Julius Lippert, chief editor of “Angriff”, the Nazi newspaper for the Berlin district under Goebbels, lived at Glienicke from 1936 to 1940. He had acquired the palace through multiple blackmailing and extortion. In 1933, Lippert had been appointed by Prussian minister-president Hermann Göring as a state commissioner to assist the Berlin lord mayor Heinrich Sahm. His main function was to expel Jewish persons from Berlin industry, commerce and administration. Lippert himself was actively involved as a driving force in the expropriation of the Engelhardt-Brewery. The stock shares extorted for far below their actual value from the principal shareholder Ignatz Nacher, who was Jewish, were exchanged by Lippert at the Dresdner Bank for the landscape park at Glienicke, which had come to the bank from the estate of Prince Frederick Leopold of Prussia, who died in 1931.
For propaganda purposes, Lippert opened Glienicke Park as a “People’s Park” on the occasion of Hitler’s birthday in 1935, and had himself celebrated as a benefactor and “National Socialist with a big heart”. By doing so, he was covering up his intention to seize personal hold of large parts of Glienicke. In 1936, the Jägerhof lodge with its thatched roof was remodeled and enlarged by Richard Ermisch to serve as Lippert’s country residence with a spacious outside terrace, garages and delivery entrance, immediate access to the Havel, jetty and bathhouse.
In 1937, after being appointed lord mayor, Lippert began to take possession of the palace, remodeled by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, as well as the hunting lodge. Both were still in the possession of the descendants of Prince Carl of Prussia. Since they did not want to sell, for “reasons of family tradition”, Lippert openly threatened them with compulsory expropriation. Consequently, the great grandson of Prince Carl sold the palace and the hunting lodge in 1939 – likewise far below their actual value. Ultimately, the intended remodeling and extension of the Schinkel palace was not realized, since Lippert resigned from his offices in 1940. In a wrangling over competencies, he had lost out to the general building inspector Albert Speer and gone to the armed forces in the Balkans as the head of the department of propaganda southeast.
