Beelitz, Brandenburg, Germany
Beelitz-Heilstätten offers endless corridors filled with frozen history, a treetop walk, and the chance to go for a barefoot stroll: the historic building complex near the state border is a place full of fascinating insights and experiences.
Children’s laughter echoes along the forest path where, 35 years ago this March, Erich Honecker took his final solitary walks on German soil. Barely a kilometer from the spot where the A9 autobahn meets the Dessau-Berlin railway line, the air is filled with the scents of bratwurst, pine forest, and summer.
One million day-trippers
The sanatorium complex near Beelitz—located just across the border from Saxony-Anhalt into Brandenburg—is an unusual kind of visitor magnet. More than a quarter of a million day-trippers flock here each year to stroll along the 700-meter-long treetop walk, hike the barefoot path on the forest floor, or explore the numerous historic buildings, construction of which began over a century ago.
Fighting a Widespread Disease
It was the Berlin State Insurance Institute that commissioned architects Heino Schmieden and Julius Boethke to build a pulmonary sanatorium for workers just outside the German capital. At the time, tuberculosis was considered a widespread scourge. Younger and poorer people in major cities, in particular, suffered from this infectious disease—commonly known in German as Schwindsucht (wasting disease).
Remnants left behind by the site's former occupants—the Soviet military hospital—can still be found here and there.
Around 1880, one in two Germans between the ages of 18 and 40 died from this bacterial illness. It also claimed the lives of famous figures such as Friedrich Schiller, Franz Kafka, and Frédéric Chopin. It was not until 1882 that the biologist Robert Koch succeeded in discovering the tuberculosis pathogen, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Yet, it took another 60 years before an effective medication was developed.
The sanatoriums—spanning 200 hectares and eventually comprising 60 buildings—were intended to provide a remedy. At the turn of the century, light, fresh air, and good food were the only treatments available for the sick. In Beelitz, the State Insurance Institute commissioned a clinic for them—the kind of facility that no municipality or health insurance fund could afford to finance today.
The occupying forces left their greetings on the walls.
Visitors taking a tour offered by the operator "Baum und Zeit" (Trees and Time)—exploring this "lost place" that has stood empty since the Soviet troops withdrew 32 years ago—see spacious rooms shared by only a few patients. There were sun terraces, fresh-air rest areas in specially constructed pavilions, and bathhouses.
Due to the risk of contagion, a strict distinction was made between infectious and "clean" zones. As early as 1903, the complex was supplied by a combined heat and power plant. It could treat 1,200 patients simultaneously—until the outbreak of World War I, when all the sick had to be discharged to make room for a military hospital for wounded soldiers. Among them was Lance Corporal Adolf Hitler, who had been injured in a gas attack.
Beelitz continued to serve as a hospital during the Second World War, a conflict Hitler himself instigated in 1939. In the final days of the war, soldiers from the 12th Army—including the future German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher—managed a last-minute evacuation, transporting 3,000 wounded patients and staff members from the sanatoriums to the west. Decades as a Restricted Area
After the war, Beelitz became a restricted area. The Soviet Army operated the largest military hospital outside the Soviet Union here. One of the patients treated in Beelitz during the GDR era was Vladimir Putin. However, the last prominent figure to seek refuge in the hospital complex—which was still strictly off-limits to the public at the time—was state and SED party leader Erich Honecker.
In April 1990, the 77-year-old—who was suffering from cancer—and his wife Margot were forced to leave the parsonage at the Hoffnungstaler Anstalten in Lobetal, where Protestant pastor Uwe Holmer had given them shelter after their eviction from the Wandlitz Politburo compound. Honecker spent nearly a year at the sanatorium. He then fled to Moscow to escape imminent arrest.
For more information: www.baumundzeit.de
