, 2013)

Nice One, what did the place feel like, Thanks.


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## peterc4 (Apr 20, 2013)

interesting stuff thanks


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## theoccipital (Apr 21, 2013)

Very similar to St John's in Lincoln. Seems like mental health issues were tackled from a unified perspective in terms of the layout, architecture and interior decoration?


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## TeeJF (Apr 21, 2013)

@ Smiler. It felt rather... I dunno, sad? If I had known the Nazi involvement it would have been oppressive. Just shows how knowledge affects your outlook. 

@ the occipital. I get where you are coming from bug its actually not remotely like Lincoln or any other UK asylum mainly because the entire site is villa plan which is rare for UK asylums, Barrow Gurney and the one near Derby being the obvious exceptions. The architecture is very different too - the ward blocks were very uniform in layout and style but there are a lot of small buildings dotted about, purpose unknown, much more like Beelitz. But don't forget, this started as a TB sanatorium and only became an asylum (or mental hospital, I'm not sure about their nomenclature in Germany) so it looks very much more like its contemporaries in other parts of Germany. The length of the admin block does remind one of the long corridors in UK asylums though very, very much.


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## HughieD (Apr 21, 2013)

Pix as wonderful as they are comprehensive. TFS.


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