Gatower Mühle: The New Windmill in Gatow

The Gatower Mühle is one of eight windmills still standing in Berlin. This one can be found in Gatow, a neighborhood south of Spandau and across the waters from Grunewald.

And since we have been looking for windmills around Berlin for a while, we had to write something about this one.

While researching this windmill’s background, we discovered that nobody knows when it was built. Maybe, 1824. Or was it 1845? Nobody seems to know for sure, but we know that the windmill you can see in the pictures here is not the original one.

The Gatower Mühle is one of eight windmills still standing in Berlin. This one can be found in Gatow, a neighbourhood south of Spandau and across the waters from Grunewald. And since we have been looking for windmills around Berlin for a while now, we had to write something about this one.

A bit of the history behind the Gatower Mühle

The original Gatower Mühle was destroyed back in 1921 during the filming of a movie called Die Liebesabenteuer der schönen Evelyne oder die Mordsmühle auf Evanshill, which can be freely translated as The Love Adventures of Beautiful Evelyne or the Murder Mill on Evanshill.

We wish we could watch a movie, but this is one of many films from that era that are now considered lost.

The Gatower Mühle we visited was built in 2008 to celebrate 750 years since Spandau was founded. Gatow is located in the Spandau district for those who don’t know. Trainees from the Spandauer Knobelsdorff-Oberstufenzentrums school were responsible for putting together the windmill, considered the first step into what some call a museum village.

The idea is to use the area to present how the old Gatow used to look. You can see this today when you pass by the Dorf Gatow before going up the hill into the Gatower Mühle.

The original Gatower Mühle was destroyed back in 1921 during the filming of a movie called Die Liebesabenteuer der schönen Evelyne oder die Mordsmühle auf Evanshill, which can be freely translated as The Love Adventures of Beautiful Evelyne or the Murder Mill on Evanshill. We wish we could watch a movie, but this is one of many films from that era that are now considered lost.

The Gatower Mühle can be found on top of Kirchberg, now named Windmühlenber, since this is where the windmill is located. It doesn't work since the trees that have grown around the hill since the original windmill burned down to keep the wind out. Too bad since it would be fantastic to see it working again.

The Gatower Mühle can be found on top of Kirchberg, now named Windmühlenberg since this is where the windmill is located. It doesn’t work since the trees have grown around the hill since the original windmill burned down to keep the wind out. Too bad, since it would be fantastic to see it working again.

We visited the Gatower Mühle at the end of March 2021 during a bike ride from Neukölln to Potsdam. We have been eager to explore this part of Berlin for a while but didn’t have many opportunities. Finally, we could do that on a surprisingly warm day before Easter.

If you want to learn more about the windmills we found in Berlin, you can read what we wrote about the one in Neukölln and the one in Marzahn.