About this place
Tucked into the leafy northern edge of Potsdam's New Garden, Cecilienhof looks less like a Prussian palace and more like a sprawling country house lifted straight from the English countryside. Built between 1914 and 1917 for Crown Prince Wilhelm and Crown Princess Cecilie, it was the last residence ever raised by the House of Hohenzollern, its half-timbered gables and forest of decorative brick chimneys arranged around a series of quiet courtyards. Yet Cecilienhof is remembered far less for its royal residents than for two summer weeks in 1945, when Truman, Stalin and Churchill gathered around a great round table in its hall to decide the shape of a shattered Europe. Today the palace preserves that conference wing exactly as it was, a hushed and heavy space where the Cold War can be said to have quietly begun.
Key facts
- 55 chimneys — Decorative brick chimney stacks crown the roofline, and no two are alike
- 5 courtyards — The rambling manor is arranged around five interlinked inner courtyards
- 1945 year — The Potsdam Conference met here to redraw the borders of postwar Europe
📍 Im Neuen Garten 11, 14469, Potsdam