Köpenick Rathaus

With its frilly turrets, soaring tower and stepped gable, Köpenick’s town hall exudes a fairytale quality but is actually more famous for an incident back in 1906. It involved an unemployed cobbler named Wilhelm Voigt, who managed to make a laughing stock of the Prussian authorities: costumed as an army captain, he marched upon the town hall, arrested the mayor, confiscated the city coffers and disappeared with the loot. And no one questioned his authority! At least for a while. Although quickly caught and convicted, Voigt became quite a celebrity for his chutzpah. Today a bronze statue of the Hauptmann of Köpenick guards the town hall entrance. There’s an entire exhibit about the man and his preposterous scheme in the nearby Heimatmuseum (local history museum; Alter Markt 1), in a 17th-century half-timbered building. The story is also re-enacted every summer during a raucous festival.