The surrounding park was transformed into the East Berlin Zoo in 1955, and the palace was for a time used to house chimpanzees. She had previously lived in Friedrichsfelde Palace from 1946–8, similarly protecting it from demolition, decay, and looting. She moved into the dilapidated building in 1958. The manor was saved by Berlin’s most famous trans woman* Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. But by the late 1950s, it was empty, and the local government planned to demolish it - why pour resources into restoring old aristocratic palaces when workers needed housing? That was the thinking in East Berlin, at least. Over the centuries, it housed different bourgeois owners, and also an orphanage.