10th October 1936
Haus Vaterland
Postcard Mi.P263 (Winter Relief Fund and Commemorating the Completion of 1,000 kilometres of Autobahn) sent from Berlin to an address un the United Kingdom (with uprated postage). Uprated postage for overseas (actual charge for foreign postage being 15 Pf). Featuring commemorative cancellation JB:Berlin210/107. Ref: 10.10.1936
The card was written by a correspondent whist in 'Kemplinski Haus Vaterland'. The message reads, in part, 'We are sitting here on the Wine Terrace in the Restaurant Vaterland and send kind regards...' The 'Wine Terrace' referred to is most likely the 'Grinzinger Heuriger', located at the front of the building above the cinema.
HAUS VATERLAND
'I can think of no better way to top off a Berlin night . . . than an hour or two or three in Haus Vaterland. The place is certainly not 'high hat', nor is it low hat, but it is of the very essence of Berlin.'
Sydney Clark, Germany on £10, London: Nicholson and Watson, 1934
Haus Vaterland (Fatherland House) was a pleasure palace on the south-east side of Potsdamer Platz in central Berlin. Preceded by Haus Potsdam, a multi-use building including a large cinema and a huge café, from 1928 to 1943 it was a large, famous establishment including the largest cafe in the world, a major cinema, a large ballroom and numerous theme restaurants, promoted as a showcase of all nations. It was partially destroyed by fire in World War II, reopened in a limited form until 1953, and was finally demolished in 1976.
In the Nazi years, the mix of restaurants was modified and the Jewish Kempinskis had to sell the building for a pittance to 'Aryans' and leave the country. A 1936 French film, Les Loups entre eux (English title: The Sequel to Second Bureau), features scenes in Haus Vaterland, including 'the Horst Wessel song booming from the loud-speaker'. The business continued to host throngs of customers even after Berlin began to suffer heavy bombing by the Allies. In 1943 the building was damaged, particularly in the central section, in the British night Air-raid on the nights of 22nd and 23rd November that destroyed much of the centre of the city including the department store KaDeWe. On 3rd February 1945 it was bombed out by the U.S.A.A.F. during a daylight raid, only the walls left standing.
'Grinzinger Heuriger'
A re-creation of a Viennese Heuriger (a tavern where local winemakers serve their new wine under a special licence in alternating months during the growing season) in Grinzing, on the third floor. The menu included Sachertorte prepared from the authentic recipe; the Kempinskis had an exclusive licence to offer it in Berlin. Guests sampled the new wine looking out at the steeple of St. Stephen's cathedral against a starry sky, and a tram with interior lights lit crossed the bridge over the Danube. In the Berliner Tageblatt, the Austrian writer Arnold Höllriegel declared the place to be far more genuine than the real thing.
After the war, Potsdamer Platz was the point where three of the four Allied occupation zones met. The ruined Haus Vaterland was in the Russian sector, but had doors to both the British and the American. In 1947, Café Vaterland was reopened in an acclaimed gesture of will to rebuild the city, and in 1948 the Communist cabaret Frischer Wind was playing there, while because of its position on the sector lines, it was a hotbed of spying, flight from the East, and black marketing in currency and goods.
Source: Wikipedia
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