Sophien Heilstätten

After its foundation on October 14, 1898, the clinic was built with the support of the Grand Ducal Family of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach in district of Bad Berka. It was named after Grand Duchess Sophie of Orange-Nassau, who had died shortly before. The house initially served as a spa facility for the treatment of tuberculosis patients.Since the capacity was quickly reached, a second building was erected in the summer of 1899, as well as halls in the forest and barracks. The Sophienheilanstalt was taken over by the Landesversicherungsanstalt LVA Thüringen in 1904.

From 1924, the transformation of the spa into a clinical sanatorium began, in order to be able to carry out new methods of treatment and appropriate surgical procedures for lung disease patients.

In 1934, Adolf Tegtmeier became head of the Sophienheilstätte and contributed to its success. He was able to prevent the conversion into a Soviet epidemic hospital in 1945.

Since 1951 the Sophienheilstätte served as a department for urology and orthopedics. After the end of the GDR and the privatization of the clinic in 1991, the urology department was transferred to the Blankenhain District Hospital the following year. The historic building was then vacated in 1993.

In 2002, the Dr. Marx group acquired the property, but no investments were made. In 2015, a group of investors, including a number of Bad Berka residents, formed to renovate the Sophienheilstätte in a manner appropriate to its status as a historic monument and to revive it as a senior citizens' residence.

At the beginning of 2021, no redevelopment or safeguarding measures were yet apparent; purely from the outside, the building is increasingly decaying.

Hotel Fürstenhof

In 1854, the master butcher Samuel Liebetrau built its summer house. In 1861 Johann Georg Bornemann, a geologist and building contractor, acquired the property, built on it and created the Villa Bornemann. After his death in 1902 the villa was resold and extended. The „Kurhaus Hotel Fürstenhof“ opened on 15 May 1902. They wanted to follow Baden Baden's example and become a fashionable spa town. The “Kurhaus” terrace was built on the slope with a ground floor (garages) and a mezzanine (hall that was no longer preserved). In 1920 a casino was built on the terrace.

Unfortunately, the best times of the spa towns were already over and so the spa hotel plans were soon abandoned.. In 1928, a fire destroyed the ballroom. It was rebuilt in a simpler form and could now accommodate up to 2000 guests. Of course, he was also predestined for election events. On 23 October 1932 Adolf Hitler was the main speaker there.

During the Second World War it was used as a front-door recreation home and rehabilitation center for war wounded soldiers. Miraculously, the building remained undamaged during the Second World War and served as shelter for the homeless and refugees after the German surrender.

In the following years the hotel was extensively renovated and also served as a venue for cultural, sports and dance events, dance school balls and gala events of the city administration and Eisenach companies. In the 1950s the house was renamed the "Hotel Stadt Eisenach"; its original name only came back in 1991.

The hotel closed definitively in 1996 and has been finally empty ever since.

Vandalism and lack of maintenance resulted in a today’s ruinous condition. Further Investigation certified that a restauration of this building is uneconomical.

Beelitzer Heilstäten

Every urban explorer is thankful for the opportunity.

As for the Beelitz Heilstätten, they’re not far away from Berlin. Beelitz, the little town, is famous for its asparagus during springtime,

but the Heilstätten are probably more famous among those with a camera.

The hospital was built in the beginning of the 20th century, back when tuberculosis was a widespread and merciless disease. Due to the need of proper lung treatment the Heilstätten near Berlin formed the largest hospital complex of the region. It was easier to cure the disease outside of the dirty industrialized city.

There are about sixty buildings to it, all spread out over 200 hectar.

Beelitz became a military hospital during the first and second World Wars, and if that wasn’t enough: during the Nazi reign it was also used as cage for all sorts of

inhuman experiments.

After WWII the hospital was taken by the Russians and became the largest Sovjet military treatment facility outside of the motherland til 94. When the Russians left,

not many people were interested in re-investing in the building.

The majority of the hospital has been left and sometimes its still used as filming sets. The city has successfully sold the premises to a buyer who is allegedly trying to make a new health resort out of it, but there are no signs of progress yet. Since most of them are monument protected it’s going to be very costly to put the hospital back into work.

There are, in fact, some small parts of the complex still used for neurological research and rehabilitation but we didn’t pass those.

Heilstätten Grabowsee

From 1896 to 1945 the former sanatorium for tuberculosis patients of Heilstätte Grabowsee, and from 1945 a Russian military hospital.

Lurking in the shadows of the forest, Heilstätte Grabowsee creaks and groans through the gloom, sighing with echoes of the past as it sinks into the resignation of decay. Trees bend and sway to listen, their rustling branches quivering from the calls of the unfortunate souls who perished and suffered in these crumbling buildings, their solemn corridors, their tarnished halls, their empty rooms.

They’re gone since 1991 to be precise – the Soviets that is. They scarpered once they realized they weren’t too welcome anymore in reunified Germany. The rats stayed a little longer. Rats don’t give a rat’s ass for politics and will happily live anywhere that isn’t too expensive. That being said, they are more attached to their arses then we are, and would not give them lightly for any reason. The Russians stayed almost 50 years, using the former tuberculosis sanatorium as a military hospital once the war ended, but details on their shenanigans over that time remain elusive.

In 1895, Herr Pannwitz was at the Kaiserlichen Gesundheitsamt, where his campaign for a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients quickly gained support. It was established at Grabowsee on a trial basis in March 1896. Twenty-seven barracks for lung patients were added and the first 30 patients moved in a month later.

