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The renaming of the so-called Piazzetta to Johanna and Eduard Arnhold Platz is primarily due to a civic initiative that aims to commemorate the civic engagement of the Jewish middle classes in Germany and Berlin. The Arnholds were important patrons of the arts and donors to the German Academy of Rome Villa Massimo. The entrepreneur Eduard Arnhold was also involved in the founding of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Advancement of Science (now the Max Planck Society) and the Kaiser Friedrich Museum Association. The couple's art collection, on public display in the former Villa Arnhold in the Tiergarten district, was considered the most valuable private collection of modern art in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. It stood on the site of today's Gemäldegalerie.

Claudia Roth, Minister of State for Culture and the Media, explains: "The history of Germany and Berlin as a centre for art and culture would be inconceivable without patrons like the Arnholds. They had a formative influence on public life in Berlin - and, through the foundation of the Villa Massimo in Rome, far beyond. When we name this piazzetta after Mr and Mrs Arnhold today, we are naming it in honour of all the Jewish patrons whose life's work and achievements were wiped out by the National Socialists."

Gero Dimter, Vice President of the SPK, says: "The Staatliche Museen zu Berlin owe numerous benefactions to the Arnhold couple, including donations of important Impressionist artworks. The naming of the square is also intended to stand pars pro toto for the numerous other residents of the former Tiergarten neighbourhood, many of them of Jewish faith, who had a decisive influence on the art and culture of their time and beyond. For this reason, more comprehensive information about these former Jewish residents of the Tiergarten neighbourhood will soon be provided on site."

Sarah Wedl-Wilson, State Secretary for Culture of the State of Berlin, emphasises: "Public places and squares are important building blocks of a living culture of remembrance. With a name, you not only give these places back a part of their history, honour the people at the place where they lived and worked and rescue them from oblivion. By naming a place, you also revitalise it and give it a purpose, a history in which it can inscribe itself. Renaming the square Johanna- und Eduard-Arnhold-Platz is therefore a further step in the development of the Kulturforum and gives it added significance."

Julia Draganović, Director of the German Academy Rome Villa Massimo, explains: "With the acquisition of a plot of land in 1910 and the construction of studios and flats for creative artists from Germany, as well as the donation of the entire ensemble to the Prussian King, Eduard Arnhold has left a lasting mark on the international cultural landscape. Today, the Rome Prize of the German Academy Rome Villa Massimo is considered the most important award of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media for creative artists abroad. It is largely thanks to his widow Johanna that Villa Massimo was returned to the German government in 1928, after the Academy was confiscated by the Italian state during the First World War."

Lea Rosh, Deputy Chairwoman of the Association in Memory of Johanna and Eduard Arnhold, explains: "Johanna and Eduard Arnhold, together with their neighbours and friends, most of whom were Jewish, set an outstanding example for Berlin and Germany of a socially and culturally committed civil society in the former Tiergarten district. We owe the memory of them, the memory of those forgotten, displaced and murdered by dictatorship and war, not only to them. Especially today, in times of new racist blindness and social and cultural distortions, we also owe this remembrance to ourselves."

The "Association in Memory of Johanna and Eduard Arnhold e.V.", which includes the publicist Lea Rosh, the architect Thomas Albrecht, the lawyer Ernst Brenning and the cultural journalist and Arnhold biographer Peter von Becker, approached the SPK with their request. As the owner of the area, the foundation submitted the necessary applications to the Berlin Mitte district on the basis of Section 5 of the Berlin Roads Act. The association provided support by bearing the costs incurred, among other things. In addition, to mark the inauguration of the square, the association, in cooperation with the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, is donating an "Arnhold Scholarship" for an initial two years for an art-science project curated by the Staatliche Museen on the subject of art and culture in the Tiergarten district.

Press photos:https://www.preussischer-kulturbesitz.de/newsroom/presse/pressebilder.html

Arnhold Initiative:https://www.arnhold-initiative.de/

Villa Massimo:https://www.villamassimo.de

Johanna and Eduard Arnhold
Eduard Arnhold (1849-1925) was born in Dessau, the son of a Jewish doctor for the poor. In Berlin, he began an apprenticeship with the coal wholesaler Caesar Wollheim at the age of 14, became an authorised signatory there a few years later and, after the death of his mentor, became the owner of a major energy supplier and thus one of the richest and most influential men in the country. In 1881, he married Johanna Arnthal (1859-1929), the daughter of a Jewish family from Hamburg.

