The once sprawling campus Königsliche Pulverfabrik
sits just North of the Spandau fortifications, in the obscure district of
Haselhorst. Feeding Prussia’s demand for
gunpowder since 1717, the complex expanded into an annex- with water tower- in
1890. There is some suggestion poison
gas and other munitions were manufactured here; the Treaty of Versailles put an
end to operations.
Artur Brauner, a Polish Jew who fled the
Nazis by heading east, purchased the property in 1947 and built CCC FilmStudios. “Out of a poison gas factory I
wanted to make a dream factory,” he stated in an interview. The second layer of irony being the sobriety
of the studio’s monumental output: The Garden of the Finzi-Continees, Europa Europa, The White Rose, and other films.
Today the plot is weedy and littered; the
building housing the old munitions factory is ramshackle. Through broken panes one
sees vacancy, dampness, and wall-mounted rotary telephones. Signs announce the entrance- now boarded
over- to an erstwhile guitar band camp.
Just beside, however, music can be heard
drifting from the studios- even on a Sunday.
A leather jacketed employee waves us away- this is Private Property- but
entertains our questions about the water tower and the complex. And as an
afterthought, he then asks us where we are from, complements us on our German,
and pats my companion’s back.
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