Schloss Cecilienhof is a palace in the northern part of the Neuer Garten park in Potsdam

Potsdam

Potsdam is the capital city of the German federal state of Brandenburg and part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. It is situated on the River Havel, southwest of Berlin city centre....

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, close to the Jungfernsee

Jungfernsee

The Jungfernsee is located north of Potsdam, Germany. It was a glacial kettle and is now part of the River Havel, which runs along its southeastern shore, which is also the only part of its shores that is in Berlin...

 lake. Since 1990 it is part of the Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin

Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin

Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin refers to a group of palace complexes and landscaped gardens found in Potsdam, and the German capital of Berlin. The term was used upon the designation of the cultural ensemble as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1990...

 UNESCO World Heritage Site

World Heritage Site

A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place that is listed by the UNESCO as of special cultural or physical significance...

.
Cecilienhof was the last palace built by the Hohenzollern family. Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany had it erected for his son Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany

Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany

Frederick William Victor Augustus Ernest of the House of Hohenzollern was the last Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Prussia and the German Empire. He was colloquially known as William or Wilhelm throughout Europe....

 and the crown prince's wife Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin

Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin

Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin was a Crown Princess of Germany and Prussia as the wife of German Crown Prince William, the son of German Emperor William II...

. The house was designed by Paul Schultze-Naumburg

Paul Schultze-Naumburg

Paul Schultze-Naumburg was a Nazi architect and one of Nazi Germany's most vocal political critics of modern architecture...

 to look like an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 Tudor country house and built between 1914 and 1917. Its design was based on a house called 'Bidston Court

Bidston Hill

Bidston Hill is of heathland and woodland that contains historic buildings and ancient rock carvings. It is located on the Wirral Peninsula, near the Birkenhead suburb of Bidston, in Merseyside, England...

' (later 'Hillbark') on the Wirral Peninsula

Wirral Peninsula

Wirral or the Wirral is a peninsula in North West England. It is bounded by three bodies of water: to the west by the River Dee, forming a boundary with Wales, to the east by the River Mersey and to the north by the Irish Sea. Both terms "Wirral" and "the Wirral" are used locally , although the...

. which in turn was inspired by Little Moreton Hall

Little Moreton Hall

Little Moreton Hall is a moated 15th and 16th-century half-timbered manor house southwest of Congleton, Cheshire. It is one of the finest examples of timber-framed domestic architecture in England. The house is today owned by the National Trust. It has been designated by English Heritage as a...

. The interior was furnished according to plans by Paul Troost

Paul Troost

Paul Ludwig Troost , born in Elberfeld, was a German architect. An extremely tall, spare-looking, reserved Westphalian with a close-shaven head, Troost belonged to a school of architects, Peter Behrens and Walter Gropius who, even before 1914, reacted sharply against the highly ornamental...

, who originally had designed steamship décors.

The brick and oak timberframe

Timber framing

Timber framing , or half-timbering, also called in North America "post-and-beam" construction, is the method of creating structures using heavy squared off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden pegs . It is commonplace in large barns...

 building including 6 courtyards and 55 carved brick chimney tops should have been completed in 1915, nevertheless construction delayed due to the outbreak of World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 and Crown Prince Wilhelm and Cecilie could not move in until August 1917. Wilhelm followed his father into exile one year later, while Cecilie stayed at the palace until she fled from the approaching Red Army

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

 in February 1945.

Cecilienhof was the location of the Potsdam Conference

Potsdam Conference

The Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from 16 July to 2 August 1945. Participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States...

 between 17 July and 2 August 1945. Afore the rooms had been largely refurnished to match the taste of the participants. Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

, later Clement Attlee

Clement Attlee

Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955...

, Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

 and Harry S. Truman

Harry S. Truman

Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...

 met at the round table in the great hall. On 26 July 1945 Churchill and Truman issued the Potsdam Declaration

Potsdam Declaration

The Potsdam Declaration or the Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender is a statement calling for the Surrender of Japan in World War II. On July 26, 1945, United States President Harry S...

 defining the terms for Japanese

Empire of Japan

The Empire of Japan is the name of the state of Japan that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of...

 surrender, while Truman had already given order to prepare the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Today Cecilienhof is a museum as well as a hotel. Queen Elizabeth II

Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom

Elizabeth II is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize,...

 visited Cecilienhof on 3 November 2004. On 30 May 2007, the palace was used for the G8

G8

The Group of Eight is a forum, created by France in 1975, for the governments of seven major economies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In 1997, the group added Russia, thus becoming the G8...

 foreign minister

Foreign minister

A Minister of Foreign Affairs, or foreign minister, is a cabinet minister who helps form the foreign policy of a sovereign state. The foreign minister is often regarded as the most senior ministerial position below that of the head of government . It is often granted to the deputy prime minister in...

s summit.

External links

• Cecilienhof Palace - official site
• Potsdam from Above - Schloss Cecilienhof