Wall Cinema

The Wall Cinema (or Wall-Lichtspiele) opened its doors on September 4, 1914 by Heinrich Meyer as Oldenburg’s first purposely-built cinema in the city. It had a couple of operation changes throughout much of World War I, until Ella Mertens-Rösser took over the theatre in 1918.

Shortly after the death of World War II, the Wall Cinema once operated as a partially-operated movie theatre for civilians, while the rest of the partial was for occupier-use. It wasn’t until 1948 when it relaunched as a fully-public movie theater.

Rösser operated the Wall Cinema until 1969 when it was taken over by Theo Marseille, who divided the large hall into a twin the following year in 1970, with 410 seats at Screen 1 (named “Wall”) and 334 seats at Screen 2 (named “Cinema”). The “Wall” auditorium reopened first followed by the “Cinema” auditorium a few days later. On the outside, the historic facade was covered by aluminum cladding, which was considered modern at the time.

In November 1975 inside a neighboring building from the main twin-screener, two small halls with around 90 seats each were set up in the neighboring building, which were named “Studio 1” and “Studio 2”. Local theatre monopolist Horst Urhahn took over the Wall Cinema the following year in 1976 and renamed both auditoriums “Wall 1” and “Cinema 1”, with the two smaller halls in the neighboring building were renamed “Wall 2” and “Cinema 2”.

Detlev Rossmann took over the theater in 1995, who classically renovated the theatre in the fall of 1997 and downsized the theatre’s capacity to 550 seats (300 and 250).

In April 1999, the smaller screens closed, and was downgraded back to just the two main auditoriums until closing for the final time on April 18, 2007. The building was being renovated in 2023, but its current use is unknown.

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