Wannsee Center to Open Hotel, Supper Club for Summer Season
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The Wannsee Recreation Center will open its supper club and hotel for the upcoming summer season March 29 at noon. The center will hold a free buffet on opening day from 1 p.m. until 5 p.m., and drinks will be sold at reduced rates from 5 p.m. until an undetermined closing time.
The club will offer something new this summer in that changes will be made in the operation of the dining room and its schedule. The biggest change in the dining room facilities will be a difference in dress regulations for the supper club. The front dining room, facing the harbor, will require coat and tie for men, while the back dining room arid bar will serve patrons in casual dress. The dining facilities will be open from 5 p.m. until 10 p.m. weekdays and will open at noon and close at 10 p.m. on weekends and holidays. For swimmers, a casual bar is now under construction on the ground level of the
building. The hotel section of the recreation center, which billets 42 guests, will also open on the same day. The rates will be $ 2.50 per night-per person ($1 per night per child under 12), with a maximum of $7.50 being charged for a family-size room which will accommodate five people. For reservations, which are now being accepted, call 6520 or 6517.
The mansion which houses the Wannsee supper club and hotel is located at 17 Am Sandwerder. It was built in 1886 by Herr Oppenheimer,
but over the years has changed ownership several times, being at one
time the residence of the Finance Minister of the Third Reich. When
World War II ended, the American Army occupied the mansion and
used it as an officers mess.
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Wannsee Contains Scattered Colony
of Country Homes
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The area of Wannsee in Zehlendorf contains a
scattered colony of country houses.The first settlement was initiated in 1863 by
Kommerzienrat Carl Conrad, on land belonging to the village of Stolpe. In the
past financiers and artists especially favored this southwesternmost suburb of
Berlin. Today Wannsee provides nature-loving Berliners with a Shangri-La. The
Grosser Wannsee, a large bay on the south of the Havel, is one of Berlin's
principal boating centers and is much used for sailing and regattas.Handsome
country houses with gardens running down to the waters edge dot the shoreline.
For Americans, the gate to the Wannsee is at the Wannsee Recreation Center, one
of the most beautiful recreation centers in Europe. The quiet beauty of the
Center belies the fact that it has stood through three quarters of a century of
wars, depressions and general chaos. The mansion, located at 17 Am Sandwerder,
was built in 1886 by Herr Openheimer, a local banker. Over the years its
ownership has changed several times, being at one time, for example, the
residence of the Finance minister of the Third Reich. When World War II ended
the American Army occupied the mansion and used it as an officer's club. In
later years the Special Services converted it into a hotel for enlisted men. Its
many other facilities are open to all members of the Berlin American community
and Allied forces. The Strandbad Wannsee, laid out in 1907, is the largest
inland bathing places in Europe, visited on fine days in summer by tens of
thousands. The sand on the shores of this favorite "swimmin' hole" is
fine-grained and white--reminiscent of the Adriatic's beaches. Surrounding
restaurants, with their view over the usually-teeming-with-bikinis beach, offer,
offer fare for the pallet and the eye. Boat agencies provide canoes, kayaks,
motor boats and sail boats for rental to the general public, and lifeguards are
on hand throughout the summer months. The road above the Strandbad proceeds
across an embankment to the island of Schwanenwerder (Swan Island). A Corinthian
column at the entrance to the isle came from the Tuileries in Paris and was set
there in 1883. Traveling west along the Koenigstrasse one enters the Berliner
Stadt Forst, which is stocked with roe deer and moufflon. On the south side of
the road are the only two golf courses in Berlin, the Golf and Landclub Berlin-Wannsee
and the American Golf and Country Club. On the north of the Koenigstrasse is the
Federal Post Office's Fernmeldeturm, a minaret-like structure resembling the
futuristic architecture once seen in the Flash Gordon comic strip. Erected in
1963, the 696 foot tower serves to improve the wireless telephone and television
services between West Berlin and the Federal Republic
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