Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt and Their Home in Tegel

Berlin is a vast metropolis that no one can ever fully explore, but it can be a lot of fun trying. I have spent a lot of time in the German capital, with many visits over several decades and even living there twice. While I have seen more of the city than most Berliners, I still have a long Berlin to-do list that may never get done. But Berlin in the 1970s was definitely not the Berlin of the 1990s or today. Beside being a huge collection of neighborhoods (Kieze) and districts (Bezirke), Berlin is constantly evolving and metamorphosing.

A map of Tegel and its location in Berlin-Reinickendorf. IMAGE: Wikimedia Commons

Even Berlin’s historic sites keep changing. Think of the Reichstag, the East Side Gallery, or Tempelhof Airport (now a park). But there are a few places in greater Berlin that are timeless and “far from the madding crowd.” Personally I find these more obscure but interesting spots very rewarding. It’s not that I think you shouldn’t visit the Reichstag dome with several hundred of your best friends, but that experience is just a different kind of animal compared to more isolated attractions. I like to do both.

A visit to Schloss Tegel (Tegel Palace) definitely falls into the more-obscure-but-interesting category.

Tegel

Tegel today is a sleepy locality (Ortsteil) surrounded by the green Tegeler Forst woods in the Berlin district of Reinickendorf. Most of Tegel lies northwest of the airport that bears its name. Known for its eponymous lake, the Tegeler See (the second largest in Berlin after the Müggelsee), and two man-made islands in Tegel harbor: the narrow 618-meter-long Humboldt Island and the even smaller Tegel Island (known locally as Hundeinsel), both now covered with luxury condos and apartment buildings. Until recently, the islands were being used for industrial purposes, but Tegel, like many other parts of Berlin, has been gentrifying in the last decade. Tegel was once a remote and tiny “church village” (Kirchdorf) with little more than a Lutheran church and a few houses on the shore of Lake Tegel. Besides the church, the most imposing structure in Tegel was a former hunting lodge that became known as Schloss Tegel or das Humboldt-Schloss.

Schloss Tegel between 1857 and 1883, as depicted by artist Alexander Duncker Bardtenschläger (1813-1897). PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons

Acquired by the Humboldt family in 1765, Tegel Palace became home to the dynasty. The two boys would be home-schooled there by a private tutor (which is illegal in Germany today), who also helped design the adjoining park. Their father Georg died when the boys were 10 and 12 years old, leaving them in the care of their “emotionally distant” mother. When Wilhelm von Humboldt retired from public service in 1819 and made the palace his residence, he hired the distinguished Berlin architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel to design a few interior improvements. But it was still a three-hour horse-drawn coach ride between the “palace” and the center of Berlin, where the family also had a residence. They spent only the warm seasons at Tegel, which was difficult to heat in the winter. Hours away from Berlin, the palace was so remote and isolated that Alexander von Humboldt referred to his Tegel home as “Schloss Langweil” (“Boredom Palace”). The family villa remained rather modest and unadorned compared to most European palaces. Even today, with the mansion largely restored to its former glory, visitors expecting to see a palatial residence may be disappointed.

Nevertheless there are several reasons why I think you should make your way north to Alt-Tegel and the Humboldt Palace. Two of them are Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt, both very important figures in Berlin and German history. If you don’t know much about them, you really should.

The two brothers were opposites in many ways, although they generally got along well. Alexander, the younger brother, was the adventurer and the one who got the most international attention. He was the more handsome of the two, but he never married. He spent five years exploring South America, Mexico, and Cuba, and spent almost a week chatting with US president Thomas Jefferson before sailing back to Europe in 1804. He later explored Siberia when he was in his sixties. You can learn much more about Alexander in my earlier blog post entitled Alexander von Humboldt: Why Do We Find His Name All Around the Globe and Even on the Moon?.

Wilhelm, on the other hand, married a lovely woman (Caroline von Dacheröden) and fathered eight children, of whom five survived to adulthood. Wilhelm was more of a homebody, but he served as a diplomat in Rome and later as the Prussian ambassador in Vienna, Austria. Not to mention his other endeavors: philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin (named for him in 1949). Stay-at-home Wilhelm died long before his younger brother, on April 8, 1835 in Tegel aged 67. Alexander lived to be 89, dying in Berlin (not Tegel) in 1859. The two brothers now lie at rest in the same family plot at the other end of a lovely meadow park that stretches between Tegel Palace and the tiny cemetery. Don’t miss the cemetery when you visit the palace!

