Peace messages from Beelitz-Heilstätten (Chronology)

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Peace messages from Beelitz-Heilstätten

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Beelitz Heilstätten - chronology

1900

Tuberculosis is regarded as the most spread illness in Europe. In Germany every third death and every second disablement is attributed to the tuberculosis.

1882

Robert Koch discovers the tubercle-bacillus. First attempts in early stage of the sickness to the medical treatment takes aim at the strengthening of the whole organism.

1894

To prevent the still rising incapacity of earning one’s living of the insured workers the regional insurance institution Berlin decides on the construction of four sanatoriums near Beelitz: two sanatoriums each for men and women and two special tuberculosis sanatoriums.

1898

Start of the first stage of construction of the biggest tuberculosis sanatorium in Germany. On about 140 hectare the hospital buildings are putted up in the middle of the town forest of Beelitz. The connection to Berlin is made possible with the railway.

1902

Inauguration of the sanatoriums and tuberculosis sanatoriums for 600 patients, women and men separated. Leading architects are Heino Schmieden and Julius Boethke, who belong to the leading designers of hospitals in Germany.

1905

Start of the second stage of construction with the erection of two further tuberculosis sanatorium buildings, of houses for unmarried doctors, officials and employees, new building of the bakery and the butcher's as well as the reconstruction and rebuilding of the thermal power station.

1908

Opening of the enlarged plant in Beelitz. Increase of the patient number up to 1200 beds. Leading architect is Fritz Schulz.

1914

During the First World War the sanatoriums are used as Red-Cross-military hospitals and as military tuberculosis sanatoriums. Until 1919 there were nursed about 12.500 soldiers in Beelitz, among them also the soldier Adolf Hitler, wounded 1916.

1920

Above all the formation of Groß-Berlin favours a heavy increase of sanatorium patients after the World War. Partly there are so many applications, that in the following year only women and children were received for medical treatment in Beelitz and male patients were brought to other locations.

1923

Caused by the economic crisis and the inflation the operation is strongly reduced since the years 1923/24. In October 1923 even the tuberculosis sanatoriums, which are north of the railway, are temporary closed, in the sanatoriums the number of patients shrinks to 400.

1926

Rebuilding of the thermal power station: There are installed two steam power-three-phase current-generators of the Company ABB in exchange for the direct current-generator, build in 1908. Modernization of the boiler. Start of the third stage of construction with the new building of the central laundry.

1928

Start of the new building of the surgery-pavilion on the premises of the tuberculosis sanatorium for women. The surgery follows the medical-technical orientation of the time, when the surgical operation was regarded as a necessary and promising treatment. Not until the end of the forties the lung surgery is replaced and the chemotherapy of the tuberculosis quick comes into use.

1939

At the beginning of the Second World War the sanatoriums become again Red-Cross-military hospital and military tuberculosis sanatorium.

1942

South of the sanatorium for women the hospital-special facility Beelitz is erected as alternative hospital for Potsdam. Architect of that alternative hospital is Egon Eiermann (1904 - 1970), well-known by the new building of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-memorial church in Berlin. The hospital accommodates the clinic for lung diseases and tuberculosis Beelitz-Heilstätten after the war until 1998.

1945

Takeover of the area by the Soviet army and use as central military hospital of the so called western group of the forces out of the own territory. Running of the thermal power station by German civil workers. In the middle of the fifties about 120 employees, stokers, machinists, plumbers, mechanics, joiners and so on are serving the Soviet army.

1955

The power supply by the thermal power station happens only exceptionally; the military hospital is provided by the public mains. The thermal power station is accessible without sentry in the military area. The historical bakery of the sanatorium produces for the army; the former central laundry becomes VEB textile laundry.

1970

Closure of the three-phase current mains supply; replacement of the boilers. Since 1976 there were also engaged Russian civil employees and engineers in the thermal power station. In the late eighties there work even about 60 German civil employees in the thermal power station, 24 hours in three shifts. The thermal power station uses up about 30 to 40 tons of coal each day, which is delivered by train.

1992

First structural stocktaking and documentation of the area by the town Beelitz. First development- and planning conceptions for a use after the withdrawal.

1994

Withdrawal of the western group of the Soviet forces. Return of the military prohibited area to the regional insurance institution Berlin. Listing of the facilities as an architecture- and area monument.

1995

Purchase of the sanatoriums in Beelitz by the company Roland Ernst from Heidelberg.
Formation of an urban development conception for the reconstruction of the buildings and use as health- , research- und science area.

1998

Opening of the neurological rehabilitation clinic, redevelopment of single buildings and development of the first new residential area.

Since

2001

After the rehabilitation of further objects, like the thermal power station, the doorkeeper house and factory buildings as well as the new building of the fire brigade centre and a children–rehabilitation clinic the process of a new use stagnates because of the insolvency of the development corporation and the plot owner.

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