Germany 2010 31-Potsdam4

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Brandenburg State

Vacation 2010

September 26, Germany
Potsdam, Hunter's Castle & Star Borough

Potsdam City

You can't swing a dead cat in Potsdam without hitting a castle. On our way back home from Hiroshima Square, we stopped here, at the only castle, soldier King Frederick Wiliam I had built for himself. Compared with all the other magnificent buildings, this one is really rather modest.

The King was cheap in everything that didn't concern the military and allowed himself only a few hobbies. One of them was hunting. For his hunting adventures, he had this house built next to the Great Star. He simply called it the "Star-House", but later it became commonly known as the Hunter's Castle.

Due to the fragile state of the interior, the castle is kept locked up and almost airtight most of the year. Only for a few special occasions, it is open to visitors.

Lucky for us, the annual reenactment of the Great Deer Coursing happened while we were there and we took the rare opportunity to see the inside of Potsdam's least known castle.

The square in front of the castle is called the Great Star.

King Frederick William I loved coursing, a kind of hunting in which the prey is simply run down. In addition do fast horses and dogs, this activity needs an area in which the animals can excel to top speed. Between 1725 and 1729, the King had 40 square miles of brushland turned into a coursing-heath. That included sixteen trails, all radiating from a star-shaped center - the "Great Star."

The Great Star is also the namesake for nearby Star Borough, where Volker's family lives.
The Great Star Plaque at the meeting point of the trails.

To learn more about the Hunter's Castle and the Great Star, click the Tourist-Info sign.

Just 100 yards away from the soldier King's retreat is a very different Posdam: The borough "Am Stern" (German for "At The Star") was built between 1970 and 1980 and consists of about 7.400 panel-flats, all in buildings made from prefabri-cated slabs. It was Potsdam's largest borough built during the East Germany years.

Normally, the "Star" would be a residential area like any other, if it weren't for a certain appartment, in which Volker spent part of his teen-years and the last easy-going years of his childhood - between first divorce and second marriage.

The "Star" is not named after a celestial body, but after the above mentioned star-shaped intersection of hunting trails, but the town has picked up on the star-theme and most of the streets and squares are named after Astronauts and Astronomers. Center is the Kepler Square, named after 15th century German astronomer Johannes Kepler.

More about Star Borough is behind the Tourist-Info sign.

Using the right window, one can see all the way to downtown Potsdam with St. Nicholas Church (center) and the "Hairpin" (right).

After that, all that was left was a very special birthday party and a flight home.

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