Oranienburg Palace

A princess from the Netherlands, a hunting lodge on the Havel and an elector who gave his wife an entire estate with its villages: that is how the story of Oranienburg Palace begins. It is the oldest Baroque palace in the Mark Brandenburg and around 1700 was considered the finest of the Prussian residences. Today its museum shows porcelain, silver and an amber chandelier of which only three exist worldwide. The town still bears the palace's name.

History

A castle first recorded in 1288 stood here in the village of Bötzow, later a hunting lodge. In 1650 the Great Elector Frederick William gave the estate to his wife, Louise Henriette of Orange, who felt reminded of her Dutch homeland. From 1651 to 1655 Johann Gregor Memhardt built her a country seat in Dutch style; it was named "Oranienburg" in 1652, and the village followed a year later. In her garden she grew trees, flowers and vegetables, introducing potatoes and cauliflower to the region. Her son, later King Frederick I in Prussia, enlarged the palace lavishly from 1689. After 1802 it housed a cotton mill and then a chemical works, where chemist Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge discovered aniline and carbolic acid in coal tar in 1833; a fire that year destroyed much of the central block. It later served as a teachers' college, an SS barracks for the guards of nearby Sachsenhausen camp, and an East German border-troops barracks. The museum opened in 2001.

What to see

• Porcelain chamber with lavish étagères.
• Grotesque Hall with the earliest surviving faience made in Berlin.
• Amber chandelier, one of only three of its kind.
• Silver vault with royal ceremonial silver.
• Collection: paintings by Anthony van Dyck, ivory chairs and Berlin tapestries celebrating the Great Elector.

Hours and tickets (as of October 2026)

April to October: Tuesday to Sunday 10:00–17:30. November and December: Tuesday to Sunday 10:00–16:00; January to March weekends only, 10:00–16:00, guided tours only (in German) from November to March. Admission €8, reduced €6, family €16. There is a lift; prams are not allowed inside.

Tripto tip

For the museum's 25th anniversary in 2026, the free "Sanssouci" app offers a tour of 25 artworks. The Sachsenhausen Memorial is just over two kilometres away.