Augusta Victoria Hospital

Augusta Victoria Compound is a church-hospital complex located on the southern side of Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem. The compound was built in 1907-1914 by the Empress Augusta Victoria Foundation as a center for the German Protestant community in Ottoman Palestine, in addition to the slightly older Church of the Redeemer from Jerusalem's Old City. Apart from the hospital, today the complex also includes the German Protestant Church of the Ascension with a c. 50 metre high belltower, a meeting centre for pilgrims and tourists, an interreligious kindergarten and a café, as well as the Jerusalem branch of the German Protestant Institute of Archaeology.

Throughout much of its history, the compound was used first and foremost as a hospital, either by the military (during the First and Second World Wars and during Jordanian rule), or for Palestinian refugees and general public (from 1950 until today), and at times also as a government or military headquarters (1915-1927).

The complex was named for Augusta Viktoria of Schleswig-Holstein, wife of German Kaiser Wilhelm II, who visited Jerusalem in 1898. The architect, Robert Leibnitz, was inspired by German palaces, such as the German Hohenzollern Castle. The complex was photographed in detail in ca. 1910, along with the inaugural celebrations, by Khalil Raad, Palestine's first Arab photographer. Although officially inaugurated on 10 April, 1914, the construction was only finalised in 1914.

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