Nuclear fusion, the first uranium reactor, the electron microscope – a surprising number of scientif c discoveries and inventions have emerged from Dahlem. From 1912, the elegant residential district evolved into a mecca for creative brains from around the world. Unparalleled in Germany, the first modern research campus emerged here on the green field site. Albert Einstein, Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner were just some of the researchers who worked or lived in Dahlem.

Evidence exists that a total of 35 Nobel Prize winners visited Harnack House between 1929 and 1943, ten of whom came from abroad.

Harnack House was not just a meeting place for scientists but also an important venue for cultivating networks with politicians and industrialists as the club for Kaiser Wilhelm Society (KWG) members. The house’s guestbook impressively documents this networking activity with the state’s elites. As the topic has never been systematically researched, only a fragmentary insight can be provided into the role played by Harnack House as a meeting point for politicians and society.