Kroll Opera House

The Kroll Opera was a complex opened in 1844 as an entertainment venue on Koenigsplatz, west of the Reichstag, that between 1924 and 1931 became Berlin's third opera stage alongside the Lindenoper and the Staedtische Oper. Otto Klemperer ran one of the most radical opera departments of the Weimar Republic here, with premieres by Schoenberg and Hindemith and stage designs by Bauhaus artists. After the Reichstag fire in 1933 the parliament moved into the Kroll Opera, and on 23 March 1933 it passed the Enabling Act here, the law that legalised Hitler's dictatorship. The heavily damaged building was cleared away for good in 1951. Today the site is lawn between Paul-Loebe-Allee and Heinrich-von-Gagern-Strasse; a small marker in the Tiergarten meadow still commemorates the place.