The History
Our Ameron Hotel Abion Spreebogen Berlin offers a very distinctive location on the banks of the Spree River. From here, guests may explore Berlin’s waterways starting from the hotel’s own pier, where ships take passengers through the region’s canals and rivers - some of them going as far as the North and Baltic Sea.
From Schumann's Porcelain to the »Bolle-Wagen«
It was Carl Julius Andreas Bolle who made the Spreebogen grounds popular. Starting out as a bricklayer, he afterwards made his career as an extraordinarily creative entrepreneur. In 1860 he started trading with ice taken from the winter floes on the Berlin rivers. Later he sold fish and, finally, he distributed dairy products.
Furthermore, Carl Bolle was famous for his milk trollies. By 1882, he had a fleet of sixty horse-drawn carriages, known as "Bolle-Wagen", delivering fresh milk to Berlin's population. At the time, this was a unique innovation.
In July 1886, Carl Bolle he paid one million "Mark" to buy the Spreebogen grounds from the Schumann porcelain shop. A year later the C. Bolle dairy farm (Meierei C. Bolle) was established. Fresh milk, a more expensive "attested milk" for children, skim milk as well as cheese, butter and margarine were all made at Bolle dairy farm. This was done in the building that is now the center of our Ameron Hotel Abion Spreebogen Berlin.
Apart from that, the "Bolle Girls" played an important role in Berlin for decades. They rode their milk carriages through the streets and announced their arrival by ringing a distinctive bell. The Berlin population turned the tune into a song called "Bimmel-Bolle".
Nowadays, the German Ministry of Internal Affairs is located on the place that was once the parking lot for dozens of milk carriages.
Moreover, Bolle established a school for his workers’ children. For the adults, he built a chapel with a capacity for 650 persons on the second floor of the building. In 1893, he built a second chapel dedicated for up to 1600 people at Alt-Moabit a street near the dairy farm premises. Empress Auguste Viktoria also attended the dedication. Additionally the "Haus am Wasser" was the residence for bachelors among the carriage drivers. Bolle also provided his employees with inns and a library.
The company lost its market leadership in the hard years which followed on the first World War. New owners bought the company but continued to invest in dairy products. New production rooms were constructed and until 1962 the dairy building also included a wine cellar. The Bolle dairy farm was nearly destroyed completely by the end of the Second World War, but still performed a vital function in supporting to supply the residents with food in the years after the war. Ultimately, the original dairy building was converted into a commercial space.
Birthplace of Freiberger Lebensmittel GmbH (FLG)
Dairy production was abandoned in 1969. The former cattle stalls, laboratories and production areas became warehouses for food and paper products. A shipping company moved in, Ernst Freiberger’s father started producing "EFA Eis", probably the first ice cream on a stick. A pizza bakery also came into business but went bankrupt in 1976. Ernst Freiberger bought that business and turned it into Freiberger Lebensmittel GmbH (FLG), nowadays the biggest producer of frozen pizzas, baguettes and pastas in Europe.
Spree-Bogen, an architectural lighthouse
For many years things were quiet on the former Bolle grounds. Then the wall came down, followed by the German unification. In that time, it was Ernst Freiberger who revived the historic area in Berlin's city center. He constructed the office center "Spreebogen", the elegant building with two round glass towers, which are today the home of the German Ministry of Internal Affairs. Carl Bolle’s "Leute-Haus" was rebuilt in a new glamorous form, and the still-standing old dairy building (Alte Meierei) was fully renovated. Restaurants and businesses moved in and brought new life to the district.
With the establishment of the Ameron Hotel Abion Spreebogen Berlin, the former Bolle dairy farm became a magnet for global guests, who now enjoy the old and new pleasures of a spot that for centuries has been the living heart of Berlin.
Many decades before the Ameron Hotel Abion Spreebogen Berlin hosted its first guests, two entrepreneurs in Berlin already had discovered the advantages of the riverside location at the spot known as "Spreebogen". They were Adolph Schumann and the legendary Carl Bolle.
Collectors today still treasure the lovely items created at Schumann’s porcelain manufactory on the Spreebogen premises. Starting in 1835, the Schumann workers primarily made tableware intended to be affordable for the bourgeoisie. The shop employed up to 6 workers at one time. Their products were sold far beyond the Prussian borders and were displayed with success at many an international exhibitions.
