The Tax Screw
Rathenau Fountain RESURRECTED
Rehberge in the Wedding district is a public park that was originally a dune landscape within the Berlin glacial valley. After World War I, illegal logging led to the area becoming sanded over to such an extent that Rehberge was even used as a backdrop for desert films during the silent movie era.
When Rehberge was redesigned as a landscape park – first in 1918-19 and then between 1926 and 1929 – the elevations were integrated into the garden architecture.
Under plans from city landscape director Alfred Brodersen, a toboggan run was designed to descend from the end of the “Highland Trail” over the so-called sickle dune range, featuring a legendary vertical drop of 20 meters.
In the 1970s, it was a cult rite of passage for Wedding kids to hurl themselves down the “Death Run” whenever there was enough snow. While no deaths were ever recorded, many a bruise and sprained joint certainly were.
At the time, the area in front of the toboggan run was empty. Those kids – I among them – had no idea that a monument steeped in history once stood there before.
Steuerschraube
In 1930, a memorial created by Georg Kolbe was erected in honor of the legendary politician and entrepreneur Walter Rathenau (assassinated in 1922) and his father Emil Rathenau, the founder of AEG.
The fountain had an abstract form, consisting of a 6-meter-wide bronze basin. From its center, a roughly 4-meter-high spiral grew upward, widening as it rose and topped with a mushroom-shaped cover.
Berliners love giving nicknames to striking structures. The fountain was quickly dubbed the “Steuerschraube” (Tax Screw) by the public – an ironic commentary on the tax policies of the Weimar Republic at the time.
But as early as 1934, the fountain was dismantled at the behest of the Nazis, who’d gained power the year before. The Rathenaus, Jews and liberal politicians, were to be erased from collective memory.
Their fountain was melted down in 1940 so the metal could be used to recast the damaged Schiller Monument in the nearby park of the same name.
After the decision was made to rebuild the fountain for Berlin’s 750th-anniversary celebrations, a reconstruction based on old photographs and blueprints was unveiled on July 9, 1987. The extensive restoration work was carried out by sculptor Harald Haacke, based on Kolbe’s original design.
Since then, the “Tax Screw” has been standing proudly in its renewed beauty at the edge of the “Death Run” just as it did in the old days, once again adorned with graffiti tags.
When the weather is fine and the State of Berlin has the funds, the water splashes down like a transparent curtain into the basin below for children to play in.
📍 Transvaalstr. 160, 13351 Berlin
