Bruno Ahrends (1850–1933 · architect)

Born in 1850, Ahrends grew up in affluent circumstances at a villa on the Wannsee near Berlin. Like his siblings, he converted from Judaism to Christianity and changed his name, from Arons to Ahrends. Despite this assimilation, he was denied his original wish to study shipbuilding because of his Jewish origins. Instead, Ahrends studied architecture at technical universities in Munich and Berlin-Charlottenburg. Among his most important works are several residential buildings and housing estates in Berlin, as well as several villas and country houses. His house on Berlin's Miquelstrasse, which was built for his own family, later became the official villa of the Bundestag president. After the National Socialists banned him from working in 1937, Ahrends fled to Italy and then to Britain, where he was eventually detained as an enemy alien despite his Jewish roots. In 1948, he died shortly after emigrating to Cape Town, South Africa.