Prussian House of Lords

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Prussian House of Lords Preußisches Herrenhaus
Courtyard on Leipziger Straße, circa 1900
Type
Type	Upper house
History
Established	31 January 1850
Disbanded	15 November 1918
Preceded by	Prussian estates Prussian National Assembly
Succeeded by	Prussian State Council

The Prussian House of Lords (German: Preußisches Herrenhaus) in Berlin was the upper house of the Landtag of Prussia (German: Preußischer Landtag), the parliament of Prussia from 1850 to 1918. Together with the lower house, the House of Representatives (Abgeordnetenhaus), it formed the Prussian bicameral legislature. The building is now used as the seat of the German Bundesrat.

Kingdom of Prussia

Modeled on the

• Princes of the royal house of Hohenzollern who had reached their majority
• Members with hereditary right:
  • The head of the princely house of Hohenzollern
  • The heads of the former German states of the Holy Roman Empire in royal Prussian lands—these were primarily
    mediatized princely houses (so-called Standesherren, incumbents of state countries), such as Arenberg, Bentheim-Steinfurt, Croÿ, Isenburg (also Ysenburg), Salm-Horstmar, Salm-Salm, Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg, Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hohenstein, Solms-Hohensolms-Lich, Solms-Rödelheim-Assenheim, Stolberg-Wernigerode, and Wied
    .
  • Other members with hereditary right—these were primarily princes and counts from lands annexed by Prussia over the centuries, such as the
    landgrave of Hessen-Philippsthal
    .
• Life members:
  • Holders of the four great court appointments (große Hofämter) of the kingdom—these were the state steward (Landhofmeister), the chancellor (Kanzler), the lord marshal (Obermarschall), and the lord burgrave (Oberburggraf).
  • Members entrusted by the king—these were both nobles and commoners, and included select generals and admirals, senior government officials, business leaders, and philanthropists.
  • Members called by presentation—these were primarily holders of noble estates, the university representatives, and the lord mayors of cities given the right of presentation.

Starting in 1856, the House of Lords met at a Baroque city palace on Leipziger Straße No. 3, near Leipziger Platz, formerly owned by the merchant Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky (1710–1775) and seat of the Royal Porcelain Factory from 1763. It had been acquired by Abraham Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1776–1835), father of Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn, in 1825. In the summer of 1826, young Felix Mendelssohn wrote his A Midsummer Night's Dream overture, which premiered at his father's house.

After the Prussian state had purchased the building in 1856, it also served for the meetings of the

The Neo-Renaissance Herrenhaus building, designed by the architect Friedrich Schulze, was completed in 1904. Schulze had had also built the adjacent Abgeordnetenhaus on Prinz-Albrecht-Straße from 1892 to 1898. Both structures were connected by a common functional wing in the rear, which allowed deputies to move freely between both chambers. Since 1993, the Abgeordnetenhaus building is the seat of the Berlin state parliament.

Seat of the Prussian state council from 1921 to 1933, the former Herrenhaus building from 1933 served for

• List of presidents of the State Council of Prussia
• Members of the Prussian House of Lords

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Prussian House of Lords.

• The Bundesrat building
• Preußisches Herrenhaus (in German)

52°30′33″N 13°22′53″E / 52.50917°N 13.38139°E / 52.50917; 13.38139