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Press release
Until that day in autumn 2015, on which Schnute, the last female city-bear was euthanized, several generations of brown bears – Berlin’s heraldic animals – had inhabited the Bärenzwinger [bear pit] for almost eighty years.
The Bärenzwinger was officially opened on the 17th of August 1939 with the four bears Urs, Vreni, Lotte and Jule. Urs and Vreni came from the world-famous bear bit of Bern and were gifts from the city of Bern on the occasion of the 700th anniversary of Berlin in 1937.
Originally built for the city’s sanitation department in Köllnischer Park, the Berlin architect Georg Lorenz converted it into the Bärenzwinger.
Bound to an almost eighty-year history of the city, the Bärenzwinger was facing closure twice. All the bears except for Lotte were killed during the 2nd World War and the Bärenzwinger itself was buried under rubble. Thanks to the intervention of citizens, the area was cleared of rubble and reopened on the 29th of November 1949 with the bears Nante and Jette.
The preservation of the bear pit, located in the former East of the city, became a matter for debate shortly after the fall of the Wall due to its poor structural condition, until private donation initiatives finally set its restoration in motion.
Around the turn of the millennium, the keeping of the bears on the site encountered increasing opposition once again, this time because of doubts concerning the welfare of the animals. Criticism from animal welfare groups finally led to the municipal decision to discontinue the site’s usage as a bear pit after the death of Schnute.