In line with his ethical motto "Wealth obliges", Arnhold was fully committed to art and society and, alongside James Simon, was the most important patron of the arts at the time. Arnhold not only supported the construction of new transport routes, trams and airships. He also sponsored the Academy of Arts and patronised the major museums in Berlin and Munich. For example, the Gemäldegalerie was able to acquire its most famous work by Titian ("Venus with the Organ Player") thanks to a donation from Eduard Arnhold. He donated Max Liebermann's "Country House in Hilversum" to the Nationalgalerie, as well as Edouard Manet's "Winter Garden" together with other patrons, and he supported the Collection of Classical Antiquities financially with the purchase of the "Goddess Enthroned at Taranto".

Arnhold was also a co-founder of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Advancement of Science (now the Max Planck Society) and the Kaiser Friedrich Museum Association. Together with his wife Johanna, he also established the "Johanna Home" north-east of Berlin, which provided hundreds of girls and young women from often destitute backgrounds with unique educational and life opportunities. For art scholarship holders, the couple founded the Villa Massimo in Rome, which today, as the German Academy Rome Villa Massimo, is the most important institution in the Federal Republic of Germany for the promotion of top German artists abroad.

As the most important collector and patron of Max Liebermann, Arnhold was also committed like no other to the French Impressionists, who were still ostracised in the German Empire. At the beginning of the 20th century, the art collection he built up together with his wife was regarded as the most valuable private collection of modern art in Germany, with works by Goya, Manet, Monet, Cézanne, Degas and Renoir, Böcklin, Lenbach, Klinger, Feuerbach, Menzel, Leibl, Slevogt, Thoma, Corinth and Lesser Ury. In 1898/99, Johanna and Eduard Arnhold moved into a villa in what was then Regentenstraße 19, where they temporarily opened the collection to the public. The property is now home to the picture gallery.

Johanna and Eduard Arnhold's villa in the Tiergarten district was destroyed during the Second World War. The National Socialists erased any memory of the couple. Arnholdstraße in Berlin-Britz, which had already commemorated Eduard Arnold in 1912, was renamed Holzmindener Straße in 1938 as part of street renamings for anti-Semitic reasons. This name remains unchanged to this day. The collection was inherited by the couple's Protestant adopted daughter Elisabeth Arnhold, whom the couple had taken in as a four-year-old in 1887. Numerous works were destroyed during the war or have been lost or dispersed due to sales.

Tiergarten neighbourhood

The square now bearing the names of Johanna and Eduard Arnhold is also a reminder of the commitment of many other predominantly Jewish people in the Tiergarten neighbourhood. Among them were the collectors and art patrons Felice and Carl Bernstein, Oscar Huldschinsky and his son Paul Huldschinsky, the collectors and art patrons James and Eduard Simon, the entrepreneurs and politicians Emil and Walther Rathenau, the actress Tilla Durieux, the art dealers and publishers Bruno and Paul Cassirer, the women's rights activist Hedwig Dohm, the authoritative author of the Weimar Constitution Hugo Preuß, the author couple Julie and Julius Elias, the art historian Julius Meier-Graefe, the gallery owner and publicist Alfred Flechtheim, the journalist Theodor Wolff, the publishing family Ullstein, the writer, publisher and art patron Herwarth Walden and the poet Else Lasker-Schüler.

As part of a BKM-funded project, the art library has looked into the art history of the Tiergarten district(https://www.smb.museum/museen-einrichtungen/kunstbibliothek/sammeln-forschen/forschung/kunstgeschichten-des-tiergartenviertels/) and now offers lectures on the subject every Sunday at 11.15 a.m., at the next event on 11 November with Brigitte Landes, who recently published the book "Die verschwundene Stadt - Im Tiergartenviertel" :
www.smb.museum/museen-einrichtungen/kunstbibliothek/veranstaltungen/veranstaltungsreihe/kunstgeschichten-des-tiergartenviertels/