Another video mainly takes place at the prior residence of Heinrich Dathe and his family. The video is narrated by the aged Dathe Jr. who later even was to work in the Tierpark under his father (after jobs at different zoos).
-He tells about the early years of the park, when he witnessed the construction and inauguration of numerous new exhibits such as the polar bear exhibit, the Brehm building, the renovation of the old castle (Dathe also used to live and work in there for some years).
-He then goes on to describe how they used to play ice hockey on the water moats of the camel meadows in winter (Berlin residents actually created this characteristic complex with their own hands just as some of their destroyed former residences became part of a monkey enclosure and filling material for the large hill which later was to become the section for mountain animals).
-Dathe also speaks about the Asian elephant calf Kosko which used to walk around inside the park and was extremely popular among children. This elephant was brought to the park by the Vietnamese president Ho Chi Minh and Dathe Jr. even led Minh him through the park on his hand as a child.
-Of course, he also remembers how the Giant Panda Chi Chi excited the whole city. As the enclosure was always crowded, they went there after the visiting hours in the evening time and checked on the bear.
-Dathe Jr. then describes how his father succeded in entertaining people and getting them excited about his work. He both had a natural gift and a deep commitment for this task and spent much time touring the country and giving talks and presentations in order to promote the park and collect both funds and support. His wife supported him as a private secretary. The whole family and especially Dathe Sr. were extremely proud of the park. Dathe Sr. particularly fought to defend the old castle building (there were repeated plans to knock it down).
-He also shares the essay which his father wrote as a young student (12 years old) and which describes the tropic hall which he wanted to build, if he was to be given the opportunity.
-Dathe Jr. then briefly discusses his father's sense for aesthetic arrangements and for both park and exhibit design (according to other sources Dathe Sr. wanted to presents the animals on a naturalistic stage to have them impress the visitors).
-Finally, he describes how their family residence was build and explains how they rearranged the laundry racks/ clothes horses to have goal posts when they played soccer/ football. He shows some of the rooms in which they used to live and work (and sometimes it got mixed up, as with the young sun bear they had to raise as a family after it was rejected by the mother). These now have been tranformed into the "Tierparkschule" where school classes can learn about many different topics. He really likes this new function.
quite probably an angle they had to land on after the previous angle of "there's no demand" was disproven by...well.... all the demand!