Nevertheless, the whole thing was a huge success and led to the establishment of similar Heilstätten all around Berlin.

Pannwitz concentrated on the one at Lychen and is remembered fondly there to this day.

Heilstätte Grabowsee became the Red Cross Sanatorium for the Working Class, before it was taken over after the Great War by the Brandenburg Insurance Company

in 1920.

The Hohenlychen Sanatorium

The Hohenlychen Sanatorium was a complex of sanatoriums in Lychen, Uckermark district (a bit north of Berlin), Germany.

In 1902, Gotthold Pannwitz of the Red Cross founded the Heilanstalten Hohenlychen, initially a sanatorium for patients affected by tuberculosis.

In 1935, Karl Gebhardt became medical director of Hohenlychen and gradually transformed the sanatorium into an orthopedic clinic.

A wing was added to focus on the rehabilitation of sports injuries. Hohenlychen became quite ìchicî with national socialist elite.

During World War II, the clinic was again transformed into a military hospital. Although it was a violation of the Hippocratic oath to conduct medical experiments in hospitals, Hitler decreed that it was permissible in the interest of the state and prisoner could be used for this purpose.

In 1945, much of the infrastructure and medical equipment of Hohenlychen was wantonly destroyed before the site was used as a Soviet military hospital.

After the withdrawal of soviet forces in 1993, the facilities were not put to use again and remain abandoned.

Salve Mater

This is probably Belgium's No.1 Urbex Tourbus spot!

The Partially abandoned Salve Mater Hospital was a psychiatric hospital which catered specifically for women.

Designed by the architect Joseph Hachez, Queen Elisabeth of Belgium opened the Salve Mater psychiatric center for women in 1927.

The center was set up by the Sisters of Mercy on the lands owned by the counts of Spoelbergh. Salve Mater was operative from 1927 until 1997.

Professor Dr. Hollander, head of the institue, practiced new forms of care and healing of mentally illness.

The Main administration building closed in 1997 but was then occupied by Photographer Pascal Baetens made it his home base in 2003. because of the artist living on site the place has been left relatively free of vandalism with some original items remaining such as beds and wheelchairs.

The last patients, those of the Saint-Paulus pavilion, left salve Mater in 2007 which left the remaining buildings unoccupied.

The surrounding parc (Groot Park), set up as an English scenic garden, was protected by the Administration of Monuments and Landscapes due to its rich collection of trees and plants, but has been neglected for quite some years since.

Die alte Fleischfabrik

Situated in old East Berlin, the Alte Fleischfabrik (Old Meat Factory) was owned by the Konsumgenossenschaft (KGB) and was

established in 1899. The KGB is a consumer association that would sell and trade retail goods to its members for very inexpensive prices.

Up to 1990 it was the largest consumer cooperative in the GDR and fourth largest in the world.

The KGB still exists today although the old meat factory and bakery have been sold to private investors due to the operations of the factories went bankrupt in 1993.

The KGB office buildings, meat factory and bakery were built before WWI in 1909 by architect Otto Wettstein.

The factory also has a industrial railway track which shows that it was well connected to transport the goods.

The bakery was producing more than 4000 breads daily. The buildings have survived for over a hundred years and two world wars.

Currently, a private company offers tours to visit abandoned sites around Berlin.

The old Jail

Situated in old East Berlin, this former prison is located in the Köpenick section . It was the site of the worst violence in Berlin in 1933.

A total of 25 people were killed here, and around Köpenick, over a five-day period in June. It's known as the Week of Blood ("Köpenicker Blutwoche").

On June 21, 1933, the SA uses the courthouse prison in the Köpenick section of Berlin as an interrogation and torture center and prison. They begin to arrest about five hundred (500) citizens who are leaders or members of other political parties or who are known opponents of the National Socialist leadership, from Berlin-Köpenick and neighboring districts, assisted by SS and Gestapo groups.

Members of the SA torture both men and women and their methods are so extreme that many of those imprisoned do not survive the interrogations. It is estimated that 25 people who are opponents of National Socialism are murdered outright, although some victims are injured so badly that they still succumb to their injuries as much as seven years later.

The Koepenick Prison has been turned into a museum, and later in the year 2013 has opened a big exhibition to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Week of Blood, and the Nazi rise to power.

The Forbidden City of Wünsdorf

The statue of Lenin stares grimly across the overgrown parade ground in Wünsdorf, a small town 20 kilometers south of Berlin. But the last parade here happened long ago, and Lenin's stone features are weatherbeaten and covered in lichen. Nature has taken command in this deserted place.

Few people have heard of Wünsdorf, but it used to be the biggest military base in Europe. In the 1980s, when it was the headquarters of Soviet forces in communist East Germany, it had a population of 60,000, of whom 50,000 were soldiers. When the Soviet army left in 1994, the town's population shrank to 6,000.

Wünsdorf was a garrison town long before the Soviets moved in. During World War II, it was the headquarters of the high command of the German army.

Its history as a military base dates back to before World War I.

Under the Soviets, Wünsdorf was closed off from the outside world and effectively became a Soviet city in the heart of Germany. It had its own bakeries, shops, schools,a theater and a hospital. It even had a direct railway link to Moscow, with a daily train service.

The Soviet army frowned on soldiers fraternizing with the local population. If a soldier was found to have struck up a friendship with a German woman, he was immediately transferred back to the Soviet Union or even dismissed from the military.

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