Donation Facts

In 2015, the Friends of Berlin Palace (Förderverein Berliner Schloss e.V.) agreed with the German parliament, the Bundestag, to finance to the sum of €105 million the additional cost of the historic palace façades compared to a modern façade. This figure is very comparable with the highly successfully fundraising total of around €110 million for the reconstruction of the Frauenkirche in Dresden and is thus achievable.

The donated funds are needed for the reconstruction of the palace’s three external Baroque façades, the Schlüter Courtyard’s three Baroque façades, the palace’s round south-eastern corner, the historic dome and portals II, III and IV around the former Great Palace Courtyard. We had previously agreed to raise €80 million. We are now confident that with your help we can raise this new figure of €105 million by the end of 2019, when the Berlin Palace – Humboldt Forum is due to open. We were emboldened in this respect by the wonderful generosity shown to date by friends of the palace, which resulted in the funds raised from 2012 to 2014 almost tripling and in 2014 alone reaching over €15 million.

The extra €25 million now allotted compared to the previous commitment is needed for funding the historic dome and the now added three inner portals:

Portal III is beneath the dome in the main foyer, Portal II and Portal IV on the front of Stella’s Palace Forum, the north-south passage that he has designed in the new Berlin Palace – Humboldt Forum. Stella, from Vicenza in Italy, calls this passage his “Uffizi of Berlin”. In relation to this, please see the pictures of these additionally allotted reconstructions under ‘The New Berlin Palace – 2019 images’ on this website.

In order to achieve this result, the Friends of Berlin Palace society is organising a wide-ranging programme of fundraising. The sum of €105 million covers all the costs of the historically accurate reconstruction of the façade elements. This includes the planning and the artistic production of the decorative and façade elements by the traditional methods of craftsmanship used 300 years ago, the time of the palace’s extension under Andreas Schlüter and Johann Eosander, known as von Göthe.

Our fundraising receipts, less modest society costs, are passed on regularly to the Berlin Palace – Humboldt Forum Foundation, the body commissioning the building work. Since summer 2015, the donations meter has been providing information on the amount still needed to reach €105 million in the form of a regular countdown. Green shows the result so far, i.e. all donations already made available to the Foundation, the society’s already collected bank and cash assets still to be passed on and, of course, also the contributions in kind that we passed on in relation to the building plans and 1:1 models for the reconstruction of the palace façades from the period prior to 2011.

The plan is to update the donations meter, as a rule, at the end of January, April, July and October to show the level at the end of each preceding quarter. It is always updated only after the accounts for the preceding reporting quarter have been closed and approved.

There is at present no reason at all to feel self-satisfied. There is simply still too much money to be raised. While the entire funding of work on the reconstruction of the façades is now already secured from donations up until the end of 2015, the rapid, ahead-of-schedule, progress being made on completing the historic façades means that the need for money is growing rapidly as well.

We are bearers of the DZI’s fundraising seal of approval.
The Friends of Berlin Palace society is proud that in its cost structure it has since 2007 regularly fulfilled and even surpassed the guidelines of the German Central Institute of Social Affairs (the fundraising monitoring authority). Since that time, we have been Germany’s only cultural development society to be re-awarded the DZI seal of approval every year.

We are convinced: together we can do this – with your generous help! 

Wilhelm von Boddien
Chief Executive, Friends of Berlin Palace