The driveway leading up to Tegel Palace in April 2018, too early in the year to tour the privately owned residence. The sign indicates the tour season (May to September). PHOTO: Hyde Flippo

Visiting Schloss Tegel Today

Unlike the Humboldts and their guests in the 1800s, visitors today can get to Tegel via U-Bahn (U6, exit Alt-Tegel station) or S-Bahn (S25, exit Tegel station) from Berlin-Mitte in far less time than it took horse-drawn transport. (The U6 gets you a bit closer than the S-Bahn.) If you’re on foot, exit the U6 station (end of the line) and walk north on Berliner Straße, which soon becomes Karolinenstraße. When you come to the intersection with Waidmannsluster Damm, go left into a smaller street called An der Mühle. As you cross Gabrielenstraße, you’ll see a parking lot and a small unpaved road with the imposing name of Adelheidallee (Adelheid Blvd.) that leads off from the bus parking lot there. It looks unpromising, but keep going a short distance and soon you’ll see the “Schloss Tegel” sign on the right next to a driveway at Adelheidallee 19. (See photo above.) Note: Three of the streets mentioned above are named for three of Wilhelm von Humboldt’s daughters: Karoline, Gabriele, and Adelheid. Tegel is also dotted with the Humboldt name: the Humboldt Library, Humboldt Island, the Humboldt Gymnasium (high school), etc.

Before we continue, there is something you need to know… One reason there is such poor signage and you could easily miss the road to the palace is that, unlike standard tourist attractions in Berlin and Germany, Schloss Tegel is still a private home! It is not owned by the city of Berlin or any public agency. The only reason you are able to tour the interior of the palace is the kindness of the current owners the Heinz family. Family head Ulrich von Heinz (1941-2017), a lawyer and a sixth generation descendant of Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt, who lived in the palace longer than anyone, died in 2017. He is survived by his wife Christine. Before his death he and his wife fought to restore the interior sculptures that the Russians carted off in 1945. Only after the Berlin Wall came down, was he able to get most of the artworks returned. Maintaining the historic family home was his life’s work, often without adequate public funding to help. So please don’t complain about the limited days and hours for palace tours.

Tegel Palace viewed from the Schloss Park side during ceremonies honoring the 200th birthday of Wilhelm von Humboldt on June 22, 2017. PHOTO: Landesarchiv Berlin

If you want to visit the interior of the Humboldt-Schloss, you have to buy a guided tour ticket for 12 euros (10 euros discounted). Tours offer access only to public areas of the house. As we mentioned before, guided tours of the house are only offered on Mondays (official holidays excluded), and only at 10:00am, 11:00am, 3:00pm and 4:00pm. Groups should make advance reservations by calling 030 886 71 50. Remember that palace tours are only offered between May and September (May 8 – September 25, 2019).

Be sure to go beyond the house and explore the Schloss Park that extends away from the palace down to the cemetery. I tend to agree with Gordon A. Craig, who wrote: “The charm of Tegel lies in the unity of spirit that exists between the house and the woods that surround it, mostly fir and linden, and the little graveyard at the bottom of the park, which is the final resting place of the brothers Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt and their closest relations. This is overlooked by a thirty-foot-tall granite column, from whose Ionic capital a marble statue of Hope looks down upon the graves.” (Theodor Fontane: Literature and History in the Bismarck Reich, Oxford University Press, 1999, p.54) A bit further towards Lake Tegel you’ll find the huge 800-year-old “Dicke Marie” oak tree, supposedly the oldest tree standing in Berlin, named for a favorite cook in the Humboldt kitchen.

After your visit, see if you agree with the Berlin writer Theodor Fontane, who wrote these words (in German) around 1870: “Paris is no good without Versailles, London no good without Windsor, and Berlin without Charlottenburg — for the connoisseur it is unthinkable without Tegel.”

– HF