German Embassy

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In 1873 the German Ambassador declared an intention to acquire the building from Princess Lvova and the building was bought by the German Empire for housing the German Embassy to the Russian Empire that same year. The Germans commissioned architect Rudolf Bernhard to redecorate the buildings interiors, and in 1889 Ivan Schlupp redesigned the building by adding a second floor over a part of the facade on Bolshaya Morskaya Street.

In 1911-1913 the building was again redesigned, this time in Neoclassical style by German architect Peter Behrens, as a grandiose monument the power of a unified Germany.[3] Behrens' design, which Albert Speer reported Adolf Hitler admired,[4] saw the facade of the building being built in red granite, the frontispiece, reminiscent of Ancient Greek architecture,[5] was completed with 14 columns, and decorated with pilasters. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe served as construction manager on the project, and sculptor Eberhard Enke created the Castor and Pollux sculpture, symbolising the reunion of the German nation,[6] which adorned the tympanum. Other prominent German masters created paintings, sculptures and fretwork to adorn the building.[2] The Embassy building was officially opened on 14 January 1913.[3]

The artistic community in Saint Petersburg held negative opinions of the building, with prominent members of the community, Alexandre Benois, Nikolay Wrangel and Georgy Lukomsky, criticising the Teutonic style of the building as being hostile to the architectural style of the city, and due to it differing greatly from the Russian neoclassical revival style.[1][2]

It was rumoured at the time that the Embassy was linked to the German–owned Hotel Astoria via an underground tunnel,[5] and on 1–2 August 1914, after Germany declared war on Russia, crowds stormed the building as anti-German sentiment took hold in the city.[2] The building sustained considerable damage, with crowds torching the throne room of Kaiser Wilhelm II, destroying Greek and Italian art work and a collection of Sèvres porcelain.[3] The Dioskouroi sculpture from the roof disappeared during this time, and rumours abounded that it was dumped in the Moika River by the crowd,[1] however, researchers have been unable to find any fragments of the sculpture in the river.[6]

After the war, the Germans returned to the city in 1922, at the time known as Petrograd, and operated a consulate from the building, representing the Weimar Republic and later Nazi Germany, until 1939.[5] During the Siege of Leningrad, the Red Army operated a hospital in the premises, and after the Great Patriotic War it housed the Institute of Semiconductor Physics.[1][2] Later tenants of the building have included Intourist, Dresdner Bank and the Committee for the Management of City Property of the Saint Petersburg City Administration (Russian: КУГИ Санкт-Петербурга - Комитет по управлению городским имуществом).[5] Today the building houses the Administration Board of the Ministry of Justice and the Chief Technical Commission to the President of the Russian Federation for the Northwestern Federal District.

German Embassy

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German Embassy