Social Commitment @museum.de

A marked sense of responsibility and social commitment – both influenced the brothers’ lives in equal measure.

As a prospective student, Otto had gained first hand experience of the precarious housing situation of workers in Berlin. Throughout his life, he fought to improve their living conditions. In 1890, he handed over a 25 per cent share of his company's profits to his workforce – an almost revolutionary step!

At the same time, Gustav designed what he called his "Burgenhäuser” – “castle houses” – imaginative apartment buildings in the Berlin suburb of Lichterfelde. With their turrets and bay windows, they look like medieval castles. At a time when tuberculosis was a serious danger, he provided the flats with ventilation shafts that were concealed in the turrets. The result was a significantly improved indoor climate.

For the building cooperative "Freie Scholle", jointly established by the brothers five years later, Gustav developed a new, simplified construction method. It used hollow blocks that could be manufactured on site and allowed workers to build their own homes. Helping people to help themselves.

Meanwhile, Otto became involved with a theatre company: the Ostend Theater, a forerunner of the Freie Volksbühne. It confidently called itself a "National Theatre" and offered working-class people a chance to see the German classics and contemporary realist plays for a nominal charge. From time to time, Lilienthal even slipped into a role himself, and in 1894, he wrote a play of his own. It’s called "Gewerbeschwindel", which translates as “Business Con”, with the alternative title “Moderne Raubritter” – "Modern Robber Barons". The plot is about speculation and greed, carried out at the expense of small tradesmen. So the Lilienthals' social commitment even made it on to the stage of the German capital!