History

In 1935, the international film world descends on Harnack House for a convention. Little wonder, as Berlin, with its UFA studios in nearby Potsdam, is one of the most important locations worldwide in the booming entertainment industry. Henny Porten is also among the stars. However, her star is already on the wane, as her husband and producer is considered "half-Jewish" under Nazi criteria. A forced divorce is out of the question for the film star and she prefers to relinquish the major parts that she previously played alongside stage idols like Emil Jannings and Gustaf Gründgens. more

Lust and vice – there is no room for boring theory in the roles performed by Emil Jannings. As the eccentric professor Unrat, he plays the German academic who falls under the spell of eroticism in the film "The Blue Angel" as a caricature of himself. This film also sees Jannings take the step from silent movie to talking film. The topic he presents in 1939 at the invitation of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society at Harnack House could hardly be more contrasting: He talks about his film (Robert Koch – The Fighter against Death), which fully reflects the self-glorifying agenda of the Third Reich. more

Whether playing a snob, the devil or the King of Prussia alongside Henny Porten – Gründgens, the much-celebrated star of the stage, is the charismatic intellectual of German theatre. Gustaf Gründgens is regarded as a fascinating but equally dubious face of German art. Despite being homosexual, he enjoys a meteoric stage career in the Third Reich and the patronage of those in power. However, he also uses his position as the Nazis’ star performer to help persecuted colleagues. more

Carl Siemens follows in the footsteps of his ingenious father at the age of just 27. After the premature death of his elder brothers, he is the sole heir to the international company which Werner von Siemens founded with Georg Halske as a company specialised in communications and energy technology: future-oriented sectors that Carl was to expand worldwide. more

When Hans Krebs spends the night at Harnack House in 1932 to take part in Otto Warburg’s renowned Biology and Medicine Evening, he could not imagine that he – like his former boss Warburg – will one day also receive the Nobel Prize. He is awarded the honour, together with Fritz Lipmann, in 1953 for the discovery of the citric acid cycle. His achievement is also aided by findings produced by his friend Albert von Szent-Györgyi. more