The Hunting Depot at Grunewald Hunting LodgeCourt Society and the Hunt

Frederick the Great closed the royal hunting lodge located in Berlin’s Friedrichswerder quarter (now Berlin-Mitte) in 1765 and opened the hunting depot at Grunewald Hunting Lodge in 1770. The king, who had little interest in hunting, also had hunting equipment from Liebenwalde, Oranienburg, and Spandau transported to the Grunewald site, where an extensive depot with wagons, canvas barriers, nets, and more was established. Wooden hooks on the ceiling still recall this use. Hunting weapons, however, were not stored here, but at the armories.

The hunting depot was in service until use of the imperial hunting grounds was discontinued in 1904. Subsequently the building was variously used, among other things as a horse stable and wagon shed, and by a mounted police unit in the 1920s.
In early 1977, the hunting collection was reopened to the public, focusing on an extensive, excellent-quality collection of some one hundred wheel-lock weapons that had been moved for safety from the former armory on Unter den Linden to the western half of Berlin during World War II.

Following German Reunification the wheel-lock weapons were returned to the armory, and the hunting depot in Grunewald was thoroughly reorganized. Supplementing the exhibition at the palace, it now presents the history of the courtly hunt in Brandenburg-Prussia and its most common forms. Archaeological discoveries from the former moats around the Hunting Lodge also illustrate the site’s construction history